Showing results by narrator "John Allen Nelson" in All Categories

A great recurring character in a series you love becomes an old friend. You learn about their strange quirks and their haunted pasts and root for them every time they face danger. But where do some of the most fascinating sleuths in the mystery and thriller world really come from? What was the real-life location that inspired Michael Connelly to make Harry Bosch a Vietnam vet tunnel rat? Why is Lee Child's Jack Reacher a drifter?

Welcome to the savage and surprising world of Zoo Story, an unprecedented account of the secret life of a zoo and its inhabitants, both animal and human. Based on six years of research, the book follows a handful of unforgettable characters at Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo: an alpha chimp with a weakness for blondes, a ferocious tiger who revels in Obsession perfume, and a brilliant but tyrannical CEO known as El Diablo Blanco.

Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece is on any art historian's list of the 10 most important paintings ever made. Often referred to by the subject of its central panel, the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, it represents the fulcrum between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It is also the most frequently stolen artwork of all time.

We all know that the very rich have gotten a lot richer these past few decades while most Americans haven't. In fact, the exorbitantly paid have continued to thrive during the current economic crisis, even as the rest of Americans have fallen behind. Why do the "have-it-alls" have so much more? Lots of so-called experts claim to have solved this great mystery, but no one has really gotten to the bottom of it---until now.

The Shadow Market, reveals that an enormous reshuffling of global fiscal power is taking place - and that Americans are powerless to stop it. Highly informative and sometimes startling, The Shadow Market is an urgent warning to the worldwide community and a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of the global economy, America's position in the world, or how and where to invest money.

Carl Safina has been hailed as one of the top 100 conservationists of the 20th century (Audubon Magazine) and A Sea in Flames is his blistering account of the months-long manmade disaster that tormented a region and mesmerized the nation. Traveling across the Gulf to make sense of an ever-changing story and its often-nonsensical twists, Safina expertly deconstructs the series of calamitous misjudgments that caused the Deepwater Horizon blowout, zeroes in on BP’s misstatements, evasions, and denials, reassesses his own reaction to the government’s crisis handling, and reviews the consequences of the leak.

Xander’s classmate gives a report at school about a famous amulet of the Egyptian god of time, Thoth. It was thought to be so powerful that it could turn back time one day every hundred years. And that day will come in a week!

If you have tried to lose weight and failed, or lost weight and failed to keep it off, you're not alone. Two out of three Americans are overweight, many with between thirty and one hundred pounds to lose. Now Dr. James W. Anderson, a professor of medicine and clinical nutrition at the University of Kentucky, shares his groundbreaking, scientifically based nutritional plan that has already helped thousands of Americans lose weight-sometimes more than one hundred pounds-and keep it off permanently.

This is a true story of war, the story of one man's transformation as he retraces the mine-strewn roads of a land itself transformed by mankind's most shockingly inhuman practice. It is the firsthand account of a member of one of the United States Army's three-man Tactical Psychological Operations Teams, groups of men tasked with winning the hearts and minds of Iraq's civilian population through leaflets, loudspeakers, conversation, and bribery.

When Logan goes searching for the Perfect Monster Wave, he doesn't expect his former best friend to be killed by it. Add to this a deadbeat dad who bankrupted his family and the possibility of college going down the drain, and Logan is suddenly in a tailspin.

Xena and Xander Holmes are back....and so is a mysterious beast from Sherlock's casebook! Xena and Xander have been looking forward to their vacation in the peaceful country village of Blackslope. But when a huge monster begins to terrorize the town, the young detectives are faced with a mystery that seems impossible to solve. Sherlock Holmes, Xena's and Xander's famous ancestor, investigated the case of a horrible beast in Blackslope, but that was nearly a hundred years ago....

Unlike most presentation books that say the same things regarding presentation design and delivery (less is more, get rid of bullets and use images, emulate Steve Jobs, and so on), How to Be a Presentation God actually divulges step-by-step secrets for how to build, design, and deliver blockbuster presentations. By providing entertaining and clever presentation insights, veteran presenter Scott Schwertly gives you the ins and outs for presenting yourself, your business, and your cause with an easy-to-implement approach.

Since its debut E-commerce has been centered on the transaction, which represents less than one percent of the time we spend online. Now, we are entering the era of Pre-Commerce where customers make their own decision to buy or support a brand before the transaction. Pre-Commerce explains how the exploding use of social media channels has fundamentally changed the way customers go about making their purchasing decisions, how they educate themselves and why they choose to support certain brands above others.

Buy bank-owned properties at fire-sale prices! Banks and lending institutions today own more than one million foreclosed properties, more are in the foreclosure pipeline. Banks desperately want to get these properties off their balance sheets, but there aren't enough buyers. The result is a soft real estate market with prices investors and homeowners may not see again in their lifetime.

Winning Across Global Markets examines how 145-year-old Nokia grew from a paper mill in Finland to a multinational telecommunications leader. Why are Nokia's lessons critical for other companies and industries? While multinationals based in large countries benefit from inherent advantages - such as a home base that often accounts for 30 to 50 percent of their revenues - multinationals based in smaller countries such as Nokia, enjoy no such competitive edge. Nokia, in fact, generates less than 1% of its revenues in its home base.

This book clearly explains the highly successful portfolio management system used by the authors to protect their clients' wealth as well as garner substantial gains - by participating in profitable market opportunities when they occur. Divided into several informative and engaging sections, The Evergreen Portfolio reveals how you can use hedges to protect the long portion of your portfolio when the market starts to go down. It covers the tactical and technical methodologies needed to protect and grow your assets at a time when many investors are getting wiped out.

This hands-on guide covers topics unique to this segment, including cost justification, prospecting and lead generation, matching tools to the sales funnel, building, B2B search engine optimization, social media monitoring, social media policy development, long-term client relationships, gaining stakeholder support, building a more transparent organization, and what's coming next.

Published to coincide with the centenary of the first expeditions to reach the South Pole, An Empire of Ice presents a fascinating new take on Antarctic exploration. Retold with added information, it's the first book to place the famed voyages of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, his British rivals Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and others in a larger scientific, social, and geopolitical context.

On the same day that reporter Jeffrey Kaye visited the Tondo hospital in northwest Manila, members of an employees association wearing hospital uniforms rallied in the outside courtyard demanding pay raises. The nurses at the hospital took home about $261 a month, while in the United States, nurses earn, on average, more than fifteen times that rate of pay. No wonder so many of them leave the Philippines. Between 2000 and 2007, nearly 78,000 qualified nurses left the Philippines to work abroad, but there's more to it than the pull of better wages....