Showing results by narrator "Eric Jason" in All Categories

When Theo Potiris performed his stand-up comedy act on Conan at 25, he thought he'd hit it big. But 10 years later, he's still spending his days working at his parents' grocery store, bicycling to the local open mic, and writing letters to a girlfriend who lives halfway around the world. Theo's desperate for a break. But when he brings his 13-year-old niece to the horse track to place a birthday bet - a Potiris family tradition - the goddess of good luck strikes her instead, in the form of a small fortune.

A Companion to Steven Spielberg provides an authoritative collection of essays exploring the achievements and legacy of one of the most influential film directors of the modern era.

Get ready for a turbo-charged short listen from two of the world’s biggest thriller writers. Jack Reacher and Will Trent. Twice the action. Twice the drama. Double the trouble. Will Trent is undercover at Fort Knox. His assignment: to investigate a 22-year-old murder. His suspect's name: Jack Reacher. Jack Reacher is in Fort Knox on his own mission: to bring down a dangerous criminal ring operating at the heart of America’s military. Except now Will Trent is on the scene.

Based on extensive research and interviews with some of the participants, Browne - a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and author of Fire and Rain and Dream Brother - vividly chronicles the year America went rock & roll in everything from politics to technology. The Spirit of '76 will make you think anew about an under-appreciated moment in the country - and will make you wonder if its optimistic, can-do spirit of reinvention and renewal will ever come again.

Hiroshima was one of the great tragedies of WWII. But out of the devastation of the first atomic bomb, some survivors emerged, 25 courageous Japanese women who became part of a remarkable humanitarian epic. Victims of the atomic blast that ushered in the Nuclear Age, these women were brought to the United States in 1955, where they underwent reconstructive surgery to repair the ravages of the bomb. Schoolgirls when the bomb destroyed their futures, they began to remake their lives and re-create themselves. This is the compassionate, often bittersweet chronicle of the Hiroshima Maidens.

Utina, Florida, is a small, down-at-heels southern town. Once enlivened by the trade in Palm Sunday palms and moonshine, Utina hasn’t seen economic growth in decades, and no family is more emblematic of the local reality than the Bravos. Deserted by the patriarch years ago, the Bravos are held together in equal measure by love, unspoken blame, and tenuously brokered truces.

The Chinese government has more control over more wealth than any other government in world history. With the Communist Party controlling the "commanding heights" of the world's second-largest economy, China appears ideally structured to pursue economic statecraft, using economic resources to advance its foreign policy goals. Yet as this book shows, domestic complications frequently constrain Chinese leaders. They have responded with a distinctive approach to economic statecraft: orchestration.

In Politics: A Very Short Introduction, Kenneth Minogue begins with a discussion of issues arising from a historical account of politics and goes on to offer chapters dealing with the Ancient Greeks and the idea of citizenship; Roman law; medieval Christianity and individualism; freedom since Machiavelli and Hobbes; the challenge of ideologies; democracy, oligarchy, and bureaucracy; power and order in modern society; and politics in the West.

In Calculating Race, Benjamin Wiggins analyzes the historical relationship between statistical risk assessment and race in the United States. He illustrates how actuarial science transformed the nature of racism and helped usher racial disparities in wealth, incarceration, and housing from the 19th century into the 20th.

Two weeks before the U.S. entered World War I, a Chicago advertising executive visited the Department of Justice with a proposal - organize the country’s businessmen into a secret force of volunteer agents to ferret out and investigate enemy activities within the United States. The country, overcome by a wave of patriotic fervor, had also become gripped with fear and uncertainty of the influx of immigrants from the very countries with which the country was now at war.

After a beautiful but deadly lightshow, humanity is on the brink of extinction. And in the midst of this chaos, the ruthless will be king. Former detective Elijah Wade awaits execution at the hands of a brutal local despot, but even if he can escape, he must find a way across two thousand miles of lawless country if he's to rescue his daughter. If she's still alive. Meanwhile, astronomer Hannah Redman has begun to unravel the mystery of the deadly aurora, and its implications for the survival of humanity. Two sisters fortify their cabin against those who take everything from them.

Daniel Chai has fallen into a routine of adventuring and dungeon-delving with his friends. They aren't making quick progress, but it's steady improvements and honest work. Unfortunately, Daniel's ability as a healer, and one who is truly gifted, has come home to roost with a vengeance. As his secret is exposed, Daniel's greatest fears come to play and adventuring guilds of all stripes attempt to recruit him and his friends, whether he wants it or not. Forced to navigate guild politics and noble interest, Daniel's simple life has once more grown complicated.

Leadership expert, activist, and executive coach Reiner Lomb knows that to address the many issues of our time, we need to come together and collaborate. Yet we are divided—not by a wall made of bricks, but one made of emotions, and this prevents us from working together. In his timely book Aspire, he weaves leadership lessons learned from living through the reunification of East and West Germany, as well as building multiple businesses, to demystify the process for creating a vision of an aspirational new future.

In Longshot, investigative journalist David Heath takes listeners inside the small group of scientists whose groundbreaking work was once largely dismissed but whose feat will now eclipse the importance of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine in medical history. With never-before-reported details, Heath reveals how these scientists overcame countless obstacles to give the world an unprecedented head start when we needed a COVID-19 vaccine.

From celebrated historian of knowledge Jonathan Lyons comes The Society for Useful Knowledge, telling the story of America's coming-of-age through its historic love affair with practical invention, applied science, and self-reliance. Lyons illustrates how a social movement in support of useful knowledge is key to understanding the flow of American history and the development of our society and culture from colonial times to our digital present.

Will Manning seems to have it all. But he’s hiding a secret. As he embarks on a desperate journey to find a cure for the pain that haunts him, Will finds himself on a path that leads to the first sentient android, Tess, with whom he shares a strange connection. As the bond between Will and Tess grows, Will realizes they are linked by an event he witnessed as a child. When the consequences of that night begin to unfold, they are pulled into a world where nothing is as it seems.

A one-time pig farmer and ardent socialist turned union buster, Smallwood is best remembered as the man responsible for bringing Newfoundland into confederation with Canada. A full 10 years before Alaska and Hawaii became the forty-ninth and fiftieth states of the union, a massive British Dominion on the Eastern Seaboard was at a crossroads. Should they join the US as its forty-ninth state? Maintain ties with the British via a British-led commission of government? Should they join Canada?

After a beautiful but deadly lightshow, humanity is on the brink of extinction. And in the midst of this chaos, the ruthless will be king. Former detective Elijah Wade awaits execution at the hands of a brutal local despot, but even if he can escape, he must find a way across two thousand miles of lawless country if he's to rescue his daughter. If she's still alive. Meanwhile, astronomer Hannah Redman has begun to unravel the mystery of the deadly aurora, and its implications for the survival of humanity. And an old woman comes to terms with the unwelcome return of her son.

Have lawmakers helped themselves while helping the country? After the nation's financial crisis led Congress to unprecedented economic intervention, The Washington Post began an investigation that pierced the secrecy of the deeply flawed financial disclosure system that governs the 535 men and women who draft the nation's laws. Members of Congress directed millions of dollars to infrastructure projects near their residences and businesses, in some cases paving roads in front of their houses.

This collection of original essays covers the turf that made Didion a sensation - Hollywood and Patty Hearst; Malibu, Manson and the Mojave; the Summer of Love and the Central Park Five - while bringing together some of the finest voices of today's Los Angeles and beyond. Slouching Towards Los Angeles is a love letter and thank you note; personal memoir and social commentary; cultural history and literary critique.