Audiobooks narrated by Paul Boehmer

Chocolate Covered Money: Secrets of the Marketing Genius Who Built the World's Most Successful Choco

The story of the man behind some of the world's biggest chocolate empires. Chocolate Covered Money is for anyone who eats chocolate, has shopped for chocolate as a gift, or has wondered what really goes on at the chocolate store 'in a mall near you.' Chocolate is a big business, and makes a lot of money. This book 'pulls the curtain back' for a behind-the-scenes look at the people who own chocolate companies, how they make chocolate, and their celebrity friends. This book reveals business methods used to enable three of the world's leading super-premium luxury Belgian chocolate brands—Godiva, Leonidas, and KC Chocolatier—to compete against one another, how each achieves marketing dominance in certain markets, and what it really takes to build a worldwide chain of retail stores. Brad Yater shares his business expertise, having served as country manager for the US at all three of these brands, beginning with Godiva, during a career lasting thirty years. Hear the fascinating story of how this happened to him.

Brad Yater (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

C'mon, Get Happy: The Making of Summer Stock

In their third and final screen teaming, Judy Garland and Gene Kelly starred together in the MGM musical Summer Stock. In C'mon, Get Happy, authors David Fantle and Tom Johnson present a comprehensive study of this 1950 motion picture. The production coincided at a critical point in the careers of Kelly and an emotionally spent Garland. Kelly, who starred in An American in Paris just one year later, was at the peak of his abilities. On the other hand, Summer Stock was Garland's final film at MGM, and she gamely completed it despite her own personal struggles. Summer Stock includes Kelly's favorite solo dance routine and Garland's signature number 'Get Happy.' The authors discuss in rich detail the contributions of the cast, the director, the producer, the script writers, the songwriters, and top MGM executives. The volume features extensive interviews, conducted by the authors, with Gene Kelly, Charles Walters, Harry Warren, and others, who shared their recollections of making the movie. Deeply researched, C'mon, Get Happy reveals the studio system at work during Hollywood's Golden Era. Additionally, the authors have written a special section that buttonholes numerous contemporary dancers, singers, choreographers, musicians, and even Garland impersonators for their take on Summer Stock, its stars, and any enduring legacy they think the film might have.

David Fantle, Tom Johnson (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Witching Herbs: 13 Essential Plants and Herbs for Your Magical Garden

Harold Roth is a leading authority on plant/herbal magic. His new book, The Witching Herbs, is an in-depth exploration of thirteen essential plants and herbs most closely associated with witchcraft—thirteen because it's the witching number and reflects the thirteen months of the lunar calendar. The plants are poppy, clary sage, yarrow, rue, hyssop, vervain, mugwort, wormwood, datura, wild tobacco, henbane, belladonna, and mandrake. Roth writes simply and clearly on a vast amount of esoteric information that is not easily found elsewhere and will be greeted enthusiastically by those who already have extensive experience and libraries. It is unique in that it combines mysticism with practical instructions for growing each plant, based on Roth's thirty years of gardening expertise. Each chapter focuses on one plant and includes information on its unique plant spirit familiar, clear how-to instructions for magical projects, and pragmatic information on growing and cultivating. The Witching Herbs is the essential plant-worker's guide. Roth is not only a successful gardener, but also a magician and scholar of the occult. No other book blends clear, practical gardening techniques with equally lucid and sophisticated plant magic so successfully.

Harold Roth (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Mr. Churchill in the White House: The Untold Story of a Prime Minister and Two Presidents

Well into the twenty-first century, Winston Churchill continues to be the subject of scores of books. Biographers portray him as a soldier, statesman, writer, painter, and even a daredevil, but Robert Schmuhl, the noted author and journalist, may be the first to depict him as a demanding, indeed exhausting White House guest. Drawing on years of research, Schmuhl not only contextualizes the unprecedented time Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt spent together between 1941 and 1945, but he also depicts the individual figures involved: from Churchill himself to 'General Ike,' as he affectionately called Dwight D. Eisenhower, to Harry Truman, and not to mention the formidable Eleanor Roosevelt, who resented Churchill's presence in the White House and wanted him to occupy the nearby Blair House instead (which, predictably, he did not do). Mr. Churchill in the White House presents a new perspective on the politician, war leader, and author through his intimate involvement with one Democratic and one Republican president during his two terms as prime minister. Indeed, Churchill had his own 'Special Relationship' with these two presidents. Diaries, letters, government documents, and memoirs supply the archival foundation and color for each Churchill visit, providing a wholly novel perspective on one of history's most perplexing and many-faceted figures.

Robert Schmuhl (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires

No animal is so entangled in human history as the horse. The thread starts in prehistory, with a slight, shy animal, hunted for food. Domesticating the horse allowed early humans to settle the vast Eurasian steppe; later, their horses enabled new forms of warfare, encouraged long-distance trade routes, and ended up acquiring deep cultural and religious significance. Over time, horses came to power mighty empires in Iran, Afghanistan, China, India, and, later, Russia. Genghis Khan and the thirteenth-century Mongols offer the most famous example, but from ancient Assyria and Persia, to the seventeenth-century Mughals, to the high noon of colonialism in the early twentieth century, horse breeding was indispensable to conquest and statecraft. Scholar of Asian history David Chaffetz tells the story of how the horse made rulers, raiders, and traders interchangeable, providing a novel explanation for the turbulent history of the 'Silk Road,' which might be better called the Horse Road. Drawing on recent research in fields including genetics and forensic archeology, Chaffetz presents a lively history of the great horse empires that shaped civilization.

David Chaffetz (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic

Martha Washington's worst memory was the death of her husband. Her second worst was Thomas Jefferson's awkward visit to pay his respects. Indeed, by the time George Washington died in 1799, the two founders were estranged. But that estrangement has obscured the fact that for most of their thirty-year acquaintance they enjoyed a productive relationship. Precisely because they shared so much, their disagreements have something important to teach us. Whereas Washington believed in the rule of traditional elites like the Virginia gentry, Jefferson preferred what we would call a meritocratic approach, by which elites would be elected on the basis of education and skills. And while Washington emphasized a need for strong central government, Jefferson favored diffusion of power across the states. Still, as Francis Cogliano argues, common convictions equally defined their relationship: a passion for American independence and republican government, as well as a commitment to westward expansion and the power of commerce. They also both evolved a skeptical view of slavery, eventually growing to question the institution, even as they took limited steps to abolish it. A Revolutionary Friendship captures the dramatic, challenging, and poignant reality that there was no single founding ideal-only compromise between friends and sometime rivals.

Francis D. Cogliano (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Earth, Air, Fire & Water: More Techniques of Natural Magic

'A treasure trove of practical magic for both novices and more experienced practitioners . . . beautifully crafted spells that invoke the alchemy of possibility.' -PanGaia A leaf from an oak tree . . . a wildflower . . . water from a sparkling stream . . . dirt from a cool dark cave-these are the age-old tools of natural magic. Born of the earth, possessing inherent power, they await only our touch and intention to bring their magical qualities to life. The four elements are powerful magical tools. Using their energies, we can transform ourselves, our lives, and our world. This much-loved, classic guide offers more than seventy-five spells, rites, and simple rituals you can perform using the marvelous powers of the natural world.

Scott Cunningham (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Intention: The Surprising Psychology of High Performers

We're stuck. Stuck to the couch. Stuck scrolling. Stuck at work. Stuck in worn-out paths of habitual action. Stuck in carefully curated lives where we've traded our agency for endless comforts that wrap us in existential ennui. As our eyes fixate on a constant parade of images meant to engage us, we notice something in the periphery. We see folks who are just like us, except they are actually, deeply happy and fulfilled. They seem to go through life with ease and grace, overcoming obstacles and making amazing things happen for themselves. Peering closer, we see that these aren't gods or superhumans. They're just people who have chosen to not be stuck and decided to become the main characters in their own lives. Their success is not a birthright bestowed upon a lucky few, but the result of lives lived with intention. And that's what this book is about-a practical guide on infusing purpose into life in a deliberate and evidence-based way. Through a combination of inspiring stories about unlikely high performers and evidence from the bleeding edge of behavioral science, we present you with a toolkit for learning intention-not as a fluffy concept, but as five very trainable skills.

Dan Pilat, Mike James Ross, Sekoul Theodor Krastev (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Performer: Art, Life, Politics

An acclaimed sociologist's exploration of the connections among performances in life, art, and politics In The Performer, Richard Sennett explores the relations between performing in art (particularly music), politics, and everyday experience. It focuses on the bodily and physical dimensions of performing, rather than on words. Sennett is particularly attuned to the ways in which the rituals of ordinary life are performances. The book draws on history and sociology, and more personally on the author's early career as a professional cellist, as well as on his later work as a city planner and social thinker. It traces the evolution of performing spaces in the city; the emergence of actors, musicians, and dancers as independent artists; the inequality between performer and spectator; the uneasy relations between artistic creation and social and religious ritual; the uses and abuses of acting by politicians. The Janus-faced art of performing is both destructive and civilizing.

Richard Sennett (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society

Brought to you by Penguin. A major reappraisal, by the Nobel-prizewinning economist, of the relationship between capitalism and freedom Despite its manifest failures, the narrative of neoliberalism retains its grip on the public mind and the policies of governments all over the world. By this narrative, less regulation and more ‘animal spirits’ capitalism produces not only greater prosperity, but more freedom for individuals in society - and is therefore morally better. But, in The Road to Freedom Stiglitz asks, whose freedom are we – should we be – thinking about? What happens when one person’s freedom comes at the expense of another’s? Should the freedoms of corporations be allowed to impinge upon those of individuals in the ways they now do? Taking on giants of neoliberalism such as Hayek and Friedman and examining how public opinion is formed, Stiglitz reclaims the language of freedom from the right to show that far from ‘free’ – unregulated – markets promoting growth and enterprise, they in fact reduce it, lessening economic opportunities for majorities and siphoning wealth from the many to the few – both individuals and countries. He shows how neoliberal economics and its implied moral system have impacted our legal and social freedoms in surprising ways, from property and intellectual rights, to education and social media. Stiglitz’s eye, as always, is on how we might create the true human flourishing which should be the great aim of our economic and social system, and offers an alternative to that prevailing today. The Road to Freedom offers a powerful re-evaluation of democracy, economics and what constitutes a good society—and provides a roadmap of how we might achieve it. ©2024 Joseph Stiglitz (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Joseph Stiglitz (Author), Paul Boehmer, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Road to Freedom: Economics and the Good Society

Forces on the political Right have justified exploitation by cloaking it in the rhetoric of freedom, leading to pharmaceutical companies freely overcharging for medication, a Big Tech free from oversight, politicians free to incite rebellion, corporations free to pollute, and more. How did we get here? In The Road to Freedom, Nobel prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz dissects America's current economic system and the political ideology that created it, laying bare their twinned failure. Free and unfettered markets have exploited consumers, workers, and the environment alike. These movements now pose a real threat to true economic and political freedom. As an economic advisor to presidents and as chief economist at the World Bank, Stiglitz has witnessed these profound changes firsthand. As he argues, the failures follow from the elites' unshakeable dedication to 'the neoliberal experiment.' The Road to Freedom breaks new ground, showing how economics reframes how to think about freedom and the role of the state in a twenty-first century society. Stiglitz explains a deeper, more humane way to assess freedoms-one that considers what to do when one person's freedom conflicts with another's.

Joseph E. Stiglitz (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Brave and Lovely Woman: Mamah Borthwick and Frank Lloyd Wright

Mamah Borthwick was an energetic, intelligent, and charismatic woman who earned a master's degree at a time when few women even attended college, translated writings by a key figure of the early feminist movement, and taught at one of Germany's best schools for boys. She is best known, however, as the mistress of the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and for her shocking murder at the renowned Wisconsin home he built for her, Taliesin. A Brave and Lovely Woman offers an important corrective to the narrative of Wright and Borthwick, a love story as American in character as it is Shakespearean in conclusion. Little of Wright's life and work has been left untouched by his many admirers, critics, and biographers. And yet the woman who stood at the center of his emotional life, Mamah Borthwick, has fallen into near obscurity. Mark Borthwick-a distant relative-recenters Mamah Borthwick in her own life, presenting a detailed portrait of a fascinating woman, a complicated figure who was at once a dedicated mother and a faithless spouse, a feminist and a member of a conservative sorority, a vivacious extrovert and a social pariah. Careful research and engaging prose at last give Borthwick, an obscure but crucial character in one of America's most famous tragedies, center stage.

Mark Borthwick (Author), Paul Boehmer (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Paul Boehmer