Showing results by narrator "Oliver Wyman" in All Categories

No number has captured the attention and imagination of people throughout the ages as much as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Pi is infinite and, in The Joy of Pi it proves to be infinitely intriguing. With incisive historical insight and a refreshing sense of humor, David Blatner explores the many facets of pi and humankind's fascination with it - from the ancient Egyptians to the modern-day Chudnovsky brothers, who have calculated pi to eight billion digits.

Emery Blackwood's life was forever changed on the eve of her high school graduation, when the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her best friend, Lily. She'd once dreamt of running away with August, eager to escape the misty, remote shores of Saoirse Island and chase new dreams together. Now, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence among this tight-knit community steeped in folklore and tradition, ruled by the seasons and ancient superstitions.

Crash tells the story of the Great Depression, from the sweeping fallout of the market collapse to the more personal stories of those caught up in the aftermath. Packed with photographs, primary documents, and firsthand accounts, Crash shines a spotlight on pivotal moments and figures across ethnic, gender, racial, social, and geographic divides, reflecting many different experiences of one of the most turbulent decades in American history.

The Priestly Sins tells the story of Father Herman Hoffman, a gifted and innocent young man, who becomes swept up in "the Crisis" after witnessing child abuse in his first parish appointment. Soon, he is vilified for denouncing a priest who has been "cleared." He suffers the harsh fate of a whistle-blower when his Archdiocese has him committed to a mental health center.

To continue doing business in Germany, Hollywood studios agreed not to make films attacking Nazis or condemning persecution of Jews. Ben Urwand reveals this collaboration and the cast of characters it drew in, ranging from Goebbels to Louis B. Mayer. At the center was Hitler himself - obsessed with movies and their power to shape public opinion.

In the shadows of a seismic shift in American politics comes Tom Rachman's timely and hilarious new work. Basket of Deplorables takes an incisive and satirical look at the United States in the era of Trump data breaches, liberal self-righteousness, red-hat rancor, Starbucks macchiatos, Ultimate Fighting factories, and Internet sinkholes.

As a shy young boy, Fred Rogers found comfort in telling stories through puppets. When television grew in popularity, he knew he wanted to create a show that encouraged kindness and goodness. His show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood shaped modern television and cemented his legacy.

Welcome to the big leagues. It’s time to crown a champion. It’s time to evolve. Jackson Hunt has spent countless hours training his team of monsters and battling rivals as an up and coming Djinn Tamer. All his hard work, the stunning wins, and heartbreaking losses lead to one place: The league playoffs. But what got Jackson where he is won’t be enough to take him to the top. As the season draws to a close, Jackson and his friends find themselves far away from the stadiums and crowds, searching for a means to take his Djinn to the next level.

The Augerans are coming. And their ships are sailing in on a red tide. The Rubyholt Isles are a shattered nation of pirate-infested islands and treacherous waterways shielding the seaboards of Erin Elal and the Sabian League, a region even dragons fear to trespass upon. The Augerans beseech the Warlord of the Isles, seeking passage for their invasion fleet through Rubyholt territory. But they are sailing into troubled waters. Their enemies have sent agents to sabotage the negotiations and to destroy the Augeran fleet by any means necessary.

Since the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling that the rights of things--money and corporations--matter more than the rights of people, America has faced a crisis of democracy. In this timely and thoroughly updated second edition, Jeff Clements describes the strange history of this bizarre ruling, its ongoing destructive effects, and the growing movement to reverse it.

Does the opening "pling pling plinggg" of Bette Midler's "The Rose" fill you with existential dread? Do you cringe at the mere whiff of what Phil Collins is spewing "In the Air Tonight"? Have you ever bolted from a restaurant because Celine Dion's cover of "All By Myself" was threatening to drive you over the edge? Well, turn around, bright eyes because Tom Reynolds is here with I Hate Myself and Want to Die, a laugh-out-loud-till-you're sobbing compendium of the world's most hideously depressing pop songs and a guide to what makes them so heartwrenchingly bad.

This is a story about two marriages. Or is it? It begins with a wedding, held in the small San Francisco forest of Bottle Grove - bestowed by a wealthy patron for the public good, back when people did such things. Here is a cross section of lives, a stretch of urban green where ritzy guests, lustful teenagers, drunken revelers, and forest creatures all wait for the sun to go down. The girl in the corner slugging vodka from a cough-syrup bottle is Padgett - she’s keeping something secreted in the woods.

Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy - both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively. His argument speaks to all of us who are concerned about the state of America in the global future.

Brandon Sanderson is one of the most significant fantasists to enter the field in a good many years. His ambitious, multi-volume epics and his stellar continuation of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series have earned both critical acclaim and a substantial popular following. In Legion, a distinctly contemporary novella filled with suspense, humor, and an endless flow of invention, Sanderson reveals a startling new facet of his singular narrative talent.

From the introduction by Jonathan Santlofer: "Like film, literature has been no stranger to marijuana and hashish, going back to Charles Baudelaire's 1860 Artificial Paradises, in which the French poet not only describes the effects of hashish but postulates it could be an aid in creating an ideal world.

An alien war looms over Earth.... And Anderson Gunn is helpless to stop it. Messages from intergalactic allies paint a stark view of the future: War is inevitable. A knock on the door brings a much-needed distraction - a bounty hunting job. There’s only one problem. This client is of the offworlder variety. Gunn’s an expert at tracking down missing humans. But missing aliens? That's a whole different ball game. The case hurls Gunn and his friends to the brink of the impending conflict, where they stumble on an alien technology that will alter the course of human history.

Once a year the Dragon Gate is raised to let a fabled beast pass into the Sabian Sea. There, the dragon will be hunted by the Storm Lords, a fellowship of powerful water-mages. Emira Imerle Polivar is coming to the end of her tenure as their leader and has no intention of standing down. But Imerle is not the only one intent on destroying the Storm Lords, and when she sets her scheme in motion, that enemy uses the ensuing chaos to play its hand.

Part inventor, part daredevil, and part mischievous student, Scab McNally is determined not to let anything or anyone stop him from getting a dog.

Adverbs is a novel about love, a bunch of different people, in and out of different kinds of love. At the start of the novel, Andrea is in love with David, or maybe it's Joe, who instead falls in love with Peter in a taxi. At the end of the novel, it's Joe who's in the taxi, falling in love with Andrea, although it might not be Andrea, or in any case it might not be the same Andrea, as Andrea is a very common name.

Scab McNally is convinced he almost caught a swamp creature in the local lake. So he heads back to his secret lab to invent a way to find proof in this hilarious story.