Showing results by narrator "Ramón de Ocampo" in All Categories

Ever wonder what goes on behind closed board room doors when organizations pick their top leaders? It can be a contentious, secretive, even brutal process. Most of our leaders look good on paper - they have charisma, credentials, and confidence - yet they lack the real qualities that are necessary to succeed. In Why Are We Bad at Picking Good Leaders?, Cohn and Moran share the same insights and ideas they use to help organizations make better choices.

Immune to the consequences of immorality, five privileged young men in Bogotá bond over a shared code: worship drugs and drink, exploit women, and scorn the underclass. As males, they declare the right to freedom of pleasure. As friends, only disloyalty to each other is forbidden. When a little girl from the slums disappears, the limits of a perverse and sacred bond will be tested in ways none of them could have imagined.

Griffin Birch isn’t known for being brave, but there’s something about the new black slide on the elementary school playground that’s made him curious. Against his better judgment, he just has to follow his best friend, Laila, down. But the Black Slide is no ordinary piece of playground equipment. What Griffin and Laila find at the other end of this strange portal is a cruel world, populated by bloodthirsty creatures on a quest to become immortal.

One week in late 1999, more than 50,000 people converged on Seattle. Their goal: to shut down the World Trade Organization conference and send a message that working-class people would not quietly accept the runaway economic globalization that threatened their livelihoods. Though their mission succeeded, it was not without blowback. In the oral history One Week to Change the World, award-winning journalist DW Gibson pieces together a complex and compelling account of what really went down in Seattle.

This book takes everything that three remarkable authors - a corporate strategist, the former acting director of the CIA, and a world-renowned magician - have learned about magic and packs it into a unique framework that captures the best of this art form and relates it directly to lessons applicable to a wide variety of business enterprises. The authors' objective is not to create a new generation of magicians, but to adapt nine strategies of the world's greatest magicians and inspire boundless imagination, bolster innovation, energize leadership, and spark success in any business.

Van has always been an outsider. Most people don’t notice him. But he notices them. And he notices the small trinkets they drop, or lose, or throw away—that’s why his collection is full of treasures. Then one day, Van notices a girl stealing pennies from a fountain, and everything changes.

Manila provides the ideal, torrid setting for an Akashic Noir series volume. It's where the rich rub shoulders with the poor, where five-star hotels coexist with informal settlements, where religious zeal coexists with superstition, and where politics is often synonymous with celebrity and corruption.

Sixteen-year-old Sierra has been so caught up in her own world of saving animal test subjects and her father's disappearance, she hasn't paid much attention. When she finally finds his location, she and her friend set off on a covert interplanetary mission to rescue him, and she begins to see the corruption firsthand. Discovering that her father has been on the front lines secretly trying to save human test subjects inspires her to join a revolution. But she is afraid of the collateral damage of hurting the people she loves.

When his dad announced they were moving to Iowa, Brian looked forward to making some new friends. But on his first day there, he makes an enemy instead - Frankie Heller, the meanest kid in town. Brian needs to hang out with someone cool to get back on track.... Alex has always been the coolest guy around, and good with money, just like his dad. But now the family's car dealership is struggling, and he needs to make some cash to keep up appearances. Then an opportunity falls in his lap.... Max is a scientific genius, but his parents are always busy with their own work. Building an actual plane should get their attention....

Eighteen-year-olds Ruben Montez and Zach Knight are two members of the boy-band Saturday, one of the biggest acts in America. Along with their bandmates, Angel Phan and Jon Braxton, the four are teen heartbreakers in front of the cameras and best friends backstage. But privately, cracks are starting to form: their once-easy rapport is straining under the pressures of fame, and Ruben confides in Zach that he's feeling smothered by management's pressure to stay in the closet.

There are worse crimes than murder.

Things are dire for the inhabitants of Castle Gloom and the surrounding villages. The undead are leaving their graves in droves, a troll army is on the march from the north, and people are mysteriously disappearing from their homes. The people of Gehenna are blaming their misfortunes on Lilith Shadow, their young queen. They believe she has cursed them by using magic, a practice forbidden to women.

At their renowned writing school, every student is simultaneously terrified of and attracted to the charismatic poet and professor Miranda Sturgis, whose high standards for art are both intimidating and inspiring. As two students, Roman and Bernard, strive to win her admiration, the lines between mentorship, friendship, and love are blurred. Roman’s first book wins a prestigious prize. Meanwhile, Bernard labors for years over a single poem. Secrets of the past begin to surface, and friendships are broken....

After their back-to-school night became a frenzied fight for survival in Book 1, seventh grade has finally settled down for Jake, Lucy, and TJ. That all changes when dangerous intruders descend on the historic Chicago hotel Jake calls home. After a daring escape, the three friends find themselves fugitives on the run, chasing a series of cryptic messages that lead to a mysterious plot to steal Civil War codes that hold importance today, a shocking betrayal, and more stunning family secrets.

In book three of a three-book series, when Lily, aka the "witch queen", and bat-rider extraordinaire Thorn travel to Sultanate of Fire, things go terribly wrong. Instead of celebrating a reunion with their old friend K'leef, they are thrust into royal murder, an epic quest, and a deadly battle for the throne.

The author of The Celebration Chronicles - an exposé of Disney’s small town community development - returns to the outskirts of the Magic Kingdom with Sunbelt Blues, an eye-opening investigation of America’s rural and suburban homelessness crisis, told through a searing portrait of precarious living in Disney World’s backyard.

The Zang, an elder race of the galaxy, may be a shrinking population, but they're also intelligent, curious, and powerful. What's more, they practice a most unusual art form: they bonsai star systems. Eager to witness this first hand, Lieutenant Lord Thomas Kinago, accompanied as always by his personal assistant Parsons, sets out on a several-week jaunt to see the Zang destroy a moon to enhance the beauty of a star system.

After suffering a serious heart injury, Lito Macaraeg reaches out to his estranged son—a journalist who lives in the United States, far from his father’s Manila nursing home—to promise him a scoop: the story of a secret meeting between Imelda Marcos and Corazon Aquino. Imelda, best known for her excessive shoe collection, was the flamboyant wife of the late Philippine dictator; Corazon was the wife of the opposition politician who was allegedly killed by the Marcoses.

Magical miseducation and global adventure await in this fast-paced, humorous, and imaginative fantasy. Henry Leach the Eighth and his sister, Brianna, have survived a faulty spell, defeated a wicked spellcaster, and saved the world...but their greatest accomplishment might be convincing Grand Wand Master Coralis to take them on as official apprentices. For the first time in centuries, the reclusive Wand Master has opened the doors to his castle and invited a new generation of Wandmakers to learn the secrets of the craft.

Andi is short. And she has lots of wishes. She wishes she could play on the school basketball team, she wishes for her own bedroom, but most of all she wishes that her long-lost half-brother, Bernardo, could come and live in London where he belongs. Then Andi's biggest wish comes true and she's minutes away from becoming someone's little sister. As she waits anxiously for Bernardo to arrive from the Philippines, she hopes he'll turn out to be tall and just as crazy as she is about basketball. When he finally arrives, he's tall all right. Eight feet tall, in fact.