Showing results by narrator "Bruce Mann" in All Categories

Humans are hard-wired for collaboration, and new technologies of communication act as a super-amplifier of our natural collaborative mindset. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series examines the emergence of a new kind of social collaboration enabled by networked technologies. This new collaborative society might be characterized as a series of services and startups that enable peer-to-peer exchanges and interactions though technology.

During the Second World War, Flt Lt Richard Stevens led an extraordinary campaign as an RAF nightfighter. Known to contemporaries as "Cat's Eyes" and by the height of his success in July 1941 as the "Lone Wolf", Flt Lt Stevens was the RAF's highest scoring nightfighter pilot with 14 victories. What makes his story unique is that all this was achieved without the aid of radar or another crew member. Instead, Flt Lt Stevens used extraordinary skill, instinct, and innate marksmanship.

In 1869, a great mystery was born. As astronomers observed a total solar eclipse, for the first time they saw the faint glow of the solar corona, the sun's outer atmosphere. Measurements of a previously unknown wavelength that made up this solar light sparked hot debate among scientists, but it was another 60 years before they discovered that this wavelength was in fact iron being burned at a staggering three million degrees Celsius. With the sun's surface only 6,000 degrees, this shouldn't be possible.

Light dances with dark, green fire burns in the night, hopes and dreams follow the wind, to fall in black or white. The prophecy spoke of Thomas Kestrel: outcast, lord, sorcerer, warrior, and perhaps savior of the Kingdoms - if he survives. In The Makings of a Warrior, the fourth book in The Sylvan Chronicles, Thomas risks more than he should for the Princess of Fal Carrach, falling prey to the Dark Magic of Lord Chertney, a servant of the Shadow Lord.

Light dances with dark, green fire burns in the night, hopes and dreams follow the wind, to fall in black or white. The prophecy spoke of Thomas Kestrel: outcast, lord, sorcerer, warrior, and perhaps savior of the Kingdoms - if he survives.

Thomas Kestrel returns to his ancestral Highlands in an ill-fated attempt to help the people who feared him as a child. With the help of the Sylvana, men and women dedicated to protecting the Kingdoms from the Shadow Lord and the Dark Horde, Thomas bears the burden of returning to the Highlands to reclaim his proper place. Befriended by a Highlander who would die for him, struggling with his love for a princess who will betray him, Thomas tries to piece together the puzzle of his life - while the high king's assassins, aided by the minions of the Shadow Lord, pursue him.

In April of 2018, Giorgi Rtskhiladze answered the door of his Connecticut home to find two FBI agents bearing a subpoena waiting for him. Their questions: What was his interaction with Donald Trump, the Trump family, and the Trump Organization? What did he know about Michael Cohen's business dealings? Why was he the person who Cohen had a text conversation with about the possibility of damaging tapes of Donald Trump from Russia?

Whether planned or unexpected, change presents leaders with their toughest sustained challenges - regardless of the leader's seniority or the organization's size. For many leaders, change brings drama - and the replaying of familiar stories. In A Question of Leadership, Keith Leslie provides a wide range of illustrative case studies derived from both research and his firsthand experience in the public and private sectors as a former partner at both Deloitte and McKinsey.

This book is about what Mark Carney has called "the social license for financial markets" and how it can point us toward a more sustainable future. Author David Rouch argues that what it reveals contrasts sharply with the usual portrayals of markets as places of unrestrained financial self-interest. Drawing attention to a more complex reality and the presence of justice-focused aspirations in finance can positively impact individual, institutional, and systemic behavior: change, not imposed by regulators, but emerging from the very substance of market relationships.

Developing and coaching the sales team by sitting in on their sales calls is one of the best ROI opportunities open to any organization, large or small. This book shows managers how to use these "ride-along" sessions - whether in-person or digital - to make the sales team more efficient and productive.

Leadership Results explores the fall of traditional leadership thinking and the struggling multibillion-dollar leadership development industry that is failing to deliver results, and explains the mindset, skills, ways of being, and methods that will get results in the evolving paradigm. The Leadership Results model is practical and predictive, providing a way forward for companies seeking to build sustainable leadership capacity, develop individual leaders, boost employee engagement, and deliver breakthrough results through shared and collective leadership.

It's night time, and a young man sits writing at a table. He's afraid. Afraid of having to decide - on a woman, a group of friends, an annual holiday destination. He's afraid of becoming numb to emotion. Afraid of growing up. But all of that is about to change. When an acquaintance makes him a proposition, our unnamed protagonist is drawn into a scheme where each night at seven o'clock, he must commit one of the seven sins - a task that forces him to decide how far he is truly willing to go in his efforts to stave off habit and ennui and save his own life.

Leif Erikson was born to be an explorer. His father, Erik the Red, had established the first European settlement in present-day Greenland, and although he didn't yet know it, Leif was destined to embark on an adventure of his own. The wise and striking Viking landed in the area known as Vinland almost five centuries before Christopher Columbus even set sail! "Leif the Lucky" and the other fierce, sea-fearing pirates were accomplished navigators who raided foreign lands for resources, hunted for their food, and passed down Old Norse myths from one generation to the next.

Following the execution of the king in 1649, the new Commonwealth and then Oliver Cromwell set out to drive forward a puritan reformation of manners. They wanted to reform the church and its services, enforce the Sabbath, suppress Christmas, and spread the gospel. They sought to impose a stern moral discipline to regulate and reform sexual behaviour, drinking practices, language, dress, and leisure activities ranging from music and plays to football.

Meet Ash Mistry: eighth grader, pretty good video gamer, guy with a massive crush on the beautiful Gemma... Oh, and the Eternal Warrior of the death goddess Kali. Just when Ash has settled back into his everyday London life, his friend Parvati arrives with a mission: The evil Lord Alexander Savage is plotting to steal the Koh-I-Noor diamond from England's crown jewels. Ash and Parvati manage to intercept it, but at a terrible price - Gemma's death.

In The Passionate Muse, Oatley, who is both a prize-winning novelist and a distinguished research psychologist, offers a hybrid book that alternates sections of an original short story, "One Another", with chapters that illuminate the psychology of emotion and fiction. Oatley not only provides insight into how people engage in stories, he also illuminates the value of emotion and the importance of stories for our psychological well-being. Indeed, he offers evidence that the more fiction we read, the better is our understandings of others.

After three weeks of vacation, Ash Mistry is ready to leave the heat and dust of India behind him. Then he discovers a gleaming gold arrowhead hidden in the sands - a weapon used to defeat evil King Ravana in legend. At least, Ash is pretty sure it's only a legend… But when Lord Alexander Savage comes after Ash, the legends are suddenly way too real. Savage commands an army of monstrous shape changers called rakshasas, who want only to seize the arrowhead and restore Ravana to power.

As Andrew Brown shows in Keeper of the Nuclear Conscience, Joseph Rotblat's life--from an impoverished childhood in war-torn Warsaw to an active old age that brought honors and public recognition, including the Nobel Peace Prize--is a compelling human story in itself. What gives it added significance is Rotblat's single-minded dedication to peaceful causes, particularly his pursuit of nuclear disarmament.

Commissioned by the Amsterdam Surgeons’ Guild, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp was the first major Rembrandt work to catapult the young painter to international fame. Taking this painting as its inspiration, Nina Siegal’s novel The Anatomy Lesson opens on the morning of the medical dissection and follows several characters as they prepare for the evening’s big event:

Meet Gerald. Gerald is a griffin - a creature with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle. According to the Code of the Griffins, that means he should be: 1. Brave and fierce in all situations! 2. A guardian of a great treasure! 3. Completely and totally hidden from the human realm! But what if a Griffin isn't brave or fierce? What if he's never found a great treasure (or any treasure, for that matter)? What if he feels like such an embarrassment that the only thing left to do is run away?