John Flanagan

In his collection of short stories, the author charts the life of Shay Elliott, Ireland's first professional cyclist, as he struggles to compete against riders in a peloton saturated with performance enhancing drugs. After he returned to Ireland he died in a shotgun accident while making plans to coach amateur cyclists. We are taken to a meeting of Washington politicians, which culminated in the unlawful invasion of Iraq; a tragic, obscene war encouraged...

John Flanagan sits down with Madeline Cohen to discuss the end of his Ranger's Apprentice series of children's novels. The Story Pirates perform an excerpt from the tenth and final novel.

When fifteen-year-old Will is rejected by battleschool, he becomes the reluctant apprentice to the mysterious Ranger Halt, and winds up protecting the kingdom from danger.

Will is forced to overcome his fear of Wargals, the foot soldiers of rebel warlord Morgarath, as Araluen's army prepares to battle Morgarath's forces.

Now a full-fledged Ranger, Will must rescue his friend Alyss from a rogue knight and uncover vital information needed to ward off a Scotti invasion.

Now a full-fledged Ranger responsible for a sleepy fief, Will finds a new adventure seeking the traitors who poisoned the king, investigating rumors of sorcery, and trying to rescue his friend Alyss, who is taken hostage.

On a mission to pay the ransom of a new ally, apprentice Will and his friends find themselves in a desert wasteland awash with enemies.

Halt, Will, and Horace set out for Hibernia, where a quasi-religious group, the Outsiders, is sowing confusion and sedition, and they find that secrets from Halt's past may hold the key to restoring order before the last kingdom is undermined.

Skandian outcasts Hal, Stig, and others do battle at sea against the Wolves and the Sharks, in the ultimate race across icy waters where not everyone thinks of the competition as play.

"Hal and the other Herons face many perils as they track down the pirates who stole Skandia's most prized artifact, the Andomal"--