Showing results by narrator "Aaron Abano" in All Categories

China and America are world powers without serious rivals. They eye each other warily across the Pacific; they communicate poorly; there seems little natural empathy. A massive geopolitical contest has begun. America prizes freedom; China values freedom from chaos. America values strategic decisiveness; China values patience.America is becoming society of lasting inequality; China a meritocracy. America has abandoned multilateralism; China welcomes it.

In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events.

 The End of Copycat China helps business executives and investors understand how China's economy is shifting from one based on heavy investment to one based on services and consumption by providing insight that helps shape effective strategy.  

He was someone who belonged in my wildest fantasies instead of a rest stop in the middle of Nebraska. A sexy, cocky Australian named Chance was the last person I expected to run into on my cross-country drive. When my car broke down, we made a deal. Next thing I knew, we were traveling together, spending sexually tense nights in hotels, and taking unplanned detours. My ordinary road trip turned into the adventure of a lifetime. It was all fun and games until things got intense.

Of all the sports played across the globe, none has more curses, superstitions, or supernatural events like baseball, America's national pastime. While some of these can easily be explained, there are just as many that cannot. Field of Fantasies delves right into that superstition with short stories written by several key authors about baseball and the supernatural.

De Moor has built her latest novel around the Kreutzersonate by the Czech composer, Leos Janácek, who, in turn, based his string quartet on the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy. In Tolstoy’s story, a man and a woman are playing the sonata Ludwig van Beethoven composed for the French violinist and composer Rudolphe Kreutzer. The two fall in love as they play, which poisons the husband’s mind with jealousy, so that he kills his wife.

Liberal democracy is in crisis around the world, besieged by authoritarianism, nationalism, and other illiberal forces. Far-right parties are gaining traction in Europe, Vladimir Putin tightens his grip on Russia and undermines democracy abroad, and America struggles with poisonous threats from the right and left. But the defenders of democracy are strong, too.

Long before Hank Crawford arrived in the waters of Ketchikan, his partners and compatriots were already in love with its shores. Following the final, crushing moments of World War II, Japanese officer Kiyoshi Tsurifune, Sergeant Jones Henry, and Resistance fighter Swede Scorden struggle to regain normalcy and any contact with the shimmering, fish-filled sea. Lost honor, fallen friends, their cultural identities gone in the wake of a nuclear blast - these fishermen-turned-soldiers have a long way to go till they regain the waters in which they feel most at home.

The story begins when 14-year-old Peter is sent west to America to escape the growing horror of Nazi Germany. But his younger brother, Arie, and their entire family are sent east to the death camps. Only Arie survives. The brothers reunite in the nascent Jewish state, where Arie becomes a businessman and one of the richest men in Israel while Peter becomes a top Mossad agent. One brother builds Israel, the other protects it. But they also fall in love with the same woman. And over the next two decades, the brothers’ intrigues and jealousies threaten to tear their new lives apart.

Set amongst the tumult of the early 1980s, Raiders follows the struggles of the Alaskan fishermen as they regain control of their fishing grounds from the fleets of foreign companies who have been plundering their bays. But such companies aren’t deterred, and instead they contract American boats to catch the fish for them. In order to keep his family afloat, he swears, Hank signs on with a Japanese firm. Shunned as a traitor by his peers, Hank keeps on fishing.

Lydia De Havilland is shocked when Brogan Ramsay suddenly reappears in her life. Several years before, Brogan was the son of her family's gardener, and the boy she hurt and betrayed. But Brogan is no longer the quiet, sensitive boy she remembers. Now he's a man - gorgeous, powerful, and seeking vengeance.

 On November 3, Americans did not just elect Joe Biden: They got a package deal. The tight-knit Biden family - siblings, children, in-laws, and beyond - is coming right along with him. They are sure to play a defining role in his presidency, just as they have in every other one of his endeavors. 

Bart Schaneman spent five years living and working in South Korea, mostly as an editor for English newspapers. He also taught English for a spell. This Expat Life is a collection of essays on uprooting your life to travel the world, what it means to be ambitious, and finally discovering the right place to settle down. Peppered throughout are Bart's personal reflections on teaching and living as a foreigner in a foreign land.

As scientific and observational evidence on global warming piles up every day, questions of economic policy in this central environmental topic have taken center stage. But as author and prominent Yale economist William Nordhaus observes, the issues involved in understanding global warming and slowing its harmful effects are complex and cross disciplinary boundaries. For example, ecologists see global warming as a threat to ecosystems, utilities as a debit to their balance sheets, and farmers as a hazard to their livelihoods.

For billions of people, having a religious belief system provides purpose in life. For some, religion serves as a guide for moral behavior. After many years exploring the foundations of various world religions, Jason Boyett has written this comprehensive, easy-to-understand exploration of the 12 major world religions through a meticulous, yet unbiased lens. 12 Major World Religions offers an impartial look at where each of these belief systems intersects, how they differ, and why some have been - or are currently - misunderstood. 

Rann falls for the beautiful and equally brilliant Stephanie Kung, who lives in Paris with her Chinese father and has not seen her American mother since she abandoned the family when Stephanie was six years old. Both Rann and Stephanie yearn for a sense of genuine identity. Rann feels plagued by his voracious intellectual curiosity and strives to integrate his life of the mind with his experience in the world. Stephanie struggles to reconcile the Chinese part of herself with her American and French selves.

“I shall return”, General Douglas MacArthur promised the Filipino people following the Japanese invasion and occupation of the Philippines in spring 1942. The people there believed MacArthur’s vow - and even Americans were stirred by his dramatic pledge. Now, two and half years later, MacArthur was ready to fulfill his promise - the liberation of the Philippines was about to begin.

Born to immigrant parents and raised in the slums of Toronto during the Depression, Ted Kotcheff learned storytelling on the streets before taking a stagehand job at CBC Television. Discovering his skills with actors and production, Kotcheff went on to direct some of the greatest films of the freewheeling 1970s, including The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Wake in Fright, and North Dallas Forty.

When Vicky saw the corruption in Hugh's leadership of Home, she stood up to it and overthrew him. She now finds herself helping run the place, taking on responsibilities she'd rather not have. But if she keeps the community safe, she'll also keep Flynn safe. All Vicky wants is to make sure Flynn's okay. All she's done for the past 10 years is make sure Flynn's okay.

Lady Risa of the Morelands has already caught the eyes and won the hearts of many suitors. Not one of them, though, can gain the approval of her father, Lord Rygehil. When Risa discovers his secret - that he promised her to the necromancer Euberacon - she is furious, and terrified. Refusing to be a sacrifice, Risa runs away rather than submit to her fate. But Euberacon is determined to claim his bride, and Risa's raw courage and archery skills are no match for his magic. Lucky for her, she is not alone.