Showing results by narrator "Sean Sonier" in All Categories

For generations, homeownership has been an avenue to a better life. But discriminatory policies left many people out, and today’s trend of rising home prices continues to put housing beyond the reach of significant sectors of the workforce. This is particularly true in America’s urban centers, where a shortage of affordable housing is stifling social and economic mobility.

The world’s a mess. Why should you care? Our world is remarkably automated. Resources remain in abundant supply. Life should be so simple. So prosperous. And yet, the vast majority of people still aren’t making a decent living. America was built on principles of personal freedom, rugged individualism, and self-sufficiency; no country has ever accumulated more power and wealth, abused it less, or used that power more to advance the human condition. However, over the last 50 years, our freedoms have been threatened by mounting personal, corporate, and government debt.

Growing up in poverty-stricken rural South Carolina, Tim Mercer wasn’t exactly set up for entrepreneurial success. Despite the odds stacked against him, he would go on to found the technology consulting business Intelibox, growing the company to a multimillion-dollar business. But Bootstrapped Millionaire is not only the true rags-to-riches story of one man’s life; it’s also an inspirational guide to budding entrepreneurs hoping to reach similar heights.

Vancouver is the so-called City of Glass. A nice place, in any case, and much too nice for noir. Looked at from afar, Vancouver may seem idyllic. But living here is different - cold and baffling and occasionally hostile. While outsiders focus on high-test BC bud, locals see a heroin crisis: Vancouver is home to the first legalized safe-injection site in North America, now heavily taxed by overdoses resulting from street drugs cut with fentanyl. 

Kiam-Kim is three years old when he arrives by ship at Gold Mountain with his father and his grandmother, Poh-Poh. From his earliest years, Kiam-Kim is deeply conscious of his responsibility to maintain the family's honor and to set an example for his younger siblings. However, his life is increasingly complicated by his burgeoning awareness of the world outside Vancouver's Chinatown.

Chinatown, Vancouver, in the late 1930s and '40s provides the setting for this poignant first novel, told through the vivid and intense reminiscences of the three younger children of an immigrant family. They each experience a very different childhood, depending on age and sex, as they encounter the complexities of birth and death, love and hate, kinship and otherness. Mingling with the realities of Canada and the horror of war are the magic, ghosts, paper uncles and family secrets of Poh-Poh, or Grandmother, who is the heart and pillar of the family.

For listeners of Jane Goodall and Lawrence Anthony, this up-close, captivating look at bears traces our complex relationship to the animal throughout history. On Being a Bear draws on history, legends, scientific studies, and the author’s 30 years of observing bears around the world to offer a richly detailed biography of these iconic animals, including the many ways bears have figured in our lives and imaginations.

Like a jigsaw puzzle, a healthy business needs all the right pieces assembled properly in order to see the entire picture. In his latest book, Fit to Grow, Mark Richardson introduces those pieces through a comprehensive collection of simple yet effective business themes that will help you establish a strong foundation and enable you to grow a sustainable business.  

Lots of people dabble in real estate. Some own a few rental units; some flip one or two houses a year; others slowly build a real estate portfolio so that by the time they retire, they own a dozen properties. And then there are those real estate “unicorns” who somehow manage to acquire 30 or 40 properties after only three years in the game—and who go on to build legacy-level wealth. What’s their secret? What do they do differently? It’s all in their mindset. 

When Shuaib Ahmed migrated from India to America at the age of six, he never imagined that internalizing the sage words and actions of his maternal grandmother, the woman who’d raised him, would help him build a thriving legal empire on two opposite coasts of the United States. In Personal Business, he debunks the myth of work-life balance based on lessons from his personal experiences, instead encouraging a new, revolutionary ideology.