Showing results by narrator "Graham Winton" in All Categories

More than two centuries after his birth, Ralph Waldo Emerson remains one of the presiding spirits in American culture. Yet his reputation as the starry-eyed prophet of self-reliance has obscured a much more complicated figure who spent a lifetime wrestling with injustice, philosophy, art, desire, and suffering. James Marcus introduces listeners to this Emerson, a writer of self-interrogating genius whose visionary flights are always grounded in Yankee shrewdness.

The American Civil War stands at the center of the story, its military history and the drama of emancipation the highlights. Taylor relies on vivid characters to carry the story, from Joseph Hooker, whose timidity in crisis was exploited by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson in the Union defeat at Chancellorsville, to Martin Delany and Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Black abolitionists whose critical work in Canada and the United States advanced emancipation and the enrollment of Black soldiers in Union armies.

There was a time when classical guitarist Ian Hart was on top of the world. Awards. International acclaim. Adoring fans. And the belief that it was forever. Now, under the shadow of a scandal and betrayal that destroyed his career, Ian wonders what the next day will bring. In the midst of a life in turnaround, Ian’s Aunt Amelia—his closest friend and greatest supporter—passes away, leaving him her home in Miramar. It’s just the quietude he needs to reflect and to try and move forward. But what awaits Ian in the tranquil seaside town is more than he ever expected.

The art world is one of the most secretive of global businesses, and the list of its crimes runs long and deep. Today, with prices in the hundreds of millions for individual artworks, and billionaires' collections among the most conspicuous and liquid of their assets, crime is more rampant than ever in this largely unregulated universe.

We now live in a learning economy, says Brad Staats, and while learning has always been important, the returns on lifetime learning are greater than ever. Our primary focus must be on our ability to learn. We must strive to develop new skills to create more value - or be left behind. In Never Stop Learning, Staats outlines the framework that will help you become more effective as a lifelong learner.

Even if we’re living longer, are we living better? The overwhelming number of people now living under the burden of chronic illness indicates otherwise. After surviving two bouts of cancer, Dr. Stephen Kopecky set out to discover the behaviors people can adopt to live longer lives free of chronic illnesses and diseases. What he discovered was that the answer lies in just six habits that require small changes to your daily life, but reap big results long-term. 

In the seventh edition of Mayo Clinic on Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias, expert neurologists from the Mayo Clinic organize this new research into a thorough and digestible guidebook that provides caregivers with the most up-to-date information regarding the disease.  

US Marine Tyce Asher knew his fighting days were over when he lost his leg in Iraq. He thought hed never see action again - certainly not on American soil - until the Russians attacked us by sea.... With so many troops stationed in the Middle East, the US government is counting on Tyce and other reserve fighters to step up and defend their country - when Russian boots hit the ground....

Perhaps someone in your family has been diagnosed with Alzheimer disease - or maybe you worry about developing memory loss yourself. In Is It Alzheimer's?, Dr. Peter V. Rabins, a top expert in the field, educates listeners by answering 101 often-asked questions about memory loss and dementia. Aimed at friends and family members of the estimated 5.1 million US adults with dementia, as well as adults who are concerned about developing dementia, the book offers helpful directions and comfort.

Occult investigator Quincey Morris and his "consultant", white witch Libby Chastain, are hired to free a family from a deadly curse that appears to date back to the Salem witch trials. Fraught with danger, the trail finds them stalking the mysterious occult underworlds of Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York, searching out the root of the curse. After surviving a series of terrifying attempts on their lives, the two find themselves drawn inexorably towards Salem itself - and the very heart of darkness.

The U.S. Supreme Court has eliminated the right to abortion and is revisiting other fundamental questions today—about voting rights, affirmative action, gun laws, and much more. Once-arcane theories of constitutional interpretation are profoundly affecting the lives of all Americans. In this brief and urgent book, Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein provides a lively introduction to competing approaches to interpreting the Constitution—and argues that the only way to choose one is to ask whether it would change American life for the better or worse.

The last acceptable form of prejudice in America is based on class and executed through state-sponsored economic discrimination. While the American meritocracy officially denounces prejudice based on race and gender, it has spawned a new form of bias against those with less education and income. Millions of working-class Americans have their opportunity blocked by exclusionary snob zoning. These government policies make housing unaffordable, frustrate the goals of the civil rights movement, and lock in inequality in our urban and suburban landscapes.

An estimated 1.28 billion adults worldwide have hypertension. And about half don't even know they have it. That's because high blood pressure develops with no signs or symptoms...until it has caused serious damage. Mayo Clinic on High Blood Pressure offers information and tools to help you keep blood pressure from building to dangerous levels. By taking specific steps, you can live well with high blood pressure—and even keep it from ever forming. In this book, Gary Schwartz, M.D., tells you how.

Captain Andy Blacklock was overseeing the change of shifts at the state of Illinois' maximum-security prison when the world outside was suddenly ripped apart. They thought it was an earthquake until they found that the Mississippi River had disappeared, along with all signs of civilization. Then the sun came up - in the wrong direction. And a dinosaur came by and scratched its hide against the wall of the prison.... Something had thrown the prison back in time millions of years. And they were not alone.

In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny.

Compared with other currencies, blockchain-managed money markets are more straightforward and transparent. It is easier to monitor, understand, and assess the quality of their "full-faith and credit." Money Without Boundaries shows how not only money, but also the process of borrowing and lending, will evolve to be conducted in a 100% trusted, secure, transparent, open architecture environment. Anderson begins with a history of money and discusses the rise of cryptocurrency, concluding with a comparison of decentralized money markets to all other alternatives.

Doc Blaine must drive 3,000 head of cattle from Texas to Kansas, and needs his sons Jared and Miles to help. Unfortunately, his sons are in love with the same woman - and have vowed to kill each other on sight.

The idea that gender is a performance—a tenet of queer feminist theory since the 1990s—has spread from college classrooms to popular culture. In Performance All the Way Down, MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard O. Prum brings gender performativity into conversation with genetics, development, and evolutionary biology, arguing that the sexual binary is not essential to human genes, chromosomes, or embryos. Our genomes are not blueprints, algorithms, or recipes for the physical representation of our personal sexual essences or fates.

Ambition drove Joe Dollarhide across the parched plains from Fort Sam Houston to Dodge City. One day, he was determined to have a spread every bit as vast and impressive as his employer's. But when a wild stampede separates him from the cattle drive, it is survival that keeps him going when most would have given up. Survival and a burning need to settle the score with Benteen Calder, the cattle boss he used to worship, the man who left him for dead.

At birth, Violet and Rose Flowers were identical, save for a tiny bluish-purple mark gracing Violet’s slender neck. By nineteen, their temperaments distinguish them, as different as the flowers their mother named them for—Violet, wild and outgoing, and Rose, solitary and reserved. Still, they are each other’s world. Then, on a sweltering, terrible August night in 1928, an explosion rocks Lamb’s Dance Hall in Possum Flats, Missouri, engulfing it in flames, leaving one twin among the dozens dead, and her sister’s life forever changed.