Showing results by narrator "Tim Fannon" in All Categories

The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most digestible book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI.

In the future there is no want, no war, no disease nor ill-timed death. The world is a paradise - and then, in a moment, it ends. The council that controls the Net falls out and goes to war. Everywhere people who have never known a moment of want or pain are left wondering how to survive. But scattered across the face of the earth are communities which have returned to the natural life of soil and small farm. In the village of Raven’s Mill, Edmund Talbot, master smith and unassuming historian, finds that all the problems of the world are falling in his lap.

Perfect for expecting parents who want to prepare themselves for the challenging toddler years (which starts around eight months of age), this essential guide, a national bestseller by respected pediatrician and child development expert Dr. Harvey Karp, not only helps reduce tantrums but makes happy kids even happier by boosting patience, cooperation, and self-confidence. Toddlers can drive you bonkers...so adorable and fun one minute...so stubborn and demanding the next!

Never again will you have to stand by helplessly while your little baby cries and cries. There is a way to calm most crying babies...usually in minutes! With Dr. Karp’s sensible advice, parents and grandparents, nurses and nannies, will be able to transform even the fussiest infant into the happiest baby on the block!

Imagine, if you will, a disease - one that has only subtle outward symptoms but can hijack your entire body without notice; one that transfers easily between parent and child; one that can last a lifetime if untreated. According to Dr. Paul Conti, this is exactly how society should conceptualize trauma: as an out-of-control epidemic with a potentially fatal prognosis. In Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic, Dr. Conti examines the most recent research, clinical best practices, and dozens of real-life stories to present a deeper, richer, and more urgent view of trauma.

With The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep, Dr. Harvey Karp - arguably the world’s foremost parenting expert and best-selling author of The Happiest Baby on the Block and The Happiest Toddler on the Block - offers invaluable tips on how to help your newborn, infant, or toddler get the rest they need, while debunking some of the most widely held myths about babies and sleep.

In the distant future, the world was a paradise - and then, in a moment, it was ended by the first war in centuries. People who had known godlike power, to whom hunger and pain were completely unknown, desperately scrabbled to survive. As the United Free States, the bastion of freedom and center of opposition to the tyrants of New Destiny, prepared for the long-feared invasion by the Changed legions of Ropasa, Edmund Talbot realized that bureaucratic ineptitude and overconfidence was setting the USF naval forces of ships and dragons up for a disastrous defeat at sea.

Paradise falls. Humanity is thrown back to an age of steel and blood. Now the fuel that powers the "changed" world is up for grabs in an orbiting spacecraft. With only days to plan, rough and ready paladin Herzer Herrick must assemble a team of expert warriors capable of both seat-of-the-pants engineering and hand-to-hand combat in space. In the meantime, Herzer must face his own demons. And if that's not enough, there's a horde of "changed" orcs and goblins who are intent on delivering the power above to their totalitarian masters below.

Earth, 2180. Genetically engineered with partly alien DNA, Lieutenant Selene Genji is different from ordinary humans. And they hate her for it. Still, she's spent her life trying to overcome society's prejudice by serving in the Unified Fleet while Earth's international order collapses into war. Genji is stationed on a ship in orbit when humanity's factional extremism on the planet reaches a boiling point, and she witnesses the utter annihilation of Earth.

Many of us are worried (or at least we should be) about the impacts of globalization, pollution, and biotechnology on our diets. Whether it's monoculture crops, hormone-fed beef, or high-fructose corn syrup, industrially produced foods have troubling consequences for us and the planet. But as culinary diversity diminishes, many people are looking to a surprising place to safeguard the future: into the past. The Lost Supper explores an idea that is quickly spreading among restaurateurs, food producers, scientists, and gastronomes around the world.

Duke Edmund Talbot has been assigned a simple mission: Go to the Southern Isles and make contact with the scattered mer-folk-those who, before the worldwide collapse of technology, had altered their bodies in the shape of mythical sea-dwelling creatures. He must convince them to side with the Freedom Coalition in the battles against the fascist dictators of New Destiny. Just a simple diplomatic mission. That requires the service of a dragon-carrier and Lieutenant Herzer Herrick, the most blooded of the Blood Lords. Because New Destiny has plans of its own.

Many experts believe that we are at a fulcrum moment in history, a time that demands radical shifts in thinking and policymaking. Calls for bold change are everywhere these days, particularly on social media, but is this actually the best way to make the world a better place? In Gradual, Greg Berman and Aubrey Fox argue that, contrary to the aspirations of activists on both the right and the left, incremental reform is the best path forward.

With clarity and insight, Richard Brestoff introduces the great acting teachers, explaining their techniques and how they are applied today. Beginning with Quintilian and Delsarte, he guides us to the present with an inside look at what is currently being taught in the major acting schools and private acting studios; The Actors Studio, Yale University, NYU, Juilliard and many more are visited. The Great Acting Teachers and Their Methods will help you understand the most important ideas about acting, where they originated and how they are used in training programs today.

Millions of people in the United States are affected by mental illness every year. The COVID-19 pandemic not only caused new or aggravated symptoms in people, but further exposed the shortcomings of the American mental health system. Too many of us are confused, afraid, and overwhelmed. Families and friends are often left in the dark about how best to help their loved ones, how to deal with financial and logistical issues, and how to handle the emotional challenges of loving someone who is suffering. You Are Not Alone is here to offer help.

Plagues upon the Earth is a monumental history of humans and their germs. Weaving together a grand narrative of global history with insights from cutting-edge genetics, Kyle Harper explains why humanity’s uniquely dangerous disease pool is rooted deep in our evolutionary past, and why its growth is accelerated by technological progress. He shows that the story of disease is entangled with the history of slavery, colonialism, and capitalism, and reveals the enduring effects of historical plagues all around us, in patterns of wealth, health, power, and inequality.

Many think of the internet as an unprecedented and overwhelmingly positive achievement of modern human technology. But is it? In The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is, Justin Smith offers an original deep history of the internet, from the ancient to the modern world - uncovering its surprising origins in nature and centuries-old dreams of radically improving human life by outsourcing thinking to machines and communicating across vast distances.

On the surface, Dave Pelzer’s life seems like an action movie—he’s walked the red carpet with celebrities and stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers in Iraq; he’s flown top-secret missions for the U.S. Air Force, obtaining the rank of chief, and battled wildfires in California as a volunteer fire captain. And now—on the eve of the 50-year anniversary of this rescue from horrific childhood of abuse and into the safety of the foster care system—he reflects on the battles he’s fighting in his own heart. From a lifetime spent serving and saving others, can he learn how to serve and save himself?

In an era of increasing social isolation, platforms like Facebook and Twitter are among the most important tools we have to understand each other. We use social media as a mirror to decipher our place in society, but, as Chris Bail explains, it functions more like a prism that distorts our identities, empowers status-seeking extremists, and renders moderates all but invisible.

License to Travel exposes the passport as both an instrument of personal freedom and a tool of government surveillance powerful enough to define our very humanity. Patrick Bixby examines the passports of artists and intellectuals, ancient messengers and modern migrants to reveal how these seemingly humble documents implicate us in larger narratives about identity, mobility, citizenship, and state authority.

With piercing insight into the current debates over free speech, censorship, and Big Tech’s responsibilities, Richard L. Hasen proposes legal and social measures to restore Americans’ access to reliable information on which democracy depends. In an era when quack COVID treatments and bizarre QAnon theories have entered mainstream, this book explains how to assure both freedom of ideas and a commitment to truth.