Showing results by narrator "Derek Shetterly" in All Categories

October 1864. The confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle had sunk two federal warships and damaged seven others, taking control of the Roanoke River and threatening the Union blockade. Twenty-one-year-old navy lieutenant William Barker Cushing hatched a daring plan: to attack the fearsome warship with a few dozen men in two small wooden boats.

Most Americans know Andrew Jackson as a frontier rebel against political and diplomatic norms, a "populist" champion of ordinary people against the elitist legacy of the Founding Fathers. Many date the onset of American democracy to his 1829 inauguration. Despite his reverence for the "sovereign people", however, Jackson spent much of his career limiting that sovereignty, imposing new and often unpopular legal regimes over American lands and markets.

"Empowerment" can be a mind-numbing topic, but in The 3 Keys to Empowerment, Ken Blanchard and his coauthors use concrete examples, a Q&A format, case histories, and entertaining comments to keep the discussion lively. The authors show that empowerment is not about giving people power, it's about releasing the power they already have.

In this gripping supernatural thriller of horror and suspense, something is terribly wrong with the children of Colony, West Virginia. Innocent though they seem, these kids come out at night - to hunt. When Joe returns with his wife and two young children to the peaceful mountain town of Colony, West Virginia, he doesn’t expect to find the girl who disappeared when he was a boy. But she remembers Joe and her other friends who left her behind in a deep well within a mysterious barn. Now, she's out for blood.

What gives the human brain the creative ability that defines us all as individuals? Although the silicon version is hard on its heels, the brain remains the most remarkable computer in existence. Leading us through cognitive theory, neuroscience and Darwinian evolution with his trademark wit and wisdom, Michael Corballis explains what we know - and don't know - about our minds. How do we know if we’re really the top dogs in brain power?

Without a Plan is the story of a smart and confident man whose brash and forward approach to all things—while not for everyone—quickly builds trust with guaranteed authenticity. Follow Jeremy Delk from a primary school in Kentucky, when his father passed away in a tragic accident, to the boardroom of his own investment firm filled with innovative companies, technologies, and unexploited market niches.

The throbbing sound of the steam-driven pistons and sight of the flashing drive-rods quickened the boy's pulse. He had heard and seen it all from his bedroom window, but now he had stepped-in person-into the wonderful world of steam. F. Nelson Blount's interest in steam engines began when he was only four. As he grew up, he studied and wrote about them, often traveling many miles to see one. Yet it was years before he was able to pursue his dream of becoming an engineer.

From interpreting the world to changing it, a synthesis of Chomsky's early work on philosophy, linguistics, and politics. Originally delivered in 1971 as the first Cambridge lectures in memory of Bertrand Russell, Problems of Knowledge and Freedom is a masterful and cogent synthesis of Noam Chomsky's moral philosophy, linguistic analysis, and emergent political critique of America's war in Vietnam.

One choice can change your life. Think about that. One choice, just one, can change your life forever. Simply put, your life today is what your choices have made it, but with new choices, you can change directions this very moment. In One Choice, you'll meet people from all walks of life who made life-changing choices, whether it's switching careers, losing weight, finding financial freedom, adopting a child, giving back to others, and many more. I wrote the book with one goal in mind...to give people ideas and courage to choose better lives for themselves.

Who Shot Ahmed? recounts the murder of a 22-year-old videographer, killed in cold blood in the dead of night at the height of Bahrain’s Arab Spring revolution. On a small island Kingdom swirling with political, economic, and sectarian tensions, Ahmed’s murder epitomized everything that had gone wrong since 2011, when pro-democracy protesters took to the streets in droves. Drawing on dozens of testimonies, journalist Elizabeth Dickinson traces the tale of Ahmed’s death and his family’s fearless quest for justice.

"If you knew what can happen in the next 52 mondays it would take your breath away." Stop and think about it. If you had started something new and worked on it every week since one year ago, what might you have been able to accomplish? Twelve months, after all, is plenty of time to start accruing success.

When three bodies turn up in rapid succession, all in landfills or waste disposal dumpsters, rookie cop Georgia Davis is drawn into the investigation. Teaming up with her detective boyfriend Matt and his friend, Detective Sergeant John Stone, Georgia must work out who's responsible for the killings, but there's little evidence to go on. The case also tests the strength of Georgia's relationship with Matt - complicating the situation is the daughter of a real estate mogul, who also happens to have her eye on Matt. Who's behind these gruesome killings?

Savage Will brings to life a remarkable story of perseverance, heroism, and survival: the true tale of the American medics and nurses who endured two months in Nazi-occupied Albania - and the fearless citizens and Allied intelligence officers who risked all to save them. On a cold morning in war-ravaged Sicily in 1943, men and women of the 807th Medical Air Evacuation Squadron boarded a routine flight to the Italian mainland to care for wounded soldiers.

Gonzalo Gil is a disaffected lawyer stuck in a failed career and a strained marriage, dodging the never-ending manipulation of his powerful father-in-law. The fragile balance of Gonzalo’s life as a father and husband is pushed to the limit when he learns, after years without news of his estranged sister, Laura, that she has committed suicide under suspicious circumstances. Resolutely investigating the steps that led to her death, Gonzalo discovers that Laura is believed to have murdered a Russian gangster who kidnapped and killed her young son.

The obstacles to your happiness. There are a lot of things in life that we worry and stress about. Our jobs, relationships, and possessions are important to us, and because of that, we look to them for happiness. But when they ultimately disappoint us, they act as obstacles to attaining that very happiness we thought they would bring. In this motivational book, author Hugh Prather urges listeners to let go of attitudes that hold us back from experiencing happiness.

The Upside of Aging: How Long Life Is Changing the World of Health, Work, Innovation, Policy and Purpose explores a titanic shift that will alter every aspect of human existence, from the jobs we hold to the products we buy to the medical care we receive - an aging revolution is underway across America and the world. Moving beyond the stereotypes of dependency and decline that have defined older age, The Upside of Aging reveals the vast opportunity and potential of this aging phenomenon, despite significant policy and societal challenges that must be addressed.

Animal migration is a magnificent sight: a mile-long blanket of cranes rising from a Nebraska river and filling the sky; hundreds of thousands of wildebeests marching across the Serengeti; a blaze of orange as millions of monarch butterflies spread their wings to take flight. Nature’s great migrations have captivated countless spectators, none more so than premier ecologist David S. Wilcove. In No Way Home, his awe is palpable - as are the growing threats to migratory animals.

It doesn’t matter whether you are eight or 88—ordinary can become extraordinary with just a little extra effort, thought, planning, and perspective. In life, we have many opportunities to win or to lose. We are faced with a constant choice: we can become more, or remain the same.

For Bryan Bennett, designing hostage negotiation programs is the perfect job - as long as he doesn’t deal directly with kidnappers or their victims. Intense nightmares of his own abduction and imprisonment as a small boy still plague him thirty-some years later, and claustrophobia prevents him from attempting to travel. So when Bryan’s boss asks him to fly to Reykjavik to teach his corporate-level kidnapping and extortion seminar, he initially refuses. But a CEO has specifically requested Bryan - or no one else. Finally Bryan relents.

We are all creatures of habit and if you make good habits, good habits will make you. This wisdom has been around since ancient times. Aristotle once said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." Whether they are a positive force in our lives or obstacles to the goals we want to achieve, habits become ingrained through repeated actions. Habits Die Hard, by John Murphy, unpacks 10 keys to help you replace your destructive habits with constructive habits.