Showing results by narrator "Matthew Josdal" in All Categories

In a moment of madness, Jeremy Holland's parents were killed by a gunman in a Seattle mall. Now he faces a new life with his uncle Ed, a man with a vastly different lifestyle from the one Jeremy is used to. As he sits on the train hurtling toward Chicago, he can barely believe the terrible truth. He has no mother, no father, no home. Suddenly the impossible happens - again - as the train crashes in a blaze of fire, twisted metal, and screaming people. Jeremy staggers off, wandering aimlessly. He finds a deserted cabin in the woods, which seems to be just waiting for him.

Are videogames bad for us? It's the question on everyone's mind, given teenagers' captive attention to videogames and the media's tendency to scapegoat them. It's also - if you ask clinical psychologist Alexander Kriss - the wrong question. In his therapy office, Kriss looks at videogames as a window into the mind. Is his patient Liz really "addicted" to Candy Crush - or is she evading a deeper problem? And when Jack immerses himself in Mass Effect, is he eroding his social skills - or honing them via relationship - building gameplay?

Internationally-acclaimed speaker and founder of the cutting-edge venture capital Amyx Ventures, Scott Amyx, reveals how you can attain real success in your life, your way. His theory of Strive is a challenge to the conventional wisdom that has held so many people back from achieving their goals and enjoying lasting happiness. Scott helps you take stock of your own habits and practices to identify how your routine and misconceptions are holding you back. Insights from throughout history up through today's cutting-edge research show how embracing discomfort fuels lasting success. 

The Cottage on the Hill is a horror story, but it’s a J. Robert Lennon horror story, in which the characters’ loneliness - their disconnectedness, their inability, at times, even to speak or listen to one another - is more chilling than any of the supernatural elements.

It's Christmas Eve in Manhattan. An eminent plastic surgeon slips on the ice, lands on his butt, and sprains his ankle. So far, so good. A woman such as he's never known yanks him to his feet and conjures the miracle of a taxi. Harrison recuperates with Franz Schubert, Bette Davis, and a foundling cat. Then it's back to rhinoplasties, liposuction, and the peccadilloes of his obnoxious colleagues. It is only when he collides again with that strangely helpful woman that things take a wild and revolutionary turn.

It takes a starship to raise a child. Or a time machine. Or a tribe of elves. Fortunately, Geek Parenting offers all that and more, with thoughtful mini essays that reveal profound child-rearing advice (and mistakes) from the most beloved tales of geek culture. Nerds and norms alike can take counsel from some of the most iconic parent-child pairings found in pop culture: Aunt May and Peter Parker, Benjamin and Jake Sisko, Elrond and Arwen, even Cersei and Joffrey.

In February 2013, Toronto's former mayor, Rob Ford, was caught on video smoking crack cocaine. Weeks later, he was accused of groping a campaign rival; had to leave a gala for being too intoxicated; and was fired as the coach of a high school football team. The events were part of a stream of Rob Ford "mishaps", which include a DUI; accusations of domestic violence; a trial where the Toronto City Council stripped him of his powers; even accusations of murder.

 Based on three case studies from the Middle East, The Land beyond the Border advances an innovative theoretical framework for the study of state expansions and state contractions. 

Just after midnight on April 21, 1842, John McLoughlin, Jr. - the chief trader for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Stikine, in the northwest corner of the territory that would later become British Columbia - was shot to death by his own men. They claimed it was an act of self-defence, their only means of stopping the violent rampage of their drunk and abusive leader. Sir George Simpson, the HBC's Overseas Governor, took the men of Stikine at their word, and the Company closed the book on the matter.

On his 13th birthday, Buddy gets shipped up north by his religious mother, who can't cope with his sister's teenage pregnancy. Just as he resigns himself to spending the entire summer at Gram's farm caring for kittens and cows, his bitter sister Brinda arrives, ending his peace and solitude. When her boyfriend Jackie shows up and turns his attentions to Buddy from his bride-to-be, Buddy must do what Mama said - or take matters into his own hands.

Our health care system is crippled by desperate efforts to prevent the inevitable. A third of the national Medicare budget - nearly $175 billion - is spent on the final year of life, and a third of that amount on the final month, often on expensive (and futile) treatments. Such efforts betray a fundamental flaw in how we think about healthcare: we squander resources on hopeless situations, instead of using them to actually improve health.

The American dream of equal opportunity is in peril. America's economic inequality is shocking, poverty threatens to become a heritable condition, and our healthcare system is crumbling despite ever increasing costs. In this thought-provoking book, Edward D. Kleinbard demonstrates how the failure to acknowledge the force of brute luck in our material lives exacerbates these crises leading to warped policy choices that impede genuine equality of opportunity for many Americans.

Tortured by nightmares about the teens who roughed him up, Steve Mariotti sought counseling. When his therapist suggested that he face his fears, Mariotti closed his small import-export business and became a teacher at the city's most notorious public school - Boys and Girls High in Bed-Stuy. Although his nightmares promptly ceased, Mariotti's out-of-control students rapidly drove him to despair. One day, Mariotti stepped out of the classroom so his students wouldn't see him cry.

Big Data Revolution is a guide to improving performance, making better decisions, and transforming business through the effective use of big data. Listeners are guided through tried-and-true methodologies for getting more out of data and using it to the utmost advantage. This audiobook describes the major trends emerging in the field, the pitfalls and triumphs being experienced, and the many considerations surrounding big data, all while guiding listeners toward better decision-making from the perspective of a data scientist.   

On a frigid February evening in 1805, Amos Babcock brutally murdered Mercy Hall. Believing that he was being instructed by God, Babcock stabbed and disemboweled his own sister before dumping her lifeless body in a rural New Brunswick snowbank. This is the tragic and fascinating story of how isolation, duplicity, and religious mania turned impoverished, hardworking people violent, leading to a murder and an execution.

A mother and son attempt to make their way across a desert. McSweeney's is a literary journal based in San Francisco.

A family takes in a tarantula as one of their own suffers from cancer. McSweeney's is a literary journal based in San Francisco.

The Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, Canada, is about as close to urban hell as you can get in the Western Hemisphere. Yet in this cauldron of drugs, shattered dreams, and extreme violence, Tom Bauer and his girlfriend Paulie - both ex-junkies and parents of baby Melody - are trying to make a life for themselves.