Showing results by narrator "Ron Butler" in All Categories

Business leaders today are struggling to manage conflicting imperatives, those of the emerging digital world and those of the bureaucratic world of the past. The act of digital transformation requires a deep change in the moral outlook and ethical assumptions of a business.

Partly a how-to guide on the nitty-gritty of writing, partly a collection of inspiration to set (and meet) ambitious goals, Brave the Page is the go-to resource for middle-grade writers. Narrated in a fun, refreshingly kid-friendly voice, it champions NaNoWriMo's central mission that everyone's stories deserve to be told. The volume includes chapters on character, plot, setting, and the like; motivating essays from popular authors; advice on how to commit to your goals; a detailed plan for writing a novel or story in a month; and more! 

The food isn't great. The counselors are a little strange. And the camp director seems demented. Billy can handle all that. But then strange things start to happen after dark, his parents won't answer his letters, and his fellow campers start to disappear. What's going on? Camp Nightmoon is turning into Camp Nightmare! And Billy might be next.

The neighborhoods we live in impact our lives in so many ways: they determine who we know, what resources and opportunities we have access to, the quality of schools our kids go to, our sense of security and belonging, and even how long we live. Yet too many of us live in neighborhoods plagued by rising crime, school violence, family disintegration, addiction, alienation, and despair. In Fragile Neighborhoods, fragile states expert Seth D. Kaplan offers a bold new vision for addressing social decline in America, one zip code at a time.

The astonishing untold history of America's first Black millionaires - former slaves who endured incredible challenges to amass and maintain their wealth for a century, from the Jacksonian period to the Roaring '20s - self-made entrepreneurs whose unknown success mirrored that of American business heroes such as Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison.

Jordan, Drew, Liam, Maury, and their friends from Riverdale Academy Day School are heading out on a school trip to Paris. As an aspiring artist himself, Jordan can’t wait to see all the amazing art in the famous City of Lights.

In 1994, The Bell Curve and its controversial thesis catapulted the topic of genetic racial differences in IQ to the forefront of a renewed and heated debate. Now, in A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer Harriet A. Washington adds her incisive analysis to the fray, arguing that IQ is a biased and flawed metric, but that it is useful for tracking cognitive damage. Featuring extensive scientific research and Washington's sharp, lively reporting, A Terrible Thing to Waste is sure to outrage, transform the conversation, and inspire debate.

Business mogul Dalton Granger is as passionate as he is gorgeous, but private investigator Jules Bradford won't give him the time of day. She knows all about the youngest Granger brother - a charming bad boy whose only interest is playing the field. But Dalton is more complicated than that, and he's determined to show Jules that behind all the bravado is the honest heart of a devoted son and brother...and a man whose own life is in peril.

Henry Threadgill has had a singular life in music. At 79, the saxophonist, flautist, and celebrated composer is one of three jazz artists (along with Ornette Coleman and Wynton Marsalis) to have won a Pulitzer Prize. In Easily Slip into Another World, Threadgill recalls his childhood and upbringing in Chicago, his family life and education, and his brilliant career in music.

Come sit on the veranda and pour yourself a glass of sweet tea, fortified with a slug of bourbon. Put your feet up and enjoy these stories set in Atlanta, a city sewn from the ashes, where everything that grows is both fertilized and corrupted by the past.

Albert Poland, legendary Broadway and Off-Broadway producer and general manager, presents Stages: A Theater Memoir.

Imagine a pied piper singing in a dazzling falsetto, wearing glittering sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco and on to liberation where nothing was straight-laced or old-fashioned. And everyone, finally, was welcome—to come as themselves. This is not a fairy tale. This was real, mighty real, and disco sensation Sylvester was the piper. Joshua Gamson—a Yale-trained pop culture expert—uses him, a boy who would be fabulous, to lead us through the story of the '70s when a new era of change liberated us from conformity and boredom. 

The House of Erzulie tells the eerily intertwined stories of an ill-fated young couple in the 1850s and the troubled historian who discovers their writings in the present day. Emilie St. Ange, daughter of a Creole slaveowning family in Louisiana, rebels against her parents by embracing spiritualism and advocating the abolition of slavery. Isidore, her biracial, French-born husband, is horrified by the brutalities of plantation life and becomes unhinged by an obsessive affair with a notorious New Orleans vodou practitioner.  

When the 2010 earthquake struck Haiti, Raymond Joseph, the former Haitian ambassador to the United States, found himself rushing back to his beloved country. The earthquake ignited a passion in Joseph, inspiring him to run for president against great competition, including two well-known Haitian pop stars, his nephew Wyclef Jean and Michel Martelly. But he couldn't compete in a democratic system corrupt to the core.

Art T. Burton sifts through fact and legend to discover the truth about one of the most outstanding peace officers in late 19th-century America - and perhaps the greatest lawman of the Wild West era. Fluent in Creek and other Southern native languages, physically powerful, skilled with firearms, and a master of disguise, Bass Reeves was exceptionally adept at apprehending fugitives and outlaws, and his exploits were legendary in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

When Ruby King’s mother is found murdered in their home in Chicago’s South Side, the police dismiss it as another act of violence in a Black neighborhood. But for Ruby, it means she’ll be living alone with her violent father. The only person who understands the gravity of her situation is Ruby’s best friend, Layla. Their closeness is tested when Layla’s father, the pastor of their church, demands that Layla stay away. But what are his true motives? And what is the price for turning a blind eye?

Los Angeles in the '60s was a hotbed of political and social upheaval. The city was a launchpad for Black Power - where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation. The city was home to the Chicano Blowouts and Chicano Moratorium, as well as being the birthplace of “Asian American” as a political identity. It was a locus of the antiwar movement, gay liberation movement, and women’s movement, and, of course, the capital of California counterculture. 

Delia Barnes and Ernest Wrangham met as teens at Celebration Camp, a church-supported conversion therapy program—a dubious, unscientific Christian practice meant to “change” a person’s sexuality. After witnessing a close friend suffer a devastating tragedy in the hands of the camp “counselors,” they escaped in the night, only to take separate roads to their distant homes.

Black Faces in White Places is about "the game" - that is, the competitive world in which we all live and work. The audiobook offers 10 revolutionary strategies for playing, mastering, and changing the game for the current generation, while undertaking a wholesale redefinition of the rules for those who will follow. It is not only about shattering the old "glass ceiling" but also about examining the four dimensions of the contemporary black experience: identity, society, meritocracy, and opportunity.

Written by the former Executive Creative Director of Creations at Cirque du Soleil, this audiobook shows you how to step up your game, flex your creativity, and make big things happen. Whether you work independently or as part of a team, whether you're self-employed or part of an organization, and even if you think creativity isn't a part of the work that you do - this book gives you the perspective, courage, and kick-start you need to think differently about the things you do every day.