Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.
Audiobooks Narrated by Steve Marvel
Browse audiobooks narrated by Steve Marvel, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.com where you can get 3 FREE audiobooks on us
'With its surging storyline, extraordinary events, and depth of character, this gripping tale of 120 Chinese boys sent to America . . . reads more like a novel than an obscure slice of history.' —Publishers Weekly, starred review
In 1872, China—ravaged by poverty, population growth, and aggressive European armies—sent 120 boys to America to learn the secrets of Western innovation. They studied at New England's finest schools and were driven by a desire for progress and reform. When anti-Chinese fervor forced them back home, the young men had to overcome a suspicious imperial court and a country deeply resistant to change in technology and culture. Fortunate Sons tells a remarkable story, weaving together the dramas of personal lives with the fascinating tale of a nation's endeavor to become a world power.
In 2003, local Genovese family captain 'Big Al' Bruno got shot five times with a .45 caliber handgun as he walked out of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel social club in Springfield, Massachusetts. Since Vito Genovese took his empire north from New York City, a string of mobsters dating back a hundred years have operated in the Greater Springfield area. With this migration came murders, mayhem, treachery, criminal trials, and constant corruption.
Not until 2010 did authorities charge new Springfield Genovese boss Anthony 'Bingy' Arillotta with Bruno's murder. At the time, Arillotta's connections spanned the Northeast—from the Patriarca family in Rhode Island to the Angiulos in Boston to the Gambinos and Bonannos in New York, and from Billy Grasso and Whitey Tropiano in New Haven to Whitey Bulger's Winter Hill Gang. During his seven-year reign, Arillotta had beautiful women, total power, and millions in cash. But it eventually came with a devastating price.
South End Syndicate tells the untold story of a young man infatuated with Springfield wiseguys who rose from being a street criminal to becoming his city's Mafia boss. How did a young Italian-American kid from Springfield work his way up the chain to become a Made wiseguy in charge of Western New England? Arillotta, now a free man, tells a timeless tale of power, money, and murder.
For most of us, fond memories of the Christmas season are inseparable from television's holiday presentations. The world loves everything from iconic cartoons like How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas to the groundbreaking Julia sitcom segment, 'I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas,' Christmas in Rockefeller Center, and the 1992 television-remake of Christmas in Connecticut directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Christmas TV Memories: Nostalgic Holiday Favorites of the Small Screen embraces it all, offering a tinsel-decked traipse down memory lane and chronicling animated classics, variety shows, made-for-television features, and holiday-specific episodes of series like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. With a foreword by bestselling Free to Be You and Me author and That Girl star Marlo Thomas, along with commentary from other celebrities, historical quotes, and insights from entertainment journalists and archivists, Christmas TV Memories serves as the go-to companion to the small screen's most cherished holiday programs.
Birding for Boomers is a friendly, accessible, and humorous guide to discovering the joys of bird watching. Beginning birders of all ages will get answers to every question they may have, like which birds like feeders, the difference between a finch and a flicker, or which birding app to use. The guide also helps birders plan everything from local explorations to exciting 'bird-cations.'
Late-bloomer birders will appreciate Collard's personal insights and tips for overcoming aging-related challenges such as physical handicaps, poor hearing, or failing eyesight. Additional sections cover sharing birding with others and contributing to community science, habitat stewardship, and bird conservation.
Appealing and lighthearted, Birding for Boomers will help a wide range of listeners overcome any doubts and get started with watching, understanding, and conserving our feathered friends.
Artificial intelligence surrounds us. More and more of the systems and services you interact with every day are based on AI technology. Most AI is narrowly specific; that is, it can only do a single thing, in a single context. For example, your spellchecker can't do mathematics, and the world's best chess-playing program can't play Tetris. Human intelligence is different. We can solve a variety of tasks, including those we have not seen before. In Artificial General Intelligence, Julian Togelius explores technical approaches to developing more general artificial intelligence and asks what general AI would mean for human civilization.
Togelius starts by giving examples of narrow AI that have superhuman performance in some way. He then discusses what it would mean to have general intelligence, by looking at definitions from psychology, ethology, and computer science. Next, he explores the two main families of technical approaches to developing more general artificial intelligence: foundation models through self-supervised learning, and open-ended learning in virtual environments. The final chapters of the book investigate potential artificial general intelligence beyond the strictly technical aspects. The questions discussed here investigate whether such general AI would be conscious, whether it would pose a risk to humanity, and how it might alter society.
Start with Who, with a foreword by EOS Visionaries Mike Paton and Mark O'Donnell, is the next generation beyond business books written decades ago, including Simon Sinek's Start with Why and The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson. The groundbreaking science, examples, and concepts in this book are delivered in easy-to-understand terms and designed to help drive meteoric success for sales, marketing, and recruiting professionals who have started or work for small to medium businesses.
Over 90 percent of customers buy on trust, but only 3 percent of salespersons are trusted. Start with Who takes science-based storytelling for sales, marketing, and talent acquisition to a new level by showing you how to blend Aristotle's Persuasion Model, business neuromarketing, the educational 4MAT system, and a new approach to the Three-Act Play to build customer and candidate trust with only twelve bullet points and a story. All salespersons know that 'facts tell and stories sell.' Having trained and coached thousands of sales and marketing professionals for leading firms, New York Times bestselling author W. Craig Reed leverages decades of experience to help individuals hone their messaging down to a few short bullet points presented in a compelling yet easy-to-understand story format designed to teach, persuade, and drive action.
What explains the massive worldwide success of video games such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Pokemon Go? Game companies and their popularity are poorly understood and often ignored from the standpoint of traditional business strategy. What lessons can we draw from its major successes and failures about the future of entertainment?
One Up offers a pioneering empirical analysis of innovation and strategy in the video game industry to explain how it has evolved from a fringe activity to become a mainstream form of entertainment. Joost van Dreunen analyzes how game makers, publishers, and platform holders have tackled strategic challenges to make the video game industry what it is today. Using more than three decades of rigorously compiled industry data, he demonstrates that video game companies flourish when they bring the same level of creativity to business strategy that they bring to game design. Filled with case studies of companies such as Activision Blizzard, Apple, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Microsoft, Nexon, Sony, Take-Two Interactive, Tencent, and Valve, this book forces us to rethink common misconceptions around the emergence of digital and mobile gaming. One Up is required for investors, creatives, managers, and anyone looking to learn about the major drivers of change and growth in contemporary entertainment.
Set in a revolutionary era of physics and science when a series of rapid-fire discoveries was upending our understanding of the universe, Splinters of Infinity by Mark Wolverton tells a little-known story: the tale of two of America's foremost physicists, Robert Millikan (1868-1953) and Arthur Compton (1892-1962), who found themselves locked in an intense, often deeply personal, conflict about cosmic rays. Confirmed in 1912, cosmic rays-enigmatic forms of penetrating radiation-seemed to raise all new questions about the origins of the universe, but they also offered the potential to explain everything-or reveal the existence of God.
In engaging, accessible prose, Wolverton takes the listener through the twists and turns of the Millikan-Compton debate, one of the first major public examples of how heated the controversies among scientists could become-and the lengths that scientists would go to settle their disputes. Along the way, Wolverton probes the forever elusive question, still unanswered today, about where cosmic rays come from and what they reveal about black holes, distant galaxies, the existence of dark matter and dark energy, and the birth of the universe, concluding that these splinters of infinity may not hold the keys to the secret of creation but do bring us ever closer to it.
Make anxiety work for you.
Work is stressful: We race to meet deadlines. We extend ourselves to return favors for colleagues. We set ambitious goals for ourselves and our teams. We measure ourselves against metrics, our competitors, and sometimes, our colleagues. Some of us even go beyond tangible metrics to internalize stress and fear of missing the mark-ruminating over presentations that didn't go according to plan, imagining worst-case scenarios, or standing frozen, paralyzed by perfectionism. But hypervigilance, worry, and catastrophizing don't have to hold you back at work. When channeled thoughtfully, anxiety can motivate us to be more resourceful, productive, and creative. It can break down barriers and create new bonds with our colleagues.
Managing Your Anxiety will help you distinguish stress from anxiety, learn what anxiety looks like for you, understand it, and respond to it with self-compassion at work. With the latest psychological research and practical advice from leading experts, you'll learn how to recognize how your anxiety manifests itself; manage it in small, day-to-day moments and in more challenging times; experiment and find a mindfulness practice that works for you; and build a support infrastructure to help you manage your anxiety over the long term.
From the author of America's Best Day Hikes, essential tips give you reason to enjoy the season!
Your daily dose of nature doesn't have to retreat with the warm weather. The Joy of Winter Hiking is your ultimate guide to getting outdoors in the most underrated season. In fact, author Derek Dellinger believes you should be seeking outdoor adventure in colder months, not just in spite of snow and cloudy days, but because of these factors! From unmatched snow-capped views to the mental and physical health benefits of nature to precious wildlife sightings, the winter holds endless hiking opportunities.
Derek prepares listeners to venture safely and securely into nature. There's advice on the gear you need to get going, the wildlife you might expect to find, understanding weather risks, and even the how-tos of cold-weather camping. Made for the winter sportsman, tree hugger, and avid hiker alike, this book is a thorough guide and breathtaking showcase of what's awaiting you on the trail.
A Guide to Returning Peace and Harmony to the Planet
With humanity facing its greatest series of simultaneous crises, Ervin Laszlo offers a scientifically based perspective on what is called for at this critical juncture of our existence: a phase of upshift to higher levels of order and coherence to keep us on our evolutionary path. This book lays out why this upshift is needed, what resources we possess to draw upon, and what the action steps are that will move us all toward this achievable vision of well-being and wholeness. With an inclusive list of conscious organizations already contributing to this vision, Laszlo's book is essential listening for completing the process of global transformation already underway.
The fascinating story of the people who created Wi-Fi, their early battles against skeptical opponents, and how it ultimately exploded across the globe to become synonymous with the internet itself-as told by one of Wi-Fi's central figures.
Eighteen billion Wi-Fi devices are in use around the world, with four billion more added every year. Connecting everyone to everything, it is central to our lives today. How did this happen? Beyond Everywhere is the surprising story in its entirety: the techno/political conflicts at its birth, the battles against competing technologies as it was being nurtured, and the international diplomatic intrigue as it spread across the planet. This vivid narrative about the people who gave Wi-Fi to the world is told with humor, insight, and charm by one of Wi-Fi's key developers.
'Whether you are a fan of technology or simply a fan of great storytelling, you will be captivated by Beyond Everywhere, the heretofore untold story of how the fundamental Wi-Fi connectivity we all rely on came to be. Because of his unique and longstanding position at the very center of the Wi-Fi world, there is no one better than Greg Ennis to tell this dramatic tale. Now synonymous with the internet itself-and with billions of users-the Wi-Fi story has finally been told.' -Edgar Figueroa, President and CEO, Wi-Fi Alliance
