Showing results by narrator "Janet Metzger" in All Categories

Boy or girl? Even before a person is born, that’s the first thing everyone wants to know - underscoring just how much value human societies of all types place on gender. In His Brain, Her Brain, we take a closer look at the anatomical, chemical, and functional differences in the brains of men and women - as well as some surprising similarities. For instance, studies of infants find few differences in cognitive skills between boys and girls; but there is no denying that boys love trucks, whereas girls prefer dolls.

Humans from the earliest civilizations were spellbound by the night sky - craning their necks each night, they used the stars to orient themselves in the large, strange world around them. Stargazing is a pursuit that continues to fascinate us: from Copernicus to Carl Sagan, astronomers throughout history have spent their lives trying to answer the biggest questions in the universe. Now, award-winning astronomer Emily Levesque shares the stories of modern-day stargazers.

Want to cook fluffier scrambled eggs and more flavorful sauces, keep your greens brilliantly green, and make everything taste more delicious? KitchenWise combines beloved cooking expert Shirley Corriher’s down-to-earth advice with scientific expertise to address everyday cooking issues. Whether you are a beginning cook or a professional chef, Shirley’s guidance will save you time, and let you know exactly what to do behind the stove.

After 60 years of marriage and five daughters, Lynn "Lovey" White knows that all of us, from time to time, need to use our little white lies. Her granddaughter Annabelle, on the other hand, is as truthful as they come. She always does the right thing - that is until she dumps her hedge fund manager fiance and marries a musician she has known for three days. After all, her grandparents fell in love at first sight....

In the endless days of the pandemic, a woman spends her time sorting fact from fiction in the life and work of Herman Melville. As she delves into Melville's impulsive purchase of a Massachusetts farmhouse, his fevered revision of Moby-Dick there, his intense friendship with neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his troubled and troubling marriage to Elizabeth Shaw, she becomes increasingly obsessed by what his devotion to his art reveals about cost, worth, and debt.

Managing people is difficult wherever you work. But in the tech industry, where management is also a technical discipline, the learning curve can be brutal - especially when there are few tools, texts, and frameworks to help you. In this practical guide, author Camille Fournier (tech lead turned CTO) takes you through each stage in the journey from engineer to technical manager.

Get more of the communication ideas you want, from the authors you trust. With insights from leading experts, this book will inspire you to: rethink how you give feedback to employees; ask questions to encourage learning and the exchange of ideas; invest in the right virtual communication tools for your team or business; establish a language strategy for your company; negotiate effectively with anyone - including liars; and present data more powerfully using visualization.

It's 1964, and 16-year-old Janice is struggling in a grim foster home in Cleveland when she falls suddenly, deeply in love...with The Beatles. They and their music stir in her an ecstatic new sense of freedom. With a friend, she hatches a bold plan to escape their dreary lives and run away to London to meet the Fab Four. On their own for the first time - in "Beatleland" - they explore a new city, a new culture, and a new life. But unbeknownst to them, the runaways have become international news - and a hunt is on.

Science fiction is a portal that opens doors onto futures too rich and strange to imagine. Fantasy takes us through doorways of magic and wonder. For more than a decade award-winning editor Jonathan Strahan has sifted through tens of thousands of stories to select the best, the most interesting, the most engaging science fiction and fantasy to thrill and delight readers.

Understanding how we are wired can enrich our lives and our relationships, helping to overcome differences that can seem irreconcilable. Instead of terminating jobs, friendships, or marriage on grounds of incompatibility, it is possible to turn these relationships from dying to growing. In Wired That Way, Marita brings together in one audiobook a comprehensive overview of the personality types that speaks to anyone who wants to understand and to be understood.

The work of queer autistic scholar Nick Walker has played a key role in the evolving discourse on human neurodiversity. Neuroqueer Heresies collects a decade's worth of Dr. Walker's most influential writings, along with new commentary by the author and new material on her radical conceptualization of Neuroqueer Theory. This book is essential for anyone seeking to understand the foundations, terminology, implications, and leading edges of the emerging neurodiversity paradigm.

Orphaned at a young age and witness to her brother’s decline into addiction, Nora Martinez has every excuse to question the fairness of life. Instead, the openhearted librarian in the small Colorado community of Silver Ridge sees only promise. She holds on to the hope that she’ll be reunited with her missing brother and does what she can at the town library. It’s her home away from home, but it’s also a sanctuary for others who, like her brother, could use a second chance.

Humanitarian aid worker Gia Andrews chases disasters around the globe for a living. It's the perfect lifestyle to keep her far away from her own personal ground zero. Sixteen years ago, Gia's father was imprisoned for brutally killing her stepmother. Now he's come home to die of cancer, and she's responsible for his care - and coming to terms with his guilt.

The greatest challenges facing humankind, according to Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, are poverty and tyranny, both of which hold people back. Arguing for a return to true liberal values, this engaging and accessible book develops, defends, and demonstrates how embracing the ideas first espoused by 18th-century philosophers like Locke, Smith, Voltaire, and Wollstonecraft is good for everyone. In McCloskey's view, liberalism leads to equality, but equality does not necessarily lead to liberalism - and the fixation of the left on inequality is counterproductive.

Maddie Sykes is a burgeoning seamstress who’s just arrived in Bright Leaf, North Carolina—the tobacco capital of the South—where her aunt has a thriving sewing business. After years of war rations and shortages, Bright Leaf is a prosperous wonderland in full technicolor bloom, and Maddie is dazzled by the bustle of the crisply uniformed female factory workers, the palatial homes, and, most of all, her aunt’s glossiest clientele: the wives of the powerful tobacco executives.

The word "purpose" is big. Very big. And heavy. It carries the weight of a lifetime of work and struggle; the weight of legacy, and the mass of days spent not doing something else. It's something we all grapple with at some point-some of us find our purpose, others spend a lifetime searching. A lucky few grow to realize they've been working their purpose all along. Often, fulfilling your purpose requires some kind of change - career, lifestyle, habits, family - and what then? Are we selfish for the upheaval, or are we fulfilling destiny? Once we know our purpose, how do we pursue it?

Love - in both the abstract and the up-close-and-personal - has always provided limitless inspiration for artists, writers, and musicians, but scientists are just as fascinated by these affairs of the heart, though they seldom sing about it. In Love, Sex, and Science, our editors take a step back, analyzing romance using tools like fMRI studies instead of a paint brush or guitar. The writers examine a variety of topics, starting with the perceived sex differences between men and women discussed in Section 1 - are we really as different as Mars and Venus?

Frank Senko had always known how to have a good time. But after a job change forced Frank to begin a long car commute every day, his daughter Jen noticed changes in his personality and beliefs. Long hours on the road listening to talk radio commentators like Rush Limbaugh sucked her father into a suspicion-laden worldview dominated by conspiracy theories, fake news, and rants about the "coastal elite" and "libtards" trying to destroy America.

Sloane’s world crumbles after receiving the news that her military husband is missing in action. She can barely climb out of bed, much less summon the strength to be the parent her children deserve. Her mother, Ansley, provides a much-needed respite as she puts her personal life on hold to help Sloane and her grandchildren wade through their new grief-stricken lives. But between caring for her own aging mother, her daughters, and her grandchildren, Ansley's private worry is that secrets from her past will come to light.

Filmmaker Tessa Shepherd helped free a man she believed was wrongly imprisoned for murder. When he kills again, Tessa’s life is upended. She’s reeling with guilt, her reputation destroyed. Worse, Tessa’s mother has unexpectedly passed away, and her sister, Margot, turns on her after tensions from their past escalate. Hounded by a bullying press, Tessa needs an escape. That’s when she learns of a strange inheritance bequeathed by her mother: a derelict and isolated estate known as Fallbrook. It seems like the perfect refuge.