Showing results by narrator "Rob Shapiro" in All Categories

Julie Jones has left her suffocating marriage. With her teenage daughter, Jess, she’s starting over. Their new house in Oceanside is the first step toward a new life. Even if it does come with the unexpected. The previous owners, a pastor and his wife, have left something - or rather someone - behind. Tom Dean has a bitter hatred for the father who considers him a lost cause, and for the woman who’s moved into their family’s house. The only home he’s ever known. He’s never going to leave. She thinks he’ll be gone in three days, but Tom has the perfect plan.

Ben Katchor retells the history of where we choose to eat - a history that starts with the first man who was allowed to enter a walled garden and encouraged by the garden's owner to enjoy its fruits. He examines the biblical milk-and-meat taboo, the first vegetarian practices, and the invention of the restaurant. Katchor illuminates the historical confluence of events and ideas that led to the development of a “milekhdike (dairy) personality” and the proliferation of dairy restaurants in America.

Award-winning journalist Nathan Bomey argues that Trump did not usher the post-truth era into being. He was its inevitable outcome. Bomey points to recent trends that have created the perfect seedbed for spin, distortion, deception, and bald-faced lies: shifting news habits, the rise of social media, the spread of entrenched ideologies, and the failure of schools to teach basic critical-thinking skills.

Steve Jobs, adopted in infancy by a family in San Francisco, packed a lot of life into 56 short years. In this Who Was...? biography, children will learn how his obsession with computers and technology at an early age led him to cofound and run Apple in addition to turning Pixar into a groundbreaking animation studio. A college dropout, Jobs took unconventional steps in his path to success and inspired the best and the brightest to come with him and "change the world".

Among the unconventional attitudes of the Beat writers as they rebelled against the conformism of the late 1940s and 1950s was their relaxed stance on sexuality. At a time when gay people were considered mentally ill or criminal, the Beats celebrated spontaneity and freedom in thought, word, and action. They were queer in the fullest sense of the word: their fluid sexuality challenged all sexual and romantic conventions.

When 1919 began, the city of Chicago seemed on the verge of transformation. Modernizers had an audacious, expensive plan to turn the city from a brawling, unglamorous place into "the Metropolis of the World". But just as the dream seemed within reach, pandemonium broke loose and the city’s highest ambitions were suddenly under attack by the same unbridled energies that had given birth to them in the first place.

You know the feeling. You meet someone new - at a party or at work - and you just hit it off. There is an instant sense of camaraderie. In a word, you “click”. From the best-selling authors of Sway, Click is a fascinating psychological investigation of the forces behind what makes us click with certain people, or become fully immersed in whatever activity or situation we’re involved in. After all, when you’re in the “zone”, you’re happier and more productive. Why is it that we click in certain situations and with certain people, but not with others?

Vret McClintock, a young channel in training at the world-famous Rialite First Year Camp, sees a dreary life before him until the instant he overhears the voice of Ilin Sumz saying the words he's been thinking - Certainly don't intend to stay a QN-3 for the rest of my life. His ambition awakened by that magical sentence, he sets out to qualify as a QN-2 before he graduates, and to meet the owner of that sexy voice!

This is the story of Digen Farris, Head of the House of Zeor, and descendant of the legendary Klyd Farris, as he struggles to find some kind of balance between the Simes and Gens.

George Mason was a short, bookish man who was a friend and neighbor of athletic, broad-shouldered George Washington. Unlike Washington, Mason has been virtually forgotten by history. But this new biography of patriot George Mason makes a convincing case that Mason belongs in the pantheon of honored Founding Fathers. Trained in the law, Mason was also a farmer, philosopher, botanist, and musician. He was one of the architects of the Declaration of Independence, an author of the Bill of Rights, and one of the strogest proponents of religious liberty in American history.

First there were the "Profiteers", investors who sought to make money regardless of the cost to society. Then came the "Do-Gooders", investors who avoided "bad" companies and supported "good" ones, based on philosophy over financials. Now this book introduces a brand new breed of investor: The HIP Investor.

For only the fourth time in American history, the House of Representatives has conducted an impeachment inquiry into a sitting United States president. This landmark document details the findings of the House Intelligence Committee’s historic investigation of whether President Donald J. Trump committed impeachable offenses when he sought to have Ukraine announce investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The Impeachment Report is necessary listening for every American concerned about the fate of our democracy.

Uh-oh! Squish’s friend Pod just hasn’t been himself lately. One minute he’s happy-dancing; the next he’s sobbing in his soup. What’s going on? (Hint: “mitosis” is the process that splits single-celled organisms. That’s right, splits.) It is truly Pod vs. Pod - and may the best Pod, umm, win?

Uh-oh! A deadly disease is spreading through Small Pond! People are dropping like flies! And yikes - it looks like Squish is patient number one. Will this epic epidemic be the end of everyone’s favorite amoeba? (And if it is, who will he leave his comic collection to?) Find out the answers in the seventh hilarious Squish adapted-for-audio novel: Deadly Disease of Doom!

Gulp! A scary new movie has everyone talking - and Squish is spooked out of his cellular mind! But it’s just a movie, right? Right?! Will Squish be eaten alive by a terrifying movie monster? Will his friends think he’s (gasp!) totally chicken? And can Squish’s comic book hero, Super Amoeba, defeat his creepiest foe yet? Find out the answers to these questions and more in the sixth Squish adapted-for-audio novel: Fear the Amoeba - saving the world, one cell at a time!

Beep! Beep! Squish can't get enough of his awesome new video game Mitosis! (Mitosis is what happens when cells divide. Who says video games can't be educational?) In fact, he may even be obsessed! He plays at home...at school...even in his sleep! Are video games taking over Squish's life?! And can Squish's favorite comic book hero, Super Amoeba, stop the Creeping Black Mold that's taking over Small Pond?

It's soccer season! But the Waterfleas (Hey, it could be worse - Okay, maybe it couldn't.) are getting pummelled game after game. Squish knows winning isn't everything, but it's something right? Can Squish turn the losing streak around when he becomes team captain? Will Pod figure out how to harness the power of lightning? And how can amoebas play soccer when they don't have any feet? Find out in the electrifyingly funny Squish, Book 4: Captain Disaster - saving the world, one cell at a time!

School's out! Everyone's favorite amoeba is headed to summer camp! But instead of super awesome fun, Squish's summer is turning out to be super awesome terrifying! For one thing, Squish can't swim. And to make matters worse, his new camp friend is a Hydra (scientific fact: A hydra's tentacles can paralyze you!). Will Squish sink or will he swim this summer? (And what's up with Pod and black holes anyways??)

He's baa-ack! It's a brand new school year for everyone's favorite amoeba! Will Squish finally get to sit with the cool kids at lunch? Will Pod stop the giant asteroid from destroying the world? Will the leeches be the end of Super Amoeba? And what makes cafeteria nachos so delicious anyway? Find out the answers to these questions and more in Squish's second electrifying, fast-paced adventure!

It's Squish - a graphic novel series, now adapted for audio, about a comic book-loving, twinkie-eating grade school amoeba trying to find his place in the world (or at least trying to make it through a school day). Inspired by his favorite comic book hero, Super Amoeba!, Squish has to navigate school (bullies! detention! Principal Planaria!), family (dad: Hates to wear a tie. Secretly listens to heavy metal in the car), and friends (Peggy-rainbows! happy all the time! and Pod...who's...well, you just have to meet him).