Showing results by narrator "Robin McAlpine" in All Categories

What leads to political turbulence and social breakdown? How do elites maintain their dominant position? And why do ruling classes sometimes suddenly lose their grip on power? For decades, complexity scientist Peter Turchin has been studying world history like no one else. Assembling vast databases mined from 10,000 years of human activity, and then developing new models, he has transformed the way we learn from the past. End Times is the result: a ground-breaking account of how society works.

In her memoir, Giorgia Meloni speaks about herself in depth for the first time. She talks about her roots, her childhood, and her relationship with her mother Anna, her sister Arianna, her grandparents Maria and Gianni, and the pain of her father’s absence. She shares her visceral passion for politics, which took her from her neighborhood of Garbatella to the Government as a Minister, and then to the leadership of Fratelli d’Italia and the European Conservatives.

Using granular data and authoritative Chinese sources, Oriana Skylar Mastro demonstrates that China was able to climb to great power status through a careful mix of strategic emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship on the international stage. This “upstart approach”—determined by where and how China chose to compete—allowed China to rise economically, politically, and militarily, without triggering a catastrophic international backlash that would stem its rise.

Her ex-husband disappeared, leaving her overwhelmed, cleaning up the mess he left behind. She suspects a friend of foul play but can’t prove it. She must find out the truth to protect her daughter from heartbreak. Irena Fishbone is always in a hurry, repairing boat engines and caring for her...

Listen to the three books in the Millersville Thriller Series and step into a world full of lies, deceit, suspense, and danger!

An exhausted writer. A cottage on a dead-end road. Locals want her gone. Her ex is hunting her down. Don’t go down into the poisoned hollow... Leni is on edge. Fleeing the city and a stalking former boyfriend, she rents a cottage on an island to write a new book. But her vision of living in an...

From Berlin to the Bronx, from Holocaust survivor to American success story, this riveting, fast-paced biography traces the extraordinary life of Gary “Pips” Phillips who defied the odds at every turn.

A writer flies in from Paris and she's exhausted, but there's a party at the house where she's staying. She meets a strange man with an unusual ability.

Claire wails when her wedding cake shaped like a birch tree slides toward the floor. Ferries to the island are cancelled, keeping guests on the Seattle-side of the water. To make matters worse, the groom has a hangover, and rain clouds are moving in. Claire’s cousin, who wants to be maid of honor, finds ways to ruin the event. The groom invites his ex-girlfriend, but doesn’t tell Claire. His ex heads to the wedding to create a nightmare, where someone must die. Will Claire survive her wedding day?

Emily lost her job in a jewelry store and can’t find work in her hometown. She takes her cat and her few belongings, says goodbye to her only friend and drives west to live with her aunt. Exhausted from driving, she stops at The Gas Station Motel. The only room available is down a dimly lit interior hall, where she’ll be locked inside until morning when the vacant store opens. Something is off about the situation, but she takes the room anyway, desperate to close her eyes and sleep before hitting the road in the morning.

In Abundance Leaders: Creating Energy, Joy, and Productivity in an Unsettled World, renowned management consultant and lecturer Laura Freebairn-Smith delivers a rigorous and practical discussion of energetic, joyful, and productive leadership. In the book, you’ll learn what sets leaders with an “abundance mindset” apart from those with a “scarcity mindset,” and why the former creates work environments that generate superior performance when compared to those created by the latter.

An inviting guide to nondual awakening that is fully embodied, deeply connected, and available in every moment The Fullness of the Ground distills Dr. Judith Blackstone’s decades of teaching into the essentials of the nondual spiritual path. Embodied nondual realization can have a profound...

Overtime offers a current, revelatory corrective to our understanding of the future of the American workforce and aging. Experts across economics, sociology, psychology, political science, and epidemiology examine how increasing economic and social inequalities, coupled with changes across generations or birth cohorts, call for a rethinking of the working-longer policy framework. Together, they argue that policies affecting work must be considered alongside policies affecting retirement and provide a path forward to achieve better retirement security for all Americans.

On Christmas Eve, Francesca gets a call from her wealthy grandmother. Her father is dead. He promised to leave her an apartment building when he passed away and told her she’d be rich beyond her wildest dreams. But he didn’t have a will. Her aloof grandmother will leave the estate to the gardener, who is by her side, helping her every day. But Francesca won’t let her dreams of wealth wither. She’s determined to claw back the money she deserves.

From the golden age of piracy to Confederate privateers and oyster pirates, the maritime communities of the Chesapeake Bay are intimately tied to a fascinating history of intrigue, plunder and illicit commerce raiding. Author Jamie L.H. Goodall introduces infamous men like Edward "Blackbeard" Teach and "Black Sam" Bellamy, as well as lesser-known local figures like Gus Price and Berkeley Muse, whose tales of piracy are legendary from the harbor of Baltimore to the shores of Cape Charles.

Miranda Diggs longs for absolution. But when she tries to purge bad memories and accidentally sends a motel up in flames, the regret-filled young woman seeks peace by checking into a mysterious remote resort. Driven by insatiable curiosity and venturing beyond the “No Trespassing” signs, she’s horrified after stepping into a rundown barn that the doors slam shut…and lock. Seeking a way out, Miranda pries open a trapdoor and follows the tunnel beneath into an eerie game that seems to know all her closest-held secrets.

Jacklyn Stone's husband dies in front of her on their anniversary. Bereft and alone, her children betray her, lock her in a psych ward, cut her off from her friends, and rapidly dismantle her life. Blood is the tie that binds, but can she cut the bonds and regain her freedom?

Her sudden foray into crime may have her feeling guilty as sin, but this feisty mastermind refuses to let anyone else steal her plunder. Jasmine Bucker is determined to save her father. But his rare form of deadly lung disease calls for cash she doesn’t have, so the devoted daughter turns to...