Showing results by narrator "Jeff Cummings" in All Categories

J. Robert Oppenheimer was one of the iconic figures of the 20th century, a brilliant physicist who led the effort to build the atomic bomb but later confronted the moral consequences of scientific progress. When he proposed international controls over atomic materials, opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb, and criticized plans for a nuclear war, his ideas were anathema to powerful advocates of a massive nuclear buildup during the anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s.

For more than 200 years, the wreck of the Whydah (and the riches that went down with it) eluded treasure seekers, until the ship was finally found in 1984 by marine archaeologists. The artifacts brought up from the ocean floor are priceless, both in value and in the picture they reveal of life in that much-mythologized era, changing much of what we know about pirates.

Through Jim Burden's endearing, smitten voice, we revisit the remarkable vicissitudes of immigrant life in the Nebraska heartland, with all its insistent bonds. Guiding the way are some of literature's most beguiling characters: the Russian brothers plagued by memories of a fateful sleigh ride, Antonia's desperately homesick father and self-indulgent mother, and the coy Lena Lingard. Holding the pastoral society's heart, of course, is the bewitching, free-spirited Antonia.

In a series of penetrating and alarming essays, whose centerpiece is a commentary on the events of September 11, 2001 (deemed then too controversial to publish), Gore Vidal challenges the comforting consensus following September 11th and goes back and draws connections to Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. He asks were these simply the acts of “evil-doers?”

Un-Agoraphobic offers a comprehensive, step-by-step self-help program for overcoming agoraphobia and panic attacks. Since overcoming his own disorder twenty years ago, Mathew has been leading support groups and recovery programs for people with agoraphobia. He understands what agoraphobes need and how to deliver it.

Since he was disfigured in a fire sixteen years ago, recluse Louis Malone has remained hidden from the prying eyes of his neighbors in the small town of Waverly. Across town, Iris Shula, a lonely and unlovely nurse knows, at thirty-seven, it is unlikely that her Prince Charming will ever appear. But Iris is about to learn how wrong she is. When Louis accidently falls out of his second story window these two kindred souls are brought together. What unfolds is a most unlikely love story.

In Smarter Than You Think, Thompson documents how every technological innovation - from the printing press to the telegraph - has provoked the very same anxieties that plague us today. We panic that life will never be the same, that our attentions are eroding, that culture is being trivialized. But as in the past, we adapt, learning to use the new and retaining what’s good of the old.

At The Shelter, no one judges the runaway teens who come in off the rainy Seattle streets. Volunteers, like police psychologist Daphne Matthews, want only to rescue and rebuild lives. Being a cop, Daphne thinks she's seen it all. But, as best-selling author Ridley Pearson's edge-of-your-seat thriller opens, what she encounters in a 16-year-old girl chills her in a way she thought a case no longer could. For help, Daphne turns to Lou Boldt, a man with creative instincts and an appreciation for forensic lab techniques.

After Hank Morgan of Hartford, Connecticut, takes a blow to the head, he inexplicably awakens in sixth-century Camelot. At first lost and confused, the time traveler soon realizes that he can use modern knowledge and his ability to foretell the future to his advantage. Consequently, he is granted a place in the king’s court as Arthur’s right-hand man. When the Catholic Church grows fearful of his power, the Connecticut Yankee aims higher and concocts a grandiose plan to bring American ideals to sixth-century England to change the future.

We struggle to manage complexity every day. We follow intricate diets to lose weight, juggle multiple remotes to operate our home entertainment systems, face proliferating data at the office, and hack through thickets of regulation at tax time. But complexity isn't destiny. Sull and Eisenhardt argue there's a better way: by developing a few simple yet effective rules, you can tackle even the most complex problems.

Police Sergeant Lou Boldt heads a special task force within Seattle’s Homicide bureau. His job: find and stop the Cross Killer, a twisted, perverse serial murderer who has eluded police for six months and paralyzed the city. But when a body washes up on the shore of Puget Sound, Boldt thinks the killer has finally made a mistake. This body shows some of the work of the Cross Killer - but a job badly botched. Did this woman die while trying to escape? Did she knowingly jump in the water to preserve a clue? And is she now desperately trying to tell Boldt something?

A cold case dating from the 1960s draws forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver to the Channel Islands decades later to shine a light on the mysterious connection between two men who died there on the same night.

Humanity put all its fading hopes in New Eden, a pristine star system 230 light-years from the ravaged Earth. But upon arrival, the would-be colonists encountered the Kresh - a diabolical alien race who quickly captured the human starship and tortured its inhabitants in hopes of learning the coordinates of Earth. Street-smart Cyrus Gant managed to escape, crashing to the surface of a nearby moon terraformed by the Kresh and inhabited by primitive humans.

On May 24, 1940, Hitler's armies were on the brink of a shattering military victory. Only 10 miles away, 400,000 Allied troops were pinned against the coast of Dunkirk. But just 11 days later, 338,000 men had been successfully evacuated to England. How did it happen? Walter Lord's remarkable account of how "the miracle of Dunkirk" came about is based on hundreds of interviews.

Nate Lovejoy is a self-proclaimed nobody, a stay-at-home dad who doesn’t believe he’s important to anyone but his wife and their two daughters. So it’s a shock when members of a powerful secret society kidnap and spirit Nate away to a mansion at the behest of their leader, Vanslow DeGange, who claims to know the future. He’s foreseen that a billion people could die - unless Nate acts. It seems improbable, especially given what DeGange says will set this mass casualty incident in motion: a lawsuit against the biggest power company in Virginia, being brought by Nate’s wife.

The dark history of Spring House, a beautifully restored plantation mansion on the outskirts of New Orleans, has long been forgotten. But something sinister lurks beneath the soil of the old estate.

Nathan McCann thought he didn't want a family. But when he finds an abandoned newborn in the woods, he feels an inexplicable bond with the boy and starts to make plans to raise the child as his own - until the baby's grandmother steps forward to claim him. Nathan makes a request of her, though: to one day bring the boy to meet his rescuer.

In this groundbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author Steven Kotler decodes the mystery of ultimate human performance. Drawing on over a decade of research and first-hand reporting with dozens of top action and adventure sports athletes like big wave legend Laird Hamilton, big mountain snowboarder Jeremy Jones, and skateboarding pioneer Danny Way, Kotler explores the frontier science of “flow”, an optimal state of consciousness in which we perform and feel our best.

Addiction is a preventable, treatable disease, not a moral failing. As with other illnesses, the approaches most likely to work are based on science - not on faith, tradition, contrition, or wishful thinking. These facts are the foundation of Clean, a myth-shattering look at drug abuse by the author of Beautiful Boy. Based on the latest research in psychology, neuroscience, and medicine, Clean is a leap beyond the traditional approaches to prevention and treatment of addiction.

Death seemed to be part of Garrett Wilson's life. Both of his parents had died by the time he was in his early twenties. So friends shrugged when sadly, an infant daughter, and then a son, succumbed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Six years later, after he divorced his wife, Missy, and married another woman, his former spouse became convinced that their child's passing was anything but natural. Was it cold-blooded murder by Garrett, or a quest for revenge by his ex-wife? Missy's own investigation that led to Garrett Wilson's arrest and eventual trial will keep the listener guessing until the final sentences. Havill takes us through each stage of this intricate and chilling story all the way to the courtroom, where the jury's stunning verdict is given.