Showing results by narrator "Tom Beyer" in All Categories

We all keep secrets—from our locker codes to our passwords to our online interactions. And we choose to share those secrets only with those whom we trust. So, too, do organizations, businesses, governments, and armies. In Cryptography, Panos Louridas provides a broad and accessible introduction to cryptography, the art and science of keeping and revealing secrets.

George Anastasia exposes what it really means to be married to the mob—and fathered by it. As revealed in their personal accounts, life for the wife and sons of Thomas "Tommy Del" DelGiorno became a descent into hell. In the end, guilty of a raft of crimes that included multiple murders, Tommy Del served less than a year in prison in exchange for turning government witness during a dozen trials against fellow mobsters. Based on years of reporting, thousands of pages of court testimony, and extensive interviews, Mobfather takes the listener deep into the heart of corruption.

It's hard to imagine our world without its stars and celebrity geniuses—they become a part of our culture and history, seeming permanent and preordained. But as Cass Sunstein shows in this startling book, that is far from the case. Focusing on both famous and forgotten (or simply overlooked) artists and luminaries in music, literature, business, science, politics, and other fields, he explores why some individuals become famous and others don't, and offers a new understanding of the role of greatness, luck, and contingency in the achievement of fame.

Contrary to popular belief, not all scientists are materialists fervently discounting the spiritual. Science, Being, & Becoming shares interviews with some of the world's foremost scientists who recount their own transpersonal, metaphysical, and mystical experiences and how those experiences transformed them and their scientific work. This groundbreaking book makes it evident that the long-standing divide between science and spirituality has not served us well and in fact continues to have significant adverse consequences for us all.

Follow along with researcher/author Paul Blake Smith as he pieces together an explosive puzzle, which reveals that President Eisenhower met with friendly aliens, and that other American presidents likely renewed Ike's secret agreement with the visitors, who remain aloof to this day, to avoid triggering social chaos. 

After the unprecedented events of the COVID-19 pandemic, it may be hard to imagine a time not so long ago when deadly diseases were a routine part of life. It is harder still to fathom that the best medical thinking at that time blamed these diseases on noxious miasmas, bodily humors, and divine dyspepsia. This all began to change on a day in April 1676, when a little-known Dutch merchant described bacteria for the first time. Ending Epidemics explains how we came to understand and prevent many of our worst infectious diseases—and double average life expectancy.

Two idiots, Leonhard "Rocky" Krauss and Byron "Twig" Schlaeger, escape from a mental institution, Cedar Hill Sanitarium, and go on a murderous rampage. Rocky is a large man suffering from gigantism, and Twig is a foul-mouthed and perverted little person. Separately, they had always been mistreated and bullied, but together, they are unstoppable, unleashing sadistic and barbaric acts of violence on the assholes of society.

This engaging guide is designed to demystify artificial intelligence (AI) in the business world, no advanced math degrees or robotic companions are necessary. It tackles everything from traditional AI to the exciting realm of Generative AI, clearly distinguishing between what is genuinely...

Jake lost his wife and unborn daughter on a West Texas highway when three police officers abused their authority. The pigs thought they had got off scot-free until Jake took justice into his own hands.

In Canopy of Titans, Paul Koberstein and Jessica Applegate examine the global importance of the Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest that stretches from Northern California to Alaska. Their urgent and authoritative account sets out the threats facing a vital environmental resource, and celebrates the beauty and complexity of one of the world's great forests.

Negotiations between the United States and the Taliban led to the 2020 Doha Agreement, which intended to end the American presence in the country and bring peace. Despite the failure of the Taliban to honor all aspects of the agreement, the Biden administration then determined to completely withdraw from the country, a withdrawal that would play out alongside Taliban advances into August 2021. After the Taliban took control of Kabul and declared victory, the next two weeks saw an increasingly chaotic non-combatant evacuation operation.

Mein Chefredakteur hatte wirklich einen seltsamen Humor. Denn an Bord befanden sich nicht nur abenteuerlustige Touristen. Tief unten – in den Lagerräumen – da erwachte ein Wesen aus längst vergessenen Tagen. Ein mächtiger Dämon. Und er lechzte nach Blut – nach Tod und Vernichtung.

HBR's 10 Must Reads are definitive collections of classic ideas, practical advice, and essential thinking from the pages of Harvard Business Review. Exploring topics like disruptive innovation, emotional intelligence, and new technology in our ever-evolving world, these books empower any leader to make bold decisions and inspire others.

In 1991, Ioan Culianu was on the precipice of a brilliant academic career. Culianu had fled his native Romania and established himself as a widely admired scholar at just forty-one years old. He was teaching at the University of Chicago Divinity School where he was seen as the heir apparent to his mentor, Mircea Eliade, a fellow Romanian expatriate and the founding father of the field of religious studies, who had died a few years earlier. 

On a dark, rainy night in October 1900, George E. Bailey, caretaker of Breakheart Hill farm, disappeared. He no longer made his daily milk runs or stopped at the tavern for his favorite cherry rum. Some suspected foul play right away, as Bailey's "wife" had recently gone to Maine, leaving Bailey alone with his farmhand, John C. Best, who was known to be a drunk and a potentially violent man. Nine days later, when Bailey's dismembered body was fished out of a local pond, all eyes quickly focused on Best. Douglas L. Heath and Alison C. Simcox uncover the facts of this shocking tale.

Captain Alfred Lowenstein was known as many things during his glamorous and gaudy life. Companion of the Bath, friend of kings, an aviator and sportsman, a maker and loser of fortunes, and most favorably, a multi-millionaire. That is, until his mysterious death. The Man Who Fell from the Sky contains excitement and mystery as Norris researches the business tycoon's life, death, and aftermath of his demise and comes to a conclusion of how Alfred Lowenstein vanished into thin air.

Broad changes have dramatically disrupted our workplaces and increased the emotional demands on leaders everywhere. Leaders now must support their teams' mental health and burnout (while managing their own), build trust with and motivate a remote and diverse workforce, allay employee fears of obsolescence while driving the integration of new technologies like AI, and demonstrate bottomless sensitivity and compassion while still delivering results at a relentless pace.

John Kruger is a commercial pilot long on the run from Afrikaner nationalists for smuggling Black activists out of Apartheid-era South Africa. As a flyer of old collectible planes, he now wants nothing more than to enjoy his hobby, party, and play the field. Then John discovers that World War I hero and flying ace Andrew Beauchamp-Proctor seems to be buried in two places 6,000 miles apart. Out of a sense of duty toward the man who inspired him to become a pilot, John begins a search for the truth.

America's political parties are hollow shells of what they could be, locked in a polarized struggle for power and unrooted as civic organizations. The Hollow Parties takes listeners from the rise of mass party politics in the Jacksonian era through the years of Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Today's parties, overbearing and ineffectual, have emerged from the interplay of multiple party traditions that reach back to the Founding.

During the height of the Cold War, a group of small-town young men would lead their underdog hockey team from the little country of Czechoslovakia against the Soviet Union, the juggernaut in their sport. As they battled on the ice, the young players would keep their people's quest for freedom alive, and forge a way to fight back against the authoritarian forces that sought to crush them. Freedom to Win tells a story that ranges from iconic moments in history to courageous individual stories.