Audiobooks narrated by Michael Langan

Understanding Human Metabolism Audiobook

Does eating more carbohydrates, or fats, cause one to put on more weight? Are ketone bodies toxins or vital products that keep us alive during starvation? Does the concept of 'fat-burning exercise' hold true? In this game-changing book, Keith Frayn, an international expert in human metabolism and nutrition, dispels common misconceptions about human metabolism, explaining in everyday language the important metabolic processes that underlie all aspects of our daily lives. Frayn describes the communication systems that enable our different organs and tissues to cooperate, for instance in providing fuel to our muscles when we exercise, and in preserving our tissues during fasting. He explores the impressive adaptability of human metabolism and discusses the metabolic disorders that can arise when metabolism 'goes wrong'. For anyone skeptical of information about diet and lifestyle, this concise book guides the listener through what metabolism really involves.

Keith N. Frayn (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Why Elephants Cry: How Observing Unusual Animal Behaviours Can Predict the Weather (and Other Enviro

Why Elephants Cry is a fascinating frolic through the literature and evidence surrounding the use of unusual behavior of animals to measure and predict the environment. The role of animals, from the smallest ant to the biggest elephant, as predictors of environmental changes is framed around the climate crisis, which highlights the increasingly important part that animals will have to play in the future. Renowned biologist Professor John T. Hancock collects anecdotal stories and myths along with scientific evidence, demonstrating that observation of animals can be of tangible use. He looks at the measurement of the air temperature using ants, crickets, and snakes, and goes on to assess the evidence that the observation of a wide range of animals can predict the weather or the imminent eruption of volcanoes and earthquakes. Evidence of animals being able to predict lunar and solar events, such as lunar cycles and the Northern Lights, is also considered. This is the only time that all this literature has been brought together in one place, a fascinating reference for anybody interested in animals and the environment. The book is also an ideal supplementary textbook for students studying animal behavior.

John T. Hancock (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

How to Lead Nonprofits: Turning Purpose into Impact to Change the World

Nonprofit leadership is hard. Most new nonprofit leaders are ill-prepared for the challenges they will face, and even those who are more experienced struggle to ensure their organizations deliver the change they are committed to. Nonprofits are not meant to be run like businesses-different incentives drive different priorities. In particular, nonprofit leaders have a key advantage over business leaders in that purpose is fundamental to their organization's work. From Nick Grono, CEO of the Freedom Fund and a nonprofit leader with decades of experience, How to Lead Nonprofits offers a leadership framework centered on what matters most for success: - Achieving outsize impact by pursuing your organization's purpose - Building an inclusive culture that motivates and empowers your team - Partnering with the community you serve, funders, and peer organizations to scale impact With examples and testimony from nonprofit and charity leaders around the world, framed by Grono's own expertise, this is a highly usable guide to harnessing the power of purpose to shape everything your organization does-internally and externally-as you seek to change the world.

Nick Grono (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

V-Bombers: Britain’s Nuclear Frontline in the Cold War

This is the story of a British deterrent. Much has been written about the V-bombers-the Valiant, Victor, and Vulcan-but virtually nothing has been said about their strategic nuclear strike role. How would Britain's small force of subsonic bombers have retaliated following a Soviet attack, and would they have succeeded? This book is the product of seven years of research by Dr. Tony Redding. It includes fresh material on V-Force weapons, war mission, targeting, vulnerabilities, and tactics for attacking targets within Soviet Russia. Over seventy V-Force aircrew and ground crew were interviewed and over 300 operational research reports and other official documents reviewed. The author demonstrates how the V-bombers retained a unilateral capacity to destroy a small number of the very largest cities in the Soviet Union until the handover of the strategic nuclear deterrent to the Polaris submarines. This core retaliatory threat, centered on the destruction of Moscow and Leningrad, was judged severe enough to undermine Russia's position in relation to the US. In short, a few British V-bombers had the destructive capacity to destabilize the balance between the superpowers. The book concludes that, within the first few hours, a small force of surviving V-bombers could have unleashed the explosive power of all Allied bombs dropped on Germany in six years of war.

Dr. Tony Redding (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change

We need to act five times faster to avoid dangerous climate change. As Greenland melts, Australia burns, and greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, we think we know who the villains are: oil companies, consumerism, weak political leaders. But what if the real blocks to progress are the ideas and institutions that are supposed to be helping us? Five Times Faster is an inside story from Simon Sharpe, who has spent ten years at the forefront of climate change policy and diplomacy. In our fight to avoid dangerous climate change, science is pulling its punches, diplomacy is picking the wrong battles, and economics has been fighting for the other side. This provocative and engaging book sets out how we should rethink our strategies and reorganize our efforts in the fields of science, economics, and diplomacy, so that we can act fast enough to stay safe.

Simon Sharpe (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Horace: A Very Short Introduction

Horace was one of the greatest poets during the reign of Augustus and is seen as mark of cultural sophistication since this time. This Very Short Introduction examines how Horace's poetry has exerted enormous influence but argues that it is best understood within the traditions of ancient literature. Llewellyn Morgan guides the listener through the dizzying vagaries of Horace's biography, which reflects the political and social instability of the period. His poetry, and the life he artfully constructs and presents to us in it, engages both with the greatest crisis that Rome had ever faced, and its resolution by the first Emperor. Horace is Rome's laureate, and through him we experience the anxieties and triumphs of his age. For posterity, Horace has served for a model of the good life, a promoter of enlightened retirement, but has also exemplified poetic artistry, and is the most creative manipulator of the Latin language, even among his remarkable contemporaries.

Llewelyn Morgan (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Insulin: A Hundred-Year History

In 1922, researchers made one of the most important medical breakthroughs of the century: insulin. Their discovery seemed miraculous. When it was given to diabetic patients on the brink of death, their condition rapidly improved. However, this was no simple cure. Injections must be taken for life. Without them, symptoms quickly return, often with fatal results. But while a lifetime on insulin poses great challenges, it also offers opportunities. In this revelatory history, Stuart Bradwel looks back on one of medicine's most celebrated innovations. Setting professional narrative against subjective patient experience, he tells the story of a drug that has challenged many of the basic assumptions upon which medical practice is built, both inside and outside the clinic. Nevertheless, Bradwel reminds us that the centenary of this apparent 'wonder drug' should be no cause for celebration. Insulin often remains inaccessible to those who need it most: elusive prescriptions, uneven availability and sky-high prices result in rationing and desperate do-it-yourself research and development. In the face of bootstraps rhetoric and 'Pharma Bro' capitalists, patients across the world are left to fend for themselves. There is a long way to go in the twenty-first century until insulin truly fulfills the extraordinary promises made by its discovery.

Stuart Bradwel (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Communication Code: Unlocking Every Relationship, One Conversation at a Time

Provides a proven series of skills and techniques that anyone can use to make their relationships thrive In this real-world guide, bestselling authors and international speakers Jeremie Kubicek and Steve Cockram share their simple but powerful strategies for boosting your emotional intelligence and elevating your interpersonal communication skills. Step by step, you will learn to integrate Care, Celebration, Collaboration, Critique, and Clarification into your communication toolbox. Using one of these 5 Cs, you can verbally ask someone to respond in the way that you most want, and as a result, facilitate a successful interaction. Written by the team that brought you The 100X Leader, The 5 Voices, and The 5 Gears, this must-have book will help you connect and communicate effectively with your team, your family, and your friends; define the parameters of a conversation from the outset to avoid any misunderstandings; understand the power dynamics of an interaction to eliminate the fear of honest conversation; offer constructive criticism without offending or disappointing the person on the other side; maximize your situational awareness and collaborate like a pro; and prevent communication attacks and restore healthy communication flow.

Jeremie Kubicek, Steve Cockram (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

When Science Meets Power: 1st Edition

Science and politics have collaborated throughout human history and science is repeatedly invoked today in political debates, from pandemic management to climate change. Leading policy analyst Geoff Mulgan here calls attention to the growing frictions caused by the expanding-and unsolicited-authority being heaped upon science. As science increasingly competes with politics, a defined plan of cooperation is urgently needed. Mulgan outlines science and politics as two distinct, imperfect forms of collective intelligence. Whereas science is ordered around what we know and what is, politics engages what we feel and what matters. Politics functions because it recognizes the limits of power, the need for delegation and expert advice. The intellectual logic of science, on the other hand, focuses on detail and depth, struggling to place its knowledge in wider contexts. The crux of the matter, Mulgan argues, is how can we ensure that crucial decisions taken in democracies are both well informed and legitimate? Rooted in understanding that science and politics are not just fields of ideas but also fields of action, this book proposes ways to ensure that the two work effectively together.

Geoff Mulgan (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Unsupervised: Navigating and Influencing a World Controlled by Powerful New Technologies

How a broad range of new immensely powerful technologies is disrupting and transforming every corner of our reality-and why you must act and adapt. Unsupervised: Navigating and Influencing a World Controlled by Powerful New Technologies examines the fast-emerging technologies and tools that are already starting to completely revolutionize our world. Beyond that, the book takes an in-depth look at how we have arrived at this dizzying point in our history, who holds the reins of these formidable technologies, mostly without any supervision. It explains why we as business leaders, entrepreneurs, academics, educators, lawmakers, investors or users and all responsible citizens must act now to influence and help oversee the future of a technological world. Quantum computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, decentralization, virtual and augmented reality, and permanent connectivity are just a few of the technologies and trends considered, but the book delves much deeper, too. You'll find a thorough analysis of energy and medical technologies, as well as cogent predictions for how new tech will redefine your work, your money, your entertainment, your transportation and your home and cities, and what you need to know to harness and prosper from these technologies.

Daniel Doll-Steinberg, Stuart Leaf (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Others Lose

In the last thirty years, the developing world has undergone tremendous changes. Overall, poverty has fallen, people live longer and healthier lives, and economies have been transformed. And yet many countries have simply missed the boat. Why have some countries prospered, while others have failed? Stefan Dercon argues that the answer lies not in a specific set of policies, but rather in a key 'development bargain,' whereby a country's elites shift from protecting their own positions to gambling on a growth-based future. Despite the imperfections of such bargains, China is among the most striking recent success stories, along with Indonesia, and more unlikely places, such as Bangladesh, Ghana, and Ethiopia. Gambling on Development is about these winning efforts, in contrast to countries stuck in elite bargains leading nowhere. Building on three decades' experience across forty-odd countries, Dercon winds his narrative through Ebola in Sierra Leone, scandals in Malawi, beer factories in the DRC, mobile phone licenses in Mozambique, and relief programs behind enemy lines in South Sudan. Weaving together conversations with prime ministers, civil servants, and ordinary people, this is a probing look at how development has been achieved across the world, and how to assist such successes.

Stefan Dercon (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Revenge of the Betrayer

If you like Bernard Cornwell, David Gemmell, John Gwynne and Conn Iggulden you will love this Viking adventure packed with battles, betrayal, axes and swords. 880 AD, Norway. Rollo the Betrayer has risen to become a powerful Duke in Normandy and sails with his warriors and his spite to exact revenge upon Viking warriors Hundr and Einar the Brawler. Hundr, a Northman with a dog's name… Viking warships flying the raven banner… epic battles, berserkers, twists and turns. Hundr and Einar are faced with a brutal enemy and must fight to protect their home, their loved ones and their reputations. The war with Rollo takes them deep into Viking Norway, and into a war with the King of Frankia and his vast army. Hundr must seek help from King Harald Fairhair and his old friend Haesten to overcome his mortal enemy. Can he survive brutal betrayal and vicious shield wall battles in this fast paced Viking adventure with striking characters and bloodthirsty action? Revenge of the Betrayer continues the unmissable Viking historical fiction saga series which began with Award Winning Author Peter Gibbons' debut novel Viking Blood and Blade.

Peter Gibbons (Author), Michael Langan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Michael Langan