Showing results by narrator "Paul Bellantoni" in All Categories

In an impassioned polemic, Ron Rosenbaum—who has written books on the mysteries of Hitler’s evil, the magic of Shakespeare’s words, and the terrifying power of thermonuclear explosions—takes on perhaps his greatest challenge: the nature of love. Rosenbaum argues that what we know as love is imperiled now by the quantifiers, the digitizers, and their algorithms, who all seek to reduce love to electrical, chemical, and mathematical formulas.

Why does a bad impression last longer than a good one? Why does losing money affect us more than gaining it? What makes phobias so hard to shake? The answer is the negativity bias - or in other words, the power of bad. As John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister show, we are wired to react to bad over good. It makes sense in evolutionary terms, but in our modern world the lure of bad is, well, bad. It governs people's moods, drives marketing and dominates our news. It can explain everything from why wars start or couples divorce to why we mess up job interviews or feud with neighbours.

Addy really needs a raise, like yesterday. Thanks to a mountain of school debt, she’s heartily sick of being broke. So when she discovers she’s being considered for a promotion? She’s giddy.

When Christopher Sorrentino's mother died in 2017, it marked the end of a journey that had begun 80 years earlier in the South Bronx. Victoria's life took her to the heart of New York's vibrant midcentury downtown artistic scene to the sedate campus of Stanford and finally back to Brooklyn - a journey witnessed by a son who watched, helpless, as she grew more and more isolated, distancing herself from everyone and everything she'd ever loved.

Rock stars who "went disco" crossed a musical rubicon and forever smashed cultural conformity. The ongoing dance-rock phenomenon demonstrates the impact of this unique place and time. The disco crossover forever changed rock.

As a foster kid in the system, Emerson Duplessis never had two nickels to rub together. He worked harder than anyone else he knew and graduated with a degree in accounting—the safest career he could imagine. But when a round of unexpected layoffs leaves him unable to pay his rent, he resorts to taking temp jobs found for him by friends.

Cécile, a stylish 47-year-old, has spent the weekend visiting her parents in a provincial town southeast of Paris. By early Monday morning, she's exhausted. These trips back home are always stressful, and she settles into a train compartment with an empty seat beside her. But it's soon occupied by a man she instantly recognizes: Philippe Leduc, with whom she had a passionate affair that ended in her brutal humiliation 30 years ago. In the fraught hour and a half that ensues, their express train hurtles toward the French capital.

By the 1930s, no one had yet crossed Antarctica, and its vast interior remained a mystery frozen in time. Hoping to write his name in the history books, wealthy American Lincoln Ellsworth announced he would fly across the unexplored continent, and to honor his hero, Wyatt Earp, he would carry his gun belt on the flight. The obstacles to Ellsworth’s ambition were numerous: He didn’t like the cold, he avoided physical work, and he couldn’t navigate. Consequently, he hired the experienced Australian explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to organize the expedition on his behalf.

Here is the epic tale of how these artists dominated American popular music over a fifty-year period, a roller coaster ride that gains momentum through the 1930s and '40s, reaches a crest of magical creativity in the 1950s and early '60s, and then crashes down by the early 1970s, a half century when the great American songbook dominated the airwaves and the fight for racial equality came to the forefront.

The Book Hog loves books - the way they look, the way they feel, the way they smell - and he'll grab whatever he can find. There's only one problem: He can't read! But when a kind librarian invites him to join for story time, this literature-loving pig discovers the treasure that books really are.

You have grand entrepreneurial dreams, but uncertainty and fear of failure are holding you back. The fact is, there’s no better time to start a new business or expand an old one than right now. And you can make it all happen by embracing the core principles of one remarkable family. Over the past decade, Glenn and Jordan Edwards, a father and son team of visionaries, have built numerous profitable companies from the ground up.

In this beautifully crafted book, Freddy Cristobal Dominguez makes a provocative case for Dylan as a historian, offering a deep consideration of the musician's historical influences and practices. Utilizing interviews, speeches, and the close analysis of lyrics and live performances, Bob Dylan in the Attic is the first book to consider Dylan's work from the point of view of historiography.

Wildly irreverent and warm, this is a story about practice, competence and failure, told through tales in a world most of us never see. Glamour, luxury and refinement are products of a flawed, human process, of missed deadlines, overrun budgets, heated tantrums and scrapped blueprints. Throughout my career I have observed, erred, learned, finessed, apologised, and resisted the urge to say I told you so. I offer these tales from the trade in the hope that others might find them amusing, instructive and inspirational. There are many good reasons to work. Here are a few of them.

The book features one carol for each day from December first to Christmas Eve and presents both the lyrics and the fascinating stories and interesting facts behind the creation of the songs. Each entry deepens our understanding of the music and enhances our appreciation of why these songs are culturally important and dearly treasured. From popular, familiar carols to lesser known but cherished hymns, author Michael D. Young combines his musical expertise with information specific to each song.

Every law firm has its backroom bench of brilliant workaholic nerds ferocious in their commitment to the law and to their clients. Such a player is Milton Bernstein of Abbott & Windsor. He's highly valued by the partners for his skills, but untested in the courtroom. Milton's younger brother, Hal, is his polar opposite - strikingly handsome, a high-school baseball legend in St. Louis who was on his way to the major leagues until he destroyed his prospects in a motorcycle accident. Milton suddenly finds himself fielding Hal's arrest for kidnapping and murder.

Today, the staggering scale and scope of what we have done to the planet is impossible to ignore: the seasons of fire and flood have crossed into plain view. Fire and Flood is a thoroughly enjoyable comprehensive history of climate change from veteran environmental journalist Eugene Linden. Linden retells the story of the modern climate change era decade by decade, tracking the progress of four ticking clocks.

Benefit from what Paul Bellantoni learned in four years as an American singer in Europe. As a graduate of NYU's School of Journalism, he has the research skills to give you the information you need. He has also left the opera world, so he has the freedom to give you the whole truth.