Showing results by narrator "Tim Fannon" in All Categories

The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most digestible book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI.

Genetically engineered with partly alien DNA, Lieutenant Selene Genji is different from ordinary humans. And they hate her for it. Still, she’s spent her life trying to overcome society’s prejudice by serving in Earth’s Unified Fleet. Genji is stationed on a ship in orbit when humanity’s factional extremism on the planet reaches a boiling point, and she witnesses the utter annihilation of Earth. When the massive forces unleashed by Earth’s death warp space and time to hurl her forty years into the past, Genji is given a chance to try to change the future and save Earth.

Millions of people in the United States are affected by mental illness every year. The COVID-19 pandemic not only caused new or aggravated symptoms in people, but further exposed the shortcomings of the American mental health system. Too many of us are confused, afraid, and overwhelmed. Families and friends are often left in the dark about how best to help their loved ones, how to deal with financial and logistical issues, and how to handle the emotional challenges of loving someone who is suffering. You Are Not Alone is here to offer help.

In the distant future, the world was a paradise - and then, in a moment, it was ended by the first war in centuries. People who had known godlike power, to whom hunger and pain were completely unknown, desperately scrabbled to survive. As the United Free States, the bastion of freedom and center of opposition to the tyrants of New Destiny, prepared for the long-feared invasion by the Changed legions of Ropasa, Edmund Talbot realized that bureaucratic ineptitude and overconfidence was setting the USF naval forces of ships and dragons up for a disastrous defeat at sea.

In 2018, after nearly a decade's hiatus, the state of Tennessee began executing death row inmates, bucking national trends that showed the death penalty in decline. In less than two years, the state put seven men to death. It was an execution spree unlike any seen in Tennessee since the 1940s, only brought to a halt by a global pandemic. Award-winning journalist Steven Hale was the leading reporter on these executions, covering them both locally for the Nashville Scene alt-weekly and nationally for The Appeal.

With clarity and insight, Richard Brestoff introduces the great acting teachers, explaining their techniques and how they are applied today. Beginning with Quintilian and Delsarte, he guides us to the present with an inside look at what is currently being taught in the major acting schools and private acting studios; The Actors Studio, Yale University, NYU, Juilliard and many more are visited. The Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods will help you understand the most important ideas about acting, where they originated and how they are used in training programs today.

Many of us are worried (or at least we should be) about the impacts of globalization, pollution, and biotechnology on our diets. Whether it's monoculture crops, hormone-fed beef, or high-fructose corn syrup, industrially produced foods have troubling consequences for us and the planet. But as culinary diversity diminishes, many people are looking to a surprising place to safeguard the future: into the past. The Lost Supper explores an idea that is quickly spreading among restaurateurs, food producers, scientists, and gastronomes around the world.

On the surface, Dave Pelzer’s life seems like an action movie—he’s walked the red carpet with celebrities and stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers in Iraq; he’s flown top-secret missions for the U.S. Air Force, obtaining the rank of chief, and battled wildfires in California as a volunteer fire captain. And now—on the eve of the 50-year anniversary of this rescue from horrific childhood of abuse and into the safety of the foster care system—he reflects on the battles he’s fighting in his own heart.

This drive through the dark streets of the Motor City “is one of the best in Akashic Books’ noir series. You cannot go wrong with this anthology.”—Reviewing the Evidence From cri….

License to Travel exposes the passport as both an instrument of personal freedom and a tool of government surveillance powerful enough to define our very humanity. Patrick Bixby examines the passports of artists and intellectuals, ancient messengers and modern migrants to reveal how these seemingly humble documents implicate us in larger narratives about identity, mobility, citizenship, and state authority.

Sam Bankman-Fried—better known as SBF—was at the top of the world and lauded as a leading figure in cryptocurrency, an industry whose popularity has exploded over the past few years. He was being compared to the legendary financier J.P. Morgan and sometimes even rumored to have the potential to become the world’s first trillionaire. He built a crypto empire with trading firm Alameda Research and crypto exchange FTX, which became one of the world’s largest. He attracted leading investors and walked the corridors of power in Congress. Then, seemingly within days, everything collapsed.

Kennedy and Fischer unveil that it takes no more effort to attract customers from the explosively growing Mass-Affluent, Affluent, and Ultra-Affluent populations, who are willing to pay premium prices for exceptional expertise, service, and experiences. In this updated fourth edition, Kennedy and Fischer provide a comprehensive guide on how to reposition your business, practice, or sales career to appeal to these affluent customers, for whom price is not a determining factor.

For many, the tarot serves as a compass, illuminating the path to their "true will" and guiding them toward destiny. If you've ever felt stuck or unsure of which way to turn, the tarot offers a beacon, revealing unseen options and providing clarity on difficult decisions. Now, you have a unique opportunity to master the art of tarot under Lon Milo DuQuette, an internationally recognized authority on tarot and the esoteric. The Tarot Architect is a transformative journey into the arcane world of tarot that guides you through the depths of tarot with a unique blend of scholarship and humor.

How China Loses tells the story of China's struggles to overcome new risks and endure the global backlash against its assertive reach. Combining on-the-ground reportage with incisive analysis, Luke Patey argues that China's predatory economic agenda, headstrong diplomacy, and military expansion undermine its global ambitions to dominate the global economy and world affairs.

Many experts believe that we are at a fulcrum moment in history, a time that demands radical shifts in thinking and policymaking. Calls for bold change are everywhere these days, particularly on social media, but is this actually the best way to make the world a better place? In Gradual, Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox argue that, contrary to the aspirations of activists on both the right and the left, incremental reform is the best path forward.

Slavery was widespread all over Europe during the early Middle Ages and Scandinavians, as Stefan Brink illustrates in this book, became a major player in the northern slave trade. Using a wide variety of source materials, including archaeology, runes, Icelandic sagas, early law, place names, personal names, and not least etymological and semantic analyses of the terminology of slaves, Thraldom provides the most comprehensive survey of slavery in the Viking Age.

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society, but, as Chris Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible.

High in the mountainous rain forests of Burma and India grow some of the world's last stands of mature, wild teak. For more than a thousand years, people here have worked with elephants to log these otherwise impassable forests and move people and goods (often illicitly) under cover of the forest canopy. In Giants of the Monsoon Forest, geographer Jacob Shell takes us deep into this strange elephant country to explore the lives of these extraordinarily intelligent creatures.

Society largely praises early risers, while maligning so-called "night owls." However, countless research studies have consistently shown that night owls are more successful and wealthier than early risers. The Morning Myth is intended to show that, indeed, night owls are generally more successful in life than early risers. The book is intended to restore self-confidence to night owls and help them to achieve more on their natural schedules, and also to inform employers on just how much productivity they're losing by forcing night owls to be at work bright and early....

Every seven years, a boy disappears from Camp Waukeelo. Joey Proctor can't swim, but that doesn't stop camp counselor Alex Mason from leaving him out on a raft in the middle of the lake in a fit of rage. Alex only meant to scare the kid, teach him a lesson. He didn't mean to forget about him. But now Joey is gone, and his body is never found. More than 20 years later, Alex is a success. No one knows what happened that summer at camp. At least, no one should know. But it looks like Joey Proctor may be back to take his revenge.