Showing results by narrator "Mel Foster" in All Categories

In the early 19th century, Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, conceived the idea of extracting a gospel purified of what he saw as extraneous philosophical, mythological, and theological elements. To do so, he took verses from the four canonical gospels and arranged them into a single narrative, focusing on the actual words of Jesus.

After meeting chef Alice Waters at her legendary restaurant, Chez Panisse, Sydney Finkelstein got to thinking about the dozens of chefs who had come from her establishment to open their own restaurants and gain notoriety as some of the country's most creative culinary figures. Waters, he found, had spawned a family tree of geniuses. Could this pattern exist in other industries?

Many people today are so dazzled by the long-term potential for artificial intelligence that they overlook the much clearer and more immediate potential for a new form of "collective intelligence": the intelligence of groups of people and computers working together. In Superminds, Thomas Malone explains what we need to do to take advantage of this potential. Groundbreaking and utterly fascinating, Superminds will change the way you work - both with others and with computers - for the better.

Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful." And Ralph Waldo Emerson found Leaves of Grass "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed," calling it a "combination of the Bhagavad Gita and the New York Herald."

America’s Conspiracies and Cover-Ups brings together interviews with the bestselling and brightest minds in the alternative history world to create the definitive guide to our country’s biggest secrets. Jim Marrs and G. Edward Griffin, along with scholar Noam Chomsky and others experts, come together to answer questions about your favorite conspiracies: Is the Federal Reserve System unconstitutional? Was the IRS created to bail out Big Banks? Are cancer cures and cheap alternative energy being suppressed? Are elections made fraudulent by hacked voting machines?

Modern Man is a penetrating psychological portrait of a true genius and constant self-inventor, as well as a sweeping tale filled with exotic locales, sex and celebrity (he was a lover of Josephine Baker), and high-stakes projects. In Flint's telling, Corbusier isn't just the grandfather of modern architecture but a man who sought to remake the world according to his vision, dispelling the Victorian style and replacing it with something never seen before.

They immigrated to America from Germany in the nineteenth century with names like Loeb, Sachs, Seligman, Lehman, Guggenheim, and Goldman. From tenements on the Lower East Side to Park Avenue mansions, this handful of Jewish families turned small businesses into imposing enterprises and amassed spectacular fortunes. But despite possessing breathtaking wealth that rivaled the Astors and Rockefellers, they were barred by the gentile establishment from the lofty realm of "the 400," a register of New York's most elite, because of their religion and humble backgrounds.

In Like Dreamers, acclaimed journalist Yossi Klein Halevi interweaves the stories of a group of 1967 paratroopers who reunited Jerusalem, tracing the history of Israel and the divergent ideologies shaping it from the Six-Day War to the present. Following the lives of seven young members from the 55th Paratroopers Reserve Brigade, the unit responsible for restoring Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem, Halevi reveals how this band of brothers played pivotal roles in shaping Israel's destiny long after their historic victory.

Hollywood’s newest wunderkind is Peter Alan Nelsen, the brilliant, erratic director known as the King of Adventure. His films make billions, but his manners make enemies. What the boy king wants, he gets, and what Nelsen wants is for Elvis to comb the country for the wife and infant child the film-school flunkout dumped en route to becoming the third-biggest filmmaker in America. It’s the kind of case Cole can handle in his sleep - until it turns out to be a nightmare. For when Cole finds Nelsen’s ex-wife in a small Connecticut town, she’s nothing like he expects.

For decades there have been two iconic Japanese auto companies. One has been endlessly studied and written about. The other has been generally underappreciated and misunderstood. Until now. Since its birth as a motorcycle company in 1949, Honda has steadily grown into the world’s fifth largest automaker and top engine manufacturer, as well as one of the most beloved, most profitable, and most consistently innovative multinational corporations.

The Art of War dates back to the fifth century BC, and is an ancient Chinese military handbook. Attributed to the intelligent military strategist Sun Tzu, the title of the work is Master Sun's Rules of Warfare when literally translated from Chinese. The book contains 13 chapters, each of which are dedicated to a single aspect of warfare strategy. Emperor Shenzong of Song deemed it the most important of China's Seven Military Classics in 1080 and it is still one of the most influential strategy texts in East Asia.

Sweeping and accessible, The Ruin of the Roman Empire captures the richness of late antique life and the colorful characters of the age, while offering insight into today's debates about barbarism, religion, empires, and their threatened borders.

Best-selling author Ken Fisher here explains how investor's memories play (often costly) tricks on them. Fisher takes aim at some major market memory mishaps, like the idea that stocks have become inherently more volatile or that wildly above - or below - average returns are abnormal. He shows how, early in every recovery, investors don’t believe in it - often at a huge cost. And he shows how, in investing, ideology is deadly. Most important, he explains how you can use history as a powerful investing tool.

A pathbreaking neuroscientist reveals how our social instincts turn Me into Us, but turn Us against Them - and what we can do about it. The great dilemma of our shrinking world is simple: never before have those we disagree with been so present in our lives. The more globalization dissolves national borders, the more clearly we see that human beings are deeply divided on moral lines - about everything from tax codes to sexual practices to energy consumption - and that, when we really disagree, our emotions turn positively tribal.

With more than 10 million copies sold in 28 countries, the world's most popular job-search book is updated for 2018 and tailors Richard Bolles's long-trusted guidance with up-to-the-minute information and advice for today's job-hunters and career-changers.

With more than 10 million copies sold in 28 countries, the world's most popular job-search book is updated for 2020, tailoring Richard Bolles's long-trusted guidance with up-to-the-minute information and advice for today's job-hunters and career-changers. This revised edition combines classic elements like the famed Flower Exercise with updated tips on social media and search tactics. Bolles demystifies the entire job-search process, from writing resumes to interviewing to networking, expertly guiding job-hunters toward their dream job.

William Peter Blatty, the best-selling author and Oscar Award-winning screenwriter of The Exorcist, lived a charmed life among the elite stars of Hollywood. His son, Peter, born over a decade after The Exorcist, grew from an apple-cheeked boy into an "imposing young man with a quick, warm smile". But when Peter died very suddenly from a rare disorder, Blatty's world turned upside down.

In a matter of days, Peter McDowell loses everything he has worked so hard for - his wealth, his property, his livelihood as a star investment banker. And then it gets worse. The stock market crash not only plunges Peter into joblessness, it causes a rift in his marriage that he cannot repair. Stripped of everything, he has only one place to retreat to: a lakeside cottage he inherited from his parents, who left most of their modest estate to Peter's twin. With no other choice, the prodigal son goes home.

A serial kidnapper known as the Piper spent years snatching children from San Francisco’s wealthiest families. When crime reporter Scott Fleetwood got himself involved in one of the cases, the Piper went from kidnapper to murderer…and vanished. Now, after Fleetwood has languished under crippling guilt and public scorn for eight years, the Piper emerges from hiding to kidnap Fleetwood’s son. He’s demanding $2 million, but it’s not really about the money: the Piper wants blood - and he’ll use Fleetwood to get it.

Dennis Prager, author of The Rational Bible - which, upon its first publication, was the number one bestselling non-fiction book in America - turns his attention to the Haggadah, the book used for the most widely celebrated Jewish ritual, the Passover Seder. As with Prager’s multi-volume commentary on the Torah, the explanations included with this Haggadah are equally valuable for religious and non-religious Jews, as well as for non-Jews. It provides enough thought-provoking ideas and insights to last the reader a lifetime.