Showing results by narrator "David DeVries" in All Categories

Scaredy Squirrel is scared to make a friend. After all, they can bite. When he decides the perfect friend would be a goldfish (no teeth), his plan takes a surprising turn. In the end, he discovers that making the effort has its rewards.

Henry Markram is the Elon Musk of neuroscience, the man behind the billion-dollar Blue Brain Project to build a supercomputer model of the brain. He has set the goal of decoding all disturbances of the mind within a generation. This quest is personal for him. The driving force behind his grand ambition has been his son Kai, who has autism. Raising Kai made Henry Markram question all that he thought he knew about neuroscience, and then inspired his groundbreaking research that would upend the conventional wisdom about autism, expressed in his now-famous theory of Intense World Syndrome.

Three hunters find a crashed cocaine plane in the Montana wilderness. Each has a reason to steal the cocaine - who will? The two who do steal it soon find themselves hunted by the Mexican cocaine cartel, the DEA, Las Vegas killers, their guide, and the police of several states.

It’s an age-old question: Why do some great ideas or inventions take off and soar while others never get off the ground? Today, with more and more young entrepreneurs seeking to incorporate social justice, economic equity, climate concerns, and communal health into their endeavors, the need for practical-yet-think-big answers is great. Thibault Manekin has a few.

East Prussia, Nazi Germany, 1939. History professor Erik Mueller is a model citizen and a family man. He's also a decorated sergeant in the Gestapo. Proving his courage on the battlefields of Poland and the Soviet Union, and proud of the German army's victories across Europe, he embraces what he thinks is the righteousness of the Third Reich's cause. But his loyalties are soon tested when he crosses paths with his old university friend Trude Bensheim.

What began with a reimagining of Peter Pan and Wendy now twists into a stunning version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass! Gwen, Pete, and the others have escaped from Everland. But the safe haven they hoped to find at Alnwick Castle doesn't exist. With the Queen of England on her deathbed, Duchess Alyssa has stepped in to lead, but things have gotten worse as the cure Doc created for the Horologia virus has mutated, accelerating the disease.

In a world between wars, a young man on the cusp of taking priestly vows is suddenly made a fugitive. Fleeing the accusations of police who blame him for a murder, as well as more sinister forces with darker intentions, Vango attempts to trace the secrets of his shrouded past and prove his innocence before all is lost. As he crisscrosses the continent via train, boat, and even the Graf Zeppelin airship, his adventures take him from Parisian rooftops to Mediterranean islands to Scottish forests.

Death on the River of Doubt takes listeners inside the thrilling journey that unfolded as Theodore Roosevelt and his companions navigated the Amazonian River of Doubt through an unforgiving and unpredictable jungle. With new threats at every turn, from bloodthirsty piranhas and raging rapids to starvation, disease, and a traitor in their own ranks, it seemed that not everyone would make it out alive.

Some locales seem to come with their own soundtrack. Don Ho and his tiny bubbles provide the background music for Hawaii, Edith Piaf for Paris. The reggae of Bob Marley evokes Jamaica. The soundtrack for Alabama is without question provided by our troubled troubadour Hank Williams. The 2016 biography Hank by Mark Ribowsky paints a dark picture of the musician's short, alcoholic, drug-filled life: a life of loneliness and pain. He goes so far as to call Hank's life story "noir-ish"....

The importance of small things in a world dominated by great size is illustrated in this real-life story of a lighthouse on the shores of the Hudson River.

Most of us assume our success relies on a network of friends and close contacts. But innovative thinking requires a steady stream of fresh ideas and new possibilities, which strangers are more likely to introduce. Our survival instincts naturally cause us to look upon strangers with suspicion and distrust, but in The Necessity of Strangers, Alan Gregerman offers the provocative idea that engaging with strangers is an opportunity, not a threat, and that engaging with the right strangers is essential to unlocking our real potential.

Old Canhoon, the City of Wonders, is having a population explosion as refugees from Tyrne and Roathes alike try to escape the Sa'ba Taalor. All along the border between the Blasted Lands and the Fellein Empire, armies clash, and the most powerful empire in the world is pushed back toward the old capital. From the far east the Pilgrim gathers an army of the faithful, heading for Old Canhoon.

American artist Joseph Hannigan and his alluring sister, Sophie, have arrived in enchanting nineteenth-century Venice with a single-minded goal. The twins, who have fled scandal in New York, are determined to break into Venice's expatriate set and find a wealthy patron to support Joseph's work. Joseph's talent soon attracts the attention of the magnificent Odilé Leon, a celebrated courtesan and muse who has inspired many artists to greatness. But her inspiration comes with a devastatingly steep price.

A new urban fantasy featuring a man working on the right side of the law - with talents that come from left field. Psychometry - the power to touch an object and divine information about its history - has meant a life of petty crime for Simon Canderous, but now he's gone over to the good side. At New York's underfunded and (mostly) secret Department of Extraordinary Affairs, he's learning about red tape, office politics, and the basics of paranormal investigation. But it's not the paperwork that has him breathless.

Joseph Lee lost his wife, the love of his life. She was slain in their home, right under his nose. As if the grief weren’t enough, Lee was also blamed for her murder. At the end of the day, the detectives didn’t have any proof that Lee was the murderer, but that didn’t stop the community from shunning him or his friends and family from cutting him out of their lives. They didn’t need proof, they said. Left to stew in his own self-loathing, a miserable existence of solitude and narcotics, Lee is alone with his regrets and his remorse. But his life is about to change.

Based on Hawthorne's experiences as an undergraduate in the early 1820s, Fanshawe follows the romance of a young woman by two college students. Fanshawe was Hawthorne's first attempt at a novel, and after its commercial failure, the author destroyed the remaining unsold copies, leaving this novel to be mostly unknown until years after his death.

Most emerging markets investment guides focus on financial metrics, but fail to provide the listener with new and relevant insights into the history of the countries, the views of the people on the street, and the financial shenanigans that go on behind the scenes, that make for truly informed investing. As a result, despite the growing interest in investing in these markets, investors are often missing key opportunities because they either have incorrect information about a country where they might invest, or simply don't know what questions they should be asking.

Sam Adams loved to walk around his hometown Boston, but finally gets on a horse for the good of his country.

The gray-skinned Sa'ba Taalor from the distant realm have come to Fellein. Since that moment, a war has been building. Swech is one of the Sa'ba Taalor, chosen by her gods to hide among the humans and do the will of her deities.

The spirit populace of Manhattan doesn't appreciate its well-deserved RIP being disturbed, and Department of Extraordinary Affairs Agent Simon Canderous is sent in to do damage control. Meanwhile, his vacationing partner Connor Christos is in a sorry state, and he tells Simon that each night he's being haunted by visions of his long-lost brother at his window. Simon is worried that his partner may be going crazy - or worse, maybe he's not.