Showing results by narrator "Jonathan Todd Ross" in All Categories

Monreith, Massachusetts, was once a small community of whalers and farmers. These days it’s a well-to-do town filled with commuters drawn to its rugged coastline and country roads. A peaceful, predictable place—until popular restaurateur Laurel Thibodeau is found brutally murdered in her own home. Suspicion naturally falls on Laurel’s husband, Simon, who had gambling debts that only her life insurance policy could fix. But there are other rumors too. Among the group of six friends gathered for Alice Stone’s fortieth birthday, theories abound concerning Laurel’s death.

One of Rome's most powerful women, Clodia has been maligned over two thousand years as a promiscuous, husband-murdering harlot, thanks to her starring role in one of Cicero's most famous speeches in the Forum. But Cicero was lying, in defense of his own interests. Like so many women libeled or erased from history, Clodia had a life that was much more interesting, complex, and nuanced than the corrupted version passed down through generations.

In Capitalism Created the Climate Crisis and Capitalism Will Solve It: The Market Forces Catalyzing a Climate Technology Renaissance, distinguished author Kentaro Kawamori delivers a fascinating and timely exploration of the interplay between capitalism and climate change. He explains how the capitalist system helped to contribute to the current crisis of global warming and how that same system will help to end it.

Over the last decade, blockchains and crypto have opened up a new terrain for political action. It is not surprising, however, that the crypto space has also become overrun by unscrupulous marketing, theft, and scams. The problem is real, but it isn't a new one. Capitalism has ruined crypto, but that shouldn't be the end of it. Blockchain Radicals shows us how this has happened, and how to fix crypto in a way that is understandable for those who have never owned a cryptocurrency as well as those who are building their own decentralized applications.

What would you do if your son suddenly disappeared in Syria, and you had no idea what had happened to him? Would you contact the FBI? The State Department? Pray? Would you Google “What to do if your son disappears in Syria”? When the unthinkable happened, the answer, in the case of Ann Goodwin and her husband Tag, was: all of the above. Their 30-year-old son Sam, who was attempting to become one of the few people in history to travel to every single country on the planet, vanished in a supposed safe-zone run by the Kurds on the Turkish border.

Gettysburg explains the battle's place in the Civil War, why two vast armies clashed there, and how, in the century and a half since, it has been re-imagined, re-created, and re-enacted. It is the story of a battle which no one planned but which became the bloodiest encounter of the war, and one with dramatically high stakes. The postwar romanticization of Gettysburg as the place of "might-have-beens" is based on a kernel of reality.

Jack Collins's upstart law firm is struggling to make ends meet. His solution is to bring in a new senior partner, a seasoned estate-planning lawyer well connected with the Greenwich elite. Unfortunately, his new partner is hiding a secret that could bring down the entire firm. When Jack catches the lawyer embezzling funds from a millionaire's estate, he thinks he's uncovered an isolated crime. But as he slowly connects the clues, he stumbles into a far larger conspiracy involving some of Connecticut's most powerful figures.

Swirling snow may have stranded me at this tiny airport in the middle of nowhere on Christmas Eve, but it has nothing on the storm raging inside me when he walks into the terminal. Artemis Warren. My first love and the man who shattered my world. I thought I locked my feelings for him safely away in the past, but one look is all it takes for me to drown in his icy blue eyes again. So much time has passed. I’m no longer that naïve teenager standing on a beach, wishing the boy would choose me. Now, I’m hiding a secret that could unravel both our lives.

In Trivergence, Bob Tapscott, writer, speaker, complex system designer, and former CIO, introduces an exciting new concept in explaining how the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) will transform business and society.

In July 2002, the Eastlake police discovered a decomposed body in a modest studio apartment in Cleveland, Ohio. It appeared to be a suicide by firearm. The man was Joseph Newton Chandler III, a retiree whom neighbors and former colleagues described as quiet, secretive, and strange. But as the investigation progressed, less and less about Joseph's life and identity made sense. In 2018, thanks to scientific advances in DNA, the man's true identity was finally discovered: Robert Ivan Nichols.

Leena Edenfrell never dreamed of igniting a war, and her pair bond, Noc Feyreigner, never wanted to set foot on a battlefield again. But when their enemies combine forces, they have no choice but to fight. While Noc makes moves to reclaim his throne, Leena acts as the new Crown of the Charmer’s Council, searching for a way to stop the enemy from raising an ancient dragon destined to burn their world to ash.

For years, Thom Darkfell has used his cartography skills to advise Lomair's king of the country's shifting borders. A valued academic, Thom is excluded from the military drafts until whispers of dark abominations and mass casualties reach the king's ears. The resulting conscription thrusts Thom into Lomair's losing army. A realist, Thom ignores the wild myths circling through the ranks-until a monster's jaws snap through the folds of reality and crush a man before Thom's eyes. With his dying breath, the Realm Walker passes an impossible task to Thom.

The book is a seminal contribution from a leading futurist who, over the past three decades, has explored each of the most disruptive forces shaping our world today. Eco Tech brings all this thinking together, fusing insight from thought leaders with the author's own considerable experience, to explore scenarios for 2050 and discuss eco-effectiveness as an established practice for governments, corporations, startups, and individuals.

Seeking Attention explores the essential but elusive nature of attention through a fresh lens. Drawing inspiration from Simone Weil's assertion that "attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity," this audiobook brings attention into focus through a novel collection of short "portraits" that each examine how archetypal figures—like the detective, the fan, the therapist, the parent, and the lover—engage with attention in unique ways.

The Shortest History of Music takes us on a lively tour through several thousands of years of music history, tracing our relationship with this essential art and allowing us to freshly appreciate and understand music today.

Farmers in some of the world's oldest agricultural areas were toiling year after year, only to find that modern industrial agriculture was turning on itself. Industrial agriculture's effects on our climate and environment were multiplying and worsening, until the very families growing the world's food were starving.

When a baby is discovered floating in a basket along the quiet canals of Venice, a guild of artisans takes him in and raises him as a son, skilled in each of their trades. Although the boy, Sebastien Trovato, has wrestled with questions of his origins, it isn’t until a woman washes ashore on his lagoon island that answers begin to emerge. In hunting down his story, Sebastien must make a choice that could alter not just his own future, but also that of the beloved floating city.

New York City, 1968: The customers at Café Marie don’t come just for the excellent coffee and pastries. They come for the sophisticated ambiance, and the illusion of being somewhere other than a bustling, exhausting city. Headwaiter Charles Ward helps create that illusion through impeccable service—unobtrusive, nearly invisible, yet always watchful.

In the wake of Trump's presidency, Republican-led states have joined in an alarming assault on our democratic system. But the drift toward authoritarianism in red states has far deeper roots. In States of Neglect, journalist William Kleinknecht surveys the landscape of neglect in states including Texas, Florida, and Arizona through the experiences of a rich cast of characters.

A legendary diplomat, scholar, and civil rights leader, Ralph Bunche was one of the most prominent Black Americans of the twentieth century. The first African American to obtain a political science Ph.D. from Harvard and a celebrated diplomat at the United Nations, he was once so famous he handed out the Best Picture award at the Oscars. Yet today Ralph Bunche is largely forgotten. In The Absolutely Indispensable Man, Kal Raustiala restores Bunche to his rightful place in history.