Showing results by narrator "Michael Butler Murray" in All Categories

On Thursday, July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index, which measures how the temperature actually feels on the body, would hit 126 degrees by the time the day was over. In Heat Wave, Eric Klinenberg takes us inside the anatomy of the metropolis to conduct what he calls a "social autopsy," examining the social, political, and institutional organs of the city that made this urban disaster so much worse than it ought to have been.

Lee Acker is horrified by the violent killing of his childhood best friend. And he is equally distraught to discover that he stands wrongly accused of the crime. As a whirlwind of media frenzy and a high-profile investigation descend on Lee's ordinarily quiet Georgia town, he boldly flees to Mexico in a hunt for answers. But Lee barely has time to catch whispers of shady international dealings before he finds himself detained and extradited back to the United States to stand trial. Now, Lee's last hope rests with the local legal community's rising star, Maggie Reynolds.

Incorporating his own thoughts along with those of noted academics, philosophers, and theologians, Loftus is able to properly define "miracle" and then show why there's no reason to believe such a thing even exists.

Meditation has been used for centuries to reduce stress, increase energy, and enhance overall health and well-being - so it's no wonder more and more people in today's fast-paced and stress-centric world are adopting this age-old practice. If you want to achieve a greater state of calmness, physical relaxation, and psychological balance, Meditation for Dummies is your life raft.

Buying a Business for Dummies guides you through the process of becoming an entrepreneur without starting from scratch. Before you purchase an existing business, you'll need to know what types of opportunities are out there, how to identify the right fit for your goals, and which strategies to use as you negotiate the deal and manage a smooth transition. This book gives you step-by-step advice on all of that.

Whether you're a budding blogger or seasoned web designer, WordPress is a brilliant tool for creating websites—once you know how to tap into its impressive features. The latest edition of this jargon-free Missing Manual shows you how to use WordPress's themes, widgets, and plug-ins to build just about any kind of site.

In this conclusion to his trilogy of authoritative books on Canada's most beloved and successful rock band, Martin Popoff takes us through three decades of "life at the top" for Rush's Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart. Though this era begins with the brisk-selling Roll the Bones and sees throngs of fans sell out international tours, there is also unimaginable tragedy.

When Fortune 100 corporations are stymied, it's the "McKinsey-ites" whom they call for help. Former McKinsey associate Ethan Rasiel lifts the veil to show you how the secretive McKinsey works its magic, and helps you emulate the firm's well-honed practices in problem solving, communication, and management. Both a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most admired and secretive companies in the business world and a toolkit of problem-solving techniques without peer, The McKinsey Way empowers every business decision maker to become a better strategic player in any organization.

In Better, Simpler Strategy, Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee provides executives with a simple tool to cut through technological complexity and market uncertainties. The Value Stick, based on proven economic mechanics, is an extraordinarily powerful tool that helps executives decide where to focus their attention and how to deepen their firm's competitive advantage.

Most start-up origin stories are very different from the famous "unicorns" that have achieved valuations of greater than one billion dollars, from Facebook to Google to Uber. In The Unicorn's Shadow Ethan Mollick takes us to the forefront of an empirical revolution in entrepreneurship.

A fitting tribute to the troubled genius who revolutionized electric bass playing and bridged the gaps between jazz, R&B, rock, and funk. From his early days in R&B club bands through his international stardom with fusion group Weather Report and on to his solo career and tragic death at age 35, this book portrays the life and music of Jaco Pastorius, the self-proclaimed "world's greatest bass player".

Anthony Bourdain chases the fumigation truck in Bergen County, New Jersey. Dave Eggers tells it straight: Illinois is Number 1. Louise Erdrich loses her bikini top in North Dakota. Jonathan Franzen gets waylaid by New York's publicist...and personal attorney...and historian...and geologist. John Hodgman explains why there is no such thing as a "Massachusettsean."

We all know what it’s like to experience the disappointments and sorrows of life. Unexpected circumstances like layoffs, divorce, illness, and death can leave us hurting and isolated. Add to that the unending anxiety we feel at the state of the world—political strife and global upheavals—and we end up with a recipe for . . . joy? Yes, says journalist Steven Petrow, who has lived through all of those things, and arrived at a surprising conclusion: Joy is always present—in our everyday routines, in ties to those we care about, even in our grief.

In Please Please Tell Me Now, best-selling rock biographer Stephen Davis tells the story of Duran Duran, the quintessential band of the 1980s. Their pretty boy looks made them the stars of fledgling MTV, but it was their brilliant musicianship that led to a string of number one hits. By the end of the decade, they had sold 60 million albums; today, they've sold over 100 million albums - and counting.

Basketball is the second-most popular sport in the world - an insanely complicated game built on a combination of athleticism, craftiness, rules, intangibles, and superstardom. However, while it's enjoyable to watch, the real reason it works is because it's a game of culture, art, and all the things that make us human. How to Watch Basketball Like a Genius deconstructs the sport from top to bottom and then puts it back together again, detailing its intricacies through reporting and dozens of interviews with experts.

New York, 1931. The manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages is prohibited by law, but behind this prohibition, organized crime flourishes—so, too, do bank robbers, bootleggers, assassins, and homunculi. Some want money, some are chasing the secret to immortality, and others just want to have a really good time. You know what they say, though: You can't always get what you want.

In the follow-up to Anthem: Rush in the '70s, Martin Popoff brings together canon analysis, cultural context, and extensive firsthand interviews to celebrate Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart at the peak of their persuasive power. Rush was one of the most celebrated hard rock acts of the '80s, and the second book of Popoff's staggeringly comprehensive three-part series takes listeners from Permanent Waves to Presto, while bringing new insight to Moving Pictures, their crowning glory.

Through extensive research and interviews with those closest to Iverson, acclaimed Washington Post sportswriter Kent Babb gets behind the familiar, sanitized, and heroic version of the hard-changing, hard-partying athlete who played every game as if it were his last.

Laird Hamilton has been hailed as the world's greatest big-wave surfer. His first book, Force of Nature, allows listeners a rare glimpse inside the unique philosophy that has created his circumstances, and not the other way around. After all, this is a man whose biological father abandoned him shortly after he was born; whose first job was working on a pig farm; who dropped out of school in 11th grade. And then the career decision: surfer.

Carl Gustav Jung was the 20th century's greatest articulator of the primacy of mind in nature, a view whose origins vanish behind the mists of time. The present book scrutinizes Jung's work to distil and reveal that extraordinary, hidden metaphysical treasure: For Jung, mind and world are one and the same entity; reality is fundamentally experiential, not material; the psyche builds and maintains its body, not the other way around; and the ultimate meaning of our sacrificial lives is to serve God by providing a reflecting mirror to God's own instinctive mentation.