Academic Life

Join Melissa Bernstein, co-founder of the wildly successful toy company Melissa & Doug, on a journey to triumph over anxiety, depression, and despair - a story she hopes will help others find their path to meaning and inner peace. Now, more than ever, Melissa’s message is needed by others, and her promise to all who journey with her is that you are not alone. This uniquely annotated audiobook takes fellow seekers behind the scenes of Melissa’s transformation with bonus commentary and insights, to help them with their own journeys.

How did a couple of quirky siblings from suburban Pittsburgh end up as the king and queen of eclectic-design chic with their own HGTV show? They never let fear get in the way of a great idea. Leanne and Steve Ford share their secrets for how to turn dreams into reality.They share the details of their journey, including the beliefs that have inspired them and the experiences that have challenged them along the way.

The inside story of the founding and growth of Taylor Guitars, one of the world's most successful guitar manufacturers. Bob Taylor mixes the details of his experience as a tradesman and cofounder of Taylor Guitars, a world-famous acoustic and electric guitar manufacturer, with philosophical life lessons that have practical application for building a business. From the "a-ha" moment in junior high school that inspired his very first guitar, Taylor has been living the American dream.

In The Defense is Ready, Leslie Abramson, the brilliant and outspoken defense attorney, takes you inside today's courtroom for a stunning firsthand account of how the courage and timidity, wisdom and folly, selflessness and venality of real lawyers, judges, victims and defendants are interwoven into the complex fabric of our often frustrating criminal justice system.

In December 2008, the world watched as master financier Bernard L. Madoff was taken away from his posh Manhattan apartment in handcuffs, accused of swindling thousands of innocent victims - including friends and family - out of billions of dollars in the world's largest Ponzi scheme. Madoff went to jail; he will spend the rest of his life there. But what happened to his devoted wife and sons?

The term robber baron has largely fallen into disuse in the 21st century but there was a time when it was a popular epithet that described the kind of man who, it was believed, built his fortune by taking things belonging to others. Of all the men labeled as robber barons during the Gilded Age, few were as influential as Henry Clay Frick, who rubbed shoulders with men like J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie while overseeing some of the era’s biggest companies.

Pavlov's dogs are to Psychology 101 what Rome is to antiquity classes. This particular series of experiments and the concept of classical conditioning likely ring a bell for many readers and listeners because they have been referenced in countless texts, both scientific and otherwise, and they have seeped into various forms of pop culture throughout the years.

Mad Women is a tell-all account of life in the New York advertising world of the 1960s and '70s from Jane Maas, a female copywriter who succeeded in the primarily male environment portrayed by the hit TV show Mad Men. Fans of the show are dying to know how accurate it is: did people really have that much sex in the office? Were there really three-martini lunches? Were women really second-class citizens? Jane Maas says the answer to all three questions is unequivocally yes....

Producer of television’s iconic Degrassi franchise Stephen Stohn tells stories from behind the scenes and of making it in the music and television world in this star-studded, rock ’n’ roll trip through a Canadian show business explosion. Stohn, who has been at the heart of the entertainment industry for over forty years, shares a lifetime of experience and unique insights into how dreams are turned into reality.

What do Hedy Lamarr, avant-garde composer George Antheil, and your cell phone have in common? The answer is spread-spectrum radio: a revolutionary inven­tion based on the rapid switching of communications sig­nals among a spread of different frequencies. Without this technology, we would not have the digital comforts that we take for granted today. Only a writer of Richard Rhodes’s caliber could do justice to this remarkable story. Unhappily married to a Nazi arms dealer, Lamarr fled to America at the start of World War II; she brought with her not only her theatrical talent....

In the tradition of books by such bestselling physician-authors as Atul Gawande, Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Danielle Ofri, this beautifully written memoir by an emergency room doctor takes place during one of his routine shifts at an urban ER. Intimately narrated as it follows the experiences of real patients, it is filled with fascinating, adrenaline-pumping scenes of rescues and deaths, and the critical, often excruciating follow-through in caring for the patients’ families.

En este audiolibro, Sara García Alonso -primera astronauta española de la Agencia Espacial Europea- comparte su particular experiencia, salpicada de anécdotas personales, para ofrecernos claves sobre cómo plantear y afrontar los desafíos. Con un testimonio inspirador y vitalista, la autora fusiona ensayo, ficción y autobiografía para reflexionar sobre los impulsos que nos guían a lo largo de la vida y moldean nuestra forma de ver el mundo, al tiempo que nos alienta a no rendirnos nunca en la persecución de nuestros sueños.

Drawing on the author’s personal experiences with both tame and wild moose, this handbook contains a wealth of information about this unique animal from all corners of the world. An overview of moose biology is featured, including their specialized diet and the relationship between sex and antlers, where size really does matter. Covering the history of moose on earth and the marked fluctuations in populations that have occurred over time, this guide also contains accessible chapters exploring moose diseases, moose and traffic, moose as a resource, and the uses of live moose in several ways, ranging from transport and clothing to dairy animals and pets.

In the 1950s, Anne Innis Dagg was a young zoologist with a lifelong love of the giraffe and a dream to study them in Africa. Based on extensive journals and letters home, Pursuing Giraffe vividly chronicles the realization of that dream and the year that she spent studying and documenting giraffe behaviour.

The Swedish firm Hästens enjoys an outstanding international reputation for creating the finest beds in the world, as evidenced by a client list that includes everyone from Hollywood royalty to actual crowned heads of state. Its luxurious, handcrafted, top-of-the-line Grand Vividus sells for as much as $750,000. Now the family business lovingly run by fifth generation and CEO Jan Ryde sells its beautiful beds in fifty countries around the world. In When Business Is Love, Jan shares his leadership philosophy and explains how any business, in any field, can operate on the basis of love.

The story of the twentieth century is largely the story of the power of science and technology. Within that story is the incredible tale of the human conflict between Robert Oppenheimer, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller—the scientists most responsible for the advent of weapons of mass destruction. How did science—and its practitioners—enlisted in the service of the state during the Second World War, become a slave to its patron during the Cold War?

In this debut collection of essays, Pace tells of his years as a career paramedic—wandering through the highs and the lows, the saves and the losses, the patients he remembers, and the ones he tries to forget. In 1997, Pace began his career as an EMT because he wanted to do something exciting. He wanted to help people too. And he thought those two things—excitement and helping people—would exist hand in hand. With a little sprinkle of glory thrown in for good measure.

In 2001, the critically acclaimed film A Beautiful Mind introduced millions to John Nash, Jr., one of America's most important 20th century mathematicians, nearly 50 years after he had won a Nobel Prize. Naturally, most viewers of the movie will remember a prodigy suffering from paranoid schizophrenia while overlooking how the man's innovative studies and works had a major influence on everything from economics to biology, cryptography, artificial intelligence, and political philosophy.

Many academics attack the very idea of a Western canon as chauvinistic, while the general public increasingly doubts the value of the humanities. In Rescuing Socrates, Dominican-born American academic Roosevelt Montás tells the story of how a liberal education transformed his life, and offers an intimate account of the relevance of the Great Books today, especially to members of historically marginalized communities.

As the first black female on the Forbes billionaire list, it was obvious that Oprah Winfrey was not only a great talk show host but a smart business woman. From humble beginnings, Oprah has had a lifetime of experiences and touched the lives of millions of people. Her long running show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, covered a wide range of topics with sensitivity and dignity. It is from these experiences that Oprah has developed philosophies which can help anyone through all aspects of their lives.