Showing results by narrator "Matthew Josdal" in All Categories

In February 2013, Toronto's former mayor, Rob Ford, was caught on video smoking crack cocaine. Weeks later, he was accused of groping a campaign rival; had to leave a gala for being too intoxicated; and was fired as the coach of a high school football team. The events were part of a stream of Rob Ford "mishaps", which include a DUI; accusations of domestic violence; a trial where the Toronto City Council stripped him of his powers; even accusations of murder.

The Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, Canada, is about as close to urban hell as you can get in the Western Hemisphere. Yet in this cauldron of drugs, shattered dreams, and extreme violence, Tom Bauer and his girlfriend Paulie - both ex-junkies and parents of baby Melody - are trying to make a life for themselves.

Piers Anthony delivers another tale set in the best-selling world of Xanth, filled with magic, surprises, adventure, and a few puns. Here's what the author has to say about his new book: "Five Portraits is a kind of sequel to Board Stiff in that it picks up where the other leaves off, with the same characters. Apart from that, it's one of my favorites within the series.

"I'm actually a smart girl who would make any man an excellent wife. But no man sees that. No man is interested in my mind or personality, just my whatevers. So here is my wish: I'm board stiff. I want Adventure, Excitement, and Romance." So begins Piers Anthony's 38th Xanth novel, in which Irrelevant Candy looks at her reflection in the water of the shallow well and sees luxuriant midnight-black hair reaching down to her breathtakingly slender waist, matching the dark eyes in her lovely face.

On a hot Saturday night in Manhattan, Father Duffy sits in a confessional, growing alarmed as he listens to the voice of a distraught young man who speaks of bloody hair and a dead woman and a compulsion to do things with a hammer that he does not understand. Before the priest can persuade the man to confess to the police, the killer flees, still clutching the hammer.

On his 13th birthday, Buddy gets shipped up north by his religious mother, who can't cope with his sister's teenage pregnancy. Just as he resigns himself to spending the entire summer at Gram's farm caring for kittens and cows, his bitter sister Brinda arrives, ending his peace and solitude. When her boyfriend Jackie shows up and turns his attentions to Buddy from his bride-to-be, Buddy must do what Mama said - or take matters into his own hands.

An eye-opening account of how Congress today really works - and doesn’t - that follows the dramatic journey of the sweeping financial reform bill enacted in response to the Great Crash of 2008. The founding fathers expected Congress to be the most important branch of government and gave it the most power. When Congress is broken - as its justifiably dismal approval ratings suggest - so is our democracy.

Spanning four decades of dramatic advances in astronomy and planetary science, this book tells the story of eleven iconic exploratory missions and how they have fundamentally transformed our scientific and cultural perspectives on the universe and our place in it

Our health care system is crippled by desperate efforts to prevent the inevitable. A third of the national Medicare budget - nearly $175 billion - is spent on the final year of life, and a third of that amount on the final month, often on expensive (and futile) treatments. Such efforts betray a fundamental flaw in how we think about healthcare: we squander resources on hopeless situations, instead of using them to actually improve health.

It's Christmas Eve in Manhattan. An eminent plastic surgeon slips on the ice, lands on his butt, and sprains his ankle. So far, so good. A woman such as he's never known yanks him to his feet and conjures the miracle of a taxi. Harrison recuperates with Franz Schubert, Bette Davis, and a foundling cat. Then it's back to rhinoplasties, liposuction, and the peccadilloes of his obnoxious colleagues. It is only when he collides again with that strangely helpful woman that things take a wild and revolutionary turn.

Do not let Etgar Keret deceive you. The Israeli writer who's worked in film, illustration, animation, and radio, is a storyteller in all senses of the word. Like a conman, he'll promise you a simple story and then the next thing you know your emotional reserves have been completely emptied. It's a literary bait and switch, and he'll get you every time.

In a moment of madness, Jeremy Holland's parents were killed by a gunman in a Seattle mall. Now he faces a new life with his uncle Ed, a man with a vastly different lifestyle from the one Jeremy is used to. As he sits on the train hurtling toward Chicago, he can barely believe the terrible truth. He has no mother, no father, no home. Suddenly the impossible happens - again - as the train crashes in a blaze of fire, twisted metal, and screaming people. Jeremy staggers off, wandering aimlessly. He finds a deserted cabin in the woods, which seems to be just waiting for him.

Aristotle's Politics is a work of political philosophy. The end of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics declared that the inquiry into ethics necessarily follows into politics, and the two works are frequently considered to be parts of a larger treatise, or perhaps connected lectures, dealing with the philosophy of human affairs. Aristotle is generally regarded as one of the most influential ancient thinkers in a number of philosophical fields, including political theory.

Many of us assume that who we really are is something deep inside us, an inner sanctuary that contains our true selves. In Who You Are, Michael Spivey argues that the opposite is true: that you are more than a brain, more than a brain and body, and more than all your assumptions about who you are.

Tortured by nightmares about the teens who roughed him up, Steve Mariotti sought counseling. When his therapist suggested that he face his fears, Mariotti closed his small import-export business and became a teacher at the city's most notorious public school - Boys and Girls High in Bed-Stuy. Although his nightmares promptly ceased, Mariotti's out-of-control students rapidly drove him to despair. One day, Mariotti stepped out of the classroom so his students wouldn't see him cry.

Know how your company can accelerate growth by not only tapping into new growth vectors, but also by adapting its organization, culture, and processes.

The challenges facing today's sales executives and their organizations continue to grow, but so do the expectations that they will find ways to overcome them and drive consistent sales growth. There are no simple solutions to this situation, but in this thoroughly updated second edition of Sales Growth, experts from McKinsey & Company build on their practical blueprint for achieving this goal and explore what world-class sales executives are doing right now to find growth and capture it - as well as how they are creating the capabilities to keep growing in the future.

Big Data Revolution is a guide to improving performance, making better decisions, and transforming business through the effective use of big data. Listeners are guided through tried-and-true methodologies for getting more out of data and using it to the utmost advantage. This audiobook describes the major trends emerging in the field, the pitfalls and triumphs being experienced, and the many considerations surrounding big data, all while guiding listeners toward better decision-making from the perspective of a data scientist.