Showing results by narrator "Rob Shapiro" in All Categories

Rabbi Sholem Shachne Katzenellenbogen’s world, the world of his forefathers, is crumbling before his eyes. And in his own home! His eldest, Bentzion, is off in Bialystok, studying to be a businessman; his daughter Bluma Rivtcha is in Vilna, at nursing school. For her older sister, Tilza, he at least managed to find a suitable young rabbi, but he can tell things are off between them. Naftali Hertz? Forget it; he’s been lost to a philosophy degree in Switzerland (and maybe even a goyish wife?). And now the rabbi’s youngest, Refael’ke, wants to run off to the Holy Land with the Zionists.

When infamous outlaw Butch Cassidy decides to go straight, he discovers that too many of the powerful men he crossed won’t let bygones be bygones. To have a chance at a new life, he’ll have to become someone else entirely. A brief, fateful encounter with the celebrated singer Jane Touissant on the eve of his escape offers a glimpse of what might have been, but Butch disappears, leaving her behind, until their paths unexpectedly converge again in Paris.

The Talmud says: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” This instinct to take every measure, even the most aggressive, to defend the Jewish people is hardwired into Israel’s DNA. From the very beginning of its statehood in 1948, protecting the nation from harm has been the responsibility of its intelligence community and armed services, and there is one weapon in their vast arsenal that they have relied upon to thwart the most serious threats: Targeted assassinations have been used countless times, on enemies large and small....

Meet Victor. He's an assassin - a man with no past and no surname. He lives alone. He operates alone. He's given a job; he takes out the target; he gets paid. He's The Killer. Victor arrives in Paris to perform a standard kill and collect for an anonymous client. He completes it with trademark efficiency - only to find himself in the middle of an ambush and fighting for his life.

During his lifetime, Buckminster Fuller was hailed as one of the greatest geniuses of the twentieth century. As the architectural designer and futurist best known for the geodesic dome, he enthralled a vast popular audience, inspired devotion from both the counterculture and the establishment, and was praised as a modern Leonardo da Vinci. To his admirers, he exemplified what one man could accomplish by approaching urgent design problems using a radically unconventional set of strategies, which he based on a mystical conception of the universe’s geometry.

Wanting the perfect man doesn't make me crazy. I just know what I like. A powerful billionaire in a suit wasn't even my first choice. McAllister Stonewall was never on my radar; I didn't even know he existed. I do now. His hands are all over me at work. The heat of his chest pressing against my bare back as he bends me over the desk is the only thing on my mind. He is my most forbidden desires unleashed. He is my new secret obsession. He is my Mr. Perfect. Until the moment I realize there's no such thing as perfect.

From launchpad explosions to a pernicious cricket infestation to the demanding management style of Musk himself, the rise of SpaceX was beset with challenges and far from inevitable. Find out how the startup beat the odds and flew high enough to outpace their rivals... and where they're going next.

After a CIA covert mission goes badly awry, US Air Force intelligence officer Nicholas Flynn is exiled to guard a remote radar post along Alaska’s Arctic frontier. This dead-end assignment is designed to put his career permanently on ice, but Flynn’s not the type to fade quietly into obscurity.... As winter storms pound Alaska and northern Canada, Russian aircraft begin penetrating deep into friendly airspace. Are these rehearsals for a possible first strike, using Russia’s new long-range stealth cruise missiles?

How will artificial intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society, and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology - and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial.

Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant, new reality. Think of how the Empire State Building went from a sketch to the jewel of New York's skyline in twenty-one months, or how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to a product launch in eleven months.

Shortly before dusk on November 3, 1870, just as the ferryboat El Capitan was pulling away from its slip into San Francisco Bay, a woman clad in black emerged from the shadows and strode across the crowded deck. Reaching under her veil, she drew a small pistol and aimed it directly at a well-dressed man sitting quietly with his wife and children. The woman fired a single bullet into his chest. “I did it and I don’t deny it,” she said when arrested shortly thereafter. “He ruined me and my daughter.”

Nick Flynn is back in action, and he has a new employer—a shadowy intelligence outfit whose roots go back to the very beginning of the Cold War. But his first mission for them almost becomes his last. While meeting with a high-ranking Iranian dissident in the Austrian Alps, Flynn is ambushed and nearly killed… just after learning that Iran and Russia are working together on a mysterious project—one they have codenamed MIDNIGHT.

An updated revision of Jeffrey Kottler's classic book On Being a Therapist reveals the new realities and inner experiences of therapeutic practice today.

Cassandra may have seen the future, but it doesn't mean she's resigned to telling the Trojans everything she knows. In this ebullient collection, virgins escape from being sacrificed, witches refuse to be burned, whores aren't ashamed, and every woman gets a chance to be a radioactive cockroach warrior who snaps back at catcallers.

James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the 20th century's third revolution.

Aiden St. Delphi will do anything to save Alex. Even if it means doing the one thing he will never forgive himself for. Even if it means making war against the gods.

For Blood and Money tells the little-known story of how an upstart biotechnology company created a one-in-a-million cancer drug and how the core team—denied their share of the profits—went and did it again. In this epic saga of money and science, veteran financial journalist Nathan Vardi explains how the invention of two of the biggest cancer drugs in history became (for their backers) two of the greatest Wall Street bets of all time.

For generations the electric guitar has been an international symbol of freedom, danger, rebellion, and hedonism. In Play It Loud, Brad Tolinski and Alan di Perna bring the history of this iconic instrument to roaring life. It's a story of inventors and iconoclasts, of scam artists, prodigies, and mythologizers as varied and original as the instruments they spawned. Play It Loud uses 12 landmark guitars - each of them artistic milestones in their own right - to illustrate the conflict and passion the instruments have inspired.

I remember everything, only now I wish I didn't. When the fog is sucked away from my mind like smoke through a vacuum, the truth that has been beyond my reach for months finally reveals itself. But the relief I thought I would feel never comes, and I'm more afraid now than I was the morning I woke up handcuffed in King's bed. Because with the truth comes dark secrets I was never meant to know. I don't know if I'm strong enough to resist the magnetic pull toward King that grows stronger every day.

Victor, a former assassin-for-hire, has joined forces with a CIA special unit. His first assignment: Three strangers. Three hits. Fast and clean. Victor's a natural for this.It should have been simple. But with each hit Victor is plunged deeper into an unimaginable conspiracy where no one, least of all the people he knows, can be trusted.With the stakes growing higher by the minute, Victor realizes he's been forced into playing a game he never expected. Because he's the next target. And there's no way out.