Showing results by narrator "Sean Runnette" in All Categories

Relentless Strike tells the inside story of Joint Special Operations Command, the secret military organization that, during the past decade, has revolutionized counterterrorism, seamlessly fusing intelligence and operational skills to conduct missions that hit the headlines and those that have remained in the shadows - until now. Because JSOC includes the military's most storied special operations units - Delta Force, SEAL Team Six, the 75th Ranger Regiment - as well as America's most secret aviation and intelligence units, this is their story, too.

A passionate polemic in favor of pausing to think, not blink. What do these scenarios have in common: a professional tennis player returning a serve, a woman evaluating a first date across the table, a naval officer assessing a threat to his ship, and a comedian about to reveal a punch line? In this counterintuitive and insightful work, author Frank Partnoy weaves together findings from hundreds of scientific studies and interviews with wide-ranging experts to craft a picture of effective decision making that runs contrary to our brutally fast-paced world.

What is consciousness and how can a brain, a mere collection of neurons, create it? In Consciousness and the Social Brain, Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano lays out an audacious new theory to account for the deepest mystery of them all. In Graziano's theory, the machinery that attributes awareness to others also attributes it to oneself. Damage that machinery and you disrupt your own awareness. Graziano discusses the science, the evidence, the philosophy, and the surprising implications of this new theory.

Weeks after the contamination, Carter is losing hope of ever seeing his sons again. Doomed to live out the rest of his life in his mountain bunker, he teeters between acceptance and despair. And then he sees something down the steep side of his mountain that will change everything. Have his prayers been answered?

Eric is a physicist, an angel vivisectionist, and an architect of the future. He's also an accidental time traveler, stuck in the past and trying to re-create his own future. Now he's got to save the world for a better tomorrow, but not like everyone does, in general, every day. Oh, no. He has to make a better tomorrow that looks exactly the way he remembers it, or there may be no yesterday, no today, and no Eric! There is a reason he hates time travel, and it has nothing to do with physics.

Eric - part-time king, quasi-avatar, and unconventional wizard - has an epic quest before him. He must return to his lost kingdom to save it, slay a creature claiming to be a god, and navigate the terrible risks of a paradox that could undo everything! And to top it off, he's trying to raise a daughter. Nobody said being a vampire was going to be easy, but none of this was in the brochure!

For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people but with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including mountains, rivers, winds, and weather patterns) that we have only lately come to think of as "inanimate". How, then, did humans come to sever their ancient reciprocity with the natural world?

Faced with war and the end of the world, Eric - or Halar the First, King of Karvalen - must find a way to stop a godlike entity bent on his destruction. His quest will be no easy thing, not a straight line to his goal, but even he can't anticipate just how far it will lead him on this epic journey. He will have to go farther than he can imagine from everything he has ever cared about before he can even begin a new journey - a journey home. Can he save the world and the people he loves? And, in so doing, will he be able to save himself?

From Mike Talbot's journal: "The End...has come and gone. This is the new beginning, the new world order and it sucks. The end for humanity came the moment the US government sent out the infected flu shots. My name is Michael Talbot and this is my journal. I'm writing this because no one's tomorrow is guaranteed, and I have to leave something behind to those who may follow."

As singular and strange as some of the weapons are, we learn that similar factors set their evolution in motion. He looks at everything from our armor and camouflage to the evolution of the rifle and the structures human populations have built across different regions and eras to protect their homes and communities.

After years of gigging everywhere from suburban backyards to dive bars, Van Halen - led by frontman extraordinaire David Lee Roth and guitar virtuoso Edward Van Halen - had the songs, the swagger, and the talent to turn the rock world on its ear. The quartet's classic 1978 debut, Van Halen, sold more than a million copies within months of release and rocketed the band to the stratosphere of rock success.

Scientist Charles Neumann loses a leg in an industrial accident. It's not a tragedy. It's an opportunity. Charlie always thought his body could be better. He begins to explore a few ideas. To build parts. Better parts. Prosthetist Lola Shanks loves a good artificial limb. In Charlie, she sees a man on his way to becoming artificial everything. But others see a madman. Or a product. Or a weapon. A story for the age of pervasive technology, Machine Man is a gruesomely funny unraveling of one man's quest for ultimate self-improvement.

The Holocaust was perpetrated by the Germans, but it would not have been possible without the assistance of other countries. If we are to understand how and why the Holocaust happened, Götz Aly argues in this groundbreaking study, we must examine its prehistory throughout Europe. We must look at countries as far-flung as Romania and France, Russia and Greece, where, decades before the Nazis came to power, a deadly combination of envy, competition, nationalism, and social upheaval fueled a surge of anti-Semitism, creating the preconditions for the deportations and murder to come.

One fateful decision - that is all it takes to either unravel all the Talbot clan has achieved or fulfill their desire for safety. Many are lost, though others return; this is the story of their struggle to survive and in remembrance of those left behind.

How does soap know what's dirt? How do magnets work? Why do ice cubes crackle in your glass? And how can you keep them quiet? These are questions that torment us all. Now Robert L. Wolke, professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, provides definitive - and amazingly simple - explanations for the mysteries of everyday life.

In Straight Talk on Trade, Dani Rodrik, an early and outspoken critic of economic globalization taken too far, goes beyond the populist backlash and offers a more reasoned explanation for why our elites' and technocrats' obsession with hyper-globalization made it more difficult for nations to achieve legitimate economic and social objectives at home: economic prosperity, financial stability, and equity.

In a world overrun by zombies, one family struggles against all odds to hold on. With three vampires closing in, can the Talbot family withstand the coming onslaught? Or will they become a footnote in the history of the apocalypse?

Mike is back. Devastated by his loss, he strikes out on a doomed journey to wipe the earth of the Lycan scourge, with his faithful companion, Oggie, by his side. Bailey, a distant relative of Mike's best friend BT, joins him, but for different reasons. Azile struggles to reign him in, while a world already pushed to the edge begins its fall over the precipice. When all is lost, can anything ever be won? Join Mike on another epic adventure as he fights foes both new and old.

Written by Nikola Tesla at the age of 63, this autobiography is a fascinating glimpse into the interior life of a man who may have contributed more to the fields of electricity, radio, and television than any other person living or dead, a man certainly possessed of genius, and one who some consider the most important man of the 20th century.

Control of Etna Station is balanced on a knife's edge. A daring mission to rescue a hostage will shake the foundations of the already crumbling command structure, making way for enemies to emerge from outside, and from within.