Showing results by narrator "Alex Boyles" in All Categories

Paper Belt on Fire is the unlikely account of how two outsiders with no experience in finance—a charter school principal and defrocked philosopher—start a venture capital fund to short the higher education bubble. Against the contempt of the education establishment, they discover, mentor, and back the leading lights in the next generation of dropout innovators and in the end make their investors millions. Can such a madcap strategy help renew American creativity? This story is the behind-the-scenes romp of one team that threw educational authorities into a panic.

Ordinary Elementary is anything but ordinary. Below the classrooms are winding, abandoned, underground passages filled with lost treasures. Fifth-grader Graysen Foxx, aka The Gray Fox—finder of secrets, solver of mysteries, and explorer of the unknown—is hot on the trail of the legendary treasure of long-since-retired Principal Redbeard, which includes a decades’ worth of confiscated gadgets, rare comic books, first-edition Pokémon trading cards, an original Rubik’s Cube, and a retro football handheld video game.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single book. How to Survive Your First Trip in the Wild bundles up everything you need to prep for your first-ever backpacking adventure - so you can explore the back country with confidence. Start strong with an essential equipment guide geared toward beginners. Discover how to choose a campsite and follow along with camp setup and breakdown directions. Water treatment info, outdoor cooking basics, snacking suggestions, and a sample three-day backpacking food plan supply you with vital knowledge to survive in the wilderness.

Ride the Cherokee Trail with Callum, three years after a bloody war that divided state against state, town against town, and brother against brother, as he attempts to guide his family from their ravaged horse farm back east to the waiting ranch in Colorado. Accompany him as he battles corrupt officials in Tennessee, greedy thieves in Arkansas, and Indians and bandits on the Great Plains. Will he fulfill his mission to bring his loved ones safely to their new home, nestled in the shadows of the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Colorado?

A Civil War soldier survives his battlefield wounds...but a final head shot erases his memory and leaves him comatose. After surviving the bloodiest war in US history, will it be peacetime that finally kills him? Henry Remington awakes from a six-month coma with a Medal of Honor pinned to his pillow, but no recollection of how he got there. When two fellow soldiers insist he saved them and want to repay the favor, Hank accepts their offer of a job on a Texas ranch, and embarks on a ship bound for Galveston.

They had settled a bloody score and put the turncoat McAfferty to rest in the snowbound Rockies. Slowly, painfully, the wounded Paddock and Scratch found their way back to the Crow village, where they were welcomed as brother and son. The people of Chief Arapooesh offered rest, healing, and home to the mountain men. Then a misunderstanding over a beautiful Crow woman drove the friends apart, propelling Scratch into the unforgiving wilderness on a lonely, dangerous quest. Paddock, too ill to travel, was at first unable to follow, unable to explain.

Four years after getting the biggest break of his life, Cameron Lee’s music career has taken a nose dive, leaving him two options: become a sellout or give up on his lifelong dream. He reluctantly returns home for his sister’s wedding, hoping to avoid his past and find his love for music again. Single mom Lexie Walters has suffered her fair share of tragedies and setbacks, but she has finally scraped together the money to achieve her dream of going into business with her cousin as an interior designer. When Lexie’s life is at an all-time high, she runs into her teenage crush.

The pregnancy’s over and the baby’s here…what’s a dad supposed to do? Put your other new dad books away - We’re Parents! is going to help you be the best dad (and partner) you can be. Wondering how to burp your newborn? Not sure how to get them to try solids? Desperate to get them to sleep? Adrian Kulp (a four-time dad himself) offers fast, fun, and easy-to-digest advice that other new dad books don’t, making it simple for you to step up and do your part as a brand-new dad.

Not content with investing his fortune and watching it grow, multibillionaire Howard Christian buys rare cars that he actually drives, acquires collectible toys that he actually plays with, and builds buildings that defy the imagination. But now his restless mind has turned to a new obsession: cloning a mammoth. In a barren province of Canada, a mammoth hunter financed by Christian has made the discovery of a lifetime: an intact frozen woolly mammoth. But what he finds during the painstaking process of excavating the huge creature baffles the mind.

In this brilliant and rigorously researched history, award-winning journalist and author Ken Ellingwood animates the life and times of abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy. First to Fall illuminates this flawed yet heroic figure who made the ultimate sacrifice while fighting for free press rights in a time when the First Amendment offered little protection for those who dared to critique America’s “peculiar institution”.

Callum Logan is a man of quick decision and execution. His fast gun has saved him on more than one occasion. Though hardened by the horrors of the Civil War, he gives each man a chance, unless they prove it’s undeserved. Now, on his way to begin a new life in the Colorado West, Callum is eager to put the killing behind him. But while rescuing a family from despicable outlaws, he is forced to kill the leader of the small band, putting himself in direct conflict with the outlaw’s brother, Elwood Wister, whose gang has become the scourge of Southwest Colorado.

In science fiction, artificial intelligence takes the shape of computers that can speak like people, think for themselves, and sometimes act against us. Reality of course is vastly different, though in many ways computers surpass their fictional counterparts. This book reviews work in the field and covers topics from chess-playing to quantum computing. The writers tackle how to make computers more powerful, how we define consciousness, what the hard problems are, and even how computers might be built once the limits of silicon chips have been reached.

Unraveling the mysteries of insurance markets, Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, and Ray Fisman explore such issues as why insurers want to know so much about us and whether we should let them obtain this information; why insurance entrepreneurs often fail (and some tricks that may help them succeed); and whether we’d be better off with government-mandated health insurance instead of letting businesses, customers, and markets decide who gets coverage and at what price.

We’re constantly seeking answers to these fundamental human questions, and now, science has the answers. The foods we enjoy, the people we love, the emotions we feel, and the beliefs we hold can all be traced back to our DNA, germs, and environment. This witty, colloquial book is popular science at its best, describing in everyday language how genetics, epigenetics, microbiology, and psychology work together to influence our personality and actions.

As Lieutenant Rory Nance lay dying after the battle of Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley, Captain Josh Logan gave his word to his best friend. Now, two years later, deep in the Comancheria, Josh Logan rides to accomplish his dying friend’s request. As he rides through the rolling, West Texas hills, blood-thirsty Comanches could wait in the next ravine or around the next hill. Yet, he is determined to fulfill his promise.

In Nebula Award-winning author Sam J. Miller’s devastating debut short-fiction collection—featuring an introduction by Amal El-Mohtar—queer infatuation, inevitable heartbreak, and brutal revenge seamlessly intertwine. Whether innocent, guilty, or not even human, the boys, beasts, and men roaming through Miller’s gorgeously crafted worlds can destroy listeners, yet leave them wanting more.

Paul Adams is the shortest kid at his high school, and the school bullies relentlessly pick on him. He spends the entire day wishing school would end so he can escape to his favorite sport of rock climbing. Lily Small is athletic, attractive, and, despite her last name, is actually very tall. Another kid, who looks almost like a grown man, introduces himself with a long Polynesian name, but says everyone calls him "Big," and he seems to like the nickname! As they get to know each other, Paul, Big, and Small discover they have a lot in common as outsiders in their high school.

It’s 2336, and the future needs heroes! They must reach back in time to find them. What if they come for you? In 2336 there is no war, no pollution, no disease, no crime—but utopia has a price.

Do you have what it takes to run off and join the army, leaving your family behind? That’s what John Lincoln Clem, a nine-year-old boy living in Ohio, does as the American Civil War rages on. In 1861, Johnny sneaks onto a train filled with men from the 3rd Ohio Union Regiment, determined to fight for his country. Taken in by the older soldiers, Johnny becomes a drummer boy—not to mention the youngest person to serve in the war. Living a soldier’s life, Johnny experiences the brutalities of battle and the hunger and illness in between. 

A lush and elegant collection of tales—many having appeared in various “Best Of” anthologies—teeming with frightful and tragic events, yet profoundly and intimately human. These chilling tales will engross and enthrall. For listeners of Kelly Link, Carmen Maria Machado, and Angela Carter, this is a must have collection of ghostly tales set to deliver a frisson of terror and glee.