Showing results by narrator "A. Michaels" in All Categories

Throughout history, the world’s most admired generals have used basic principles of strategy to achieve great military successes, often against overwhelming odds. You can use these principles to achieve success in every area of life.

The human mind can grapple with the future, visualising and calculating solutions to complex problems, giving us tremendous advantages over other species throughout our evolution. However, this capability comes with a curse. By five to ten years of age, all humans know where they are heading: to the grave. In Mortals, Rachel Menzies and Ross Menzies, both acclaimed psychologists whose life's work has focused on death anxiety, examine all the major human responses to death across history.

Emily Wilde is good at many things: she is the foremost expert on the study of faeries; she is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby.

The Future of War - which covers civil wars to as yet unknown nuclear conflicts, proxy wars (real) to the Cold War (not), fashionably small wars to the War to End All Wars (it didn't) - is filled with insight and fascinating nuggets of military history and culture from one of the most brilliant military and strategic historians of his generation.

Daisy Haites thought she'd left everything about her old life in the past: the crime, her family and the man she loves. But when her safety is threatened once again, she finds herself back under the watchful eyes of her gang-lord brother Julian and her ex-boyfriend Christian, both desperate to keep her safe. Everything gets more complicated when beautiful, broken-hearted socialite Magnolia Parks enters the scene and Julian finds himself entangled with her. Because for Julian, falling in love isn't just unwelcome - it could be deadly for everyone involved.

From the Hugo Award-winning hosts of the Writing Excuses writing advice show comes a collection of all-new stories of the fantastic, with beautiful illustrations and a behind-the-scenes look at each story’s creation.

My first few weeks at Zenith Academy were hectic. I made friends, but also enemies, and got myself into a death duel. Our triumph from defeating the dungeon’s first floor boss was short-lived, however, as a rather grim notification popped up. A colossal beast and its swarm of bloodthirsty monsters was headed our way. That was the bad news. The good? We had time to prepare. I have my own party now, made up of a feisty earth girl, a naïve but lovable moon elf, and a larger-than-life giantess. We need to find a fifth member to round out the party before it is too late.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or working for a company, you’re in business for yourself. You are selling products and services. You have to persuade buyers—employers as well as customers—that what you’re offering is worth more than what they’re paying. In this lively, concise, but thorough guide to the basic principles of business, Brian Tracy takes you through the skills you need to succeed, no matter who you are or what you’re doing.

The guys in the Regiment know they face their fiercest enemies when they fight the Taliban. No-one is tougher, more deadly - or more cunning. And if they enter the Taliban's kill zone, they know just what to expect.... When three deadly Stinger missiles go missing in Helmand Province, the Regiment is tasked to retrieve the weapons at all costs. SAS legend Jack Harker has a mission to lead an eight-man team into a suspected Taliban facility. He's suspicious about what the aims of the mission really are....

A migrant boat battles through the rough Mediterranean. Its passengers are desperate, starving and scared. They are also being ruthlessly targeted by the SAS. Islamic State militants are smuggling themselves into Europe using these boats. Only by locating such men before they make it into the UK can the Regiment stop them committing their acts of terror on British soil.

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg believes that too many Australian boys have got it too easy - and the result is a generation of ‘boofheads’: boys with huge egos who think they are too good to stack the dishwasher or turn up to school. They expect the world and give little in return. But things are about to change. From the author of the groundbreaking Australian best seller The Princess Bitchface Syndrome and researcher Elly Robinson comes this essential companion book for boys.

Most of us are aware of the hive mind—the power of bees as an amazing collective. But do we know how uniquely intelligent bees are as individuals? In The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka draws from decades of research, including his own pioneering work, to argue that bees have remarkable cognitive abilities. He shows that they are profoundly smart, have distinct personalities, can recognize flowers and human faces, exhibit basic emotions, count, use simple tools, solve problems, and learn by observing others. They may even possess consciousness.

I’m proud to be a geek. I’m smart, but I’m also awkward and somewhat socially inept—forever doomed to live in the shadow of my dead brother. My job as a research engineer is amazing, though, and recently, I’ve managed to make some friends in my hometown of Forestville. But when the wrong people show too much interest in my latest invention, my boss wants me protected. Despite my fierce protests, I end up back in Forestville. With a bodyguard who poses as my boyfriend.

When Gabriel Winter's daughter mysteriously disappears and is presumed dead, the wealthy whiskey baron seeks revenge. Having lived in Colnora during the infamous Year of Fear, he hires the one man he knows can deliver a bloody retribution - the notorious Duster.

Powerful dragonblood vials have been stolen from their murdered owners. Magisters, answering to a shadowy figure known only as Red Claw, seek to undermine the emperor. Kullen’s work as Black Talon will only grow bloodier as his path crosses with the Crimson Fang, hopeful they might know where to find a kidnapped Prince Jaylen. Natisse yearns for vengeance against the one who has taken so much from her. Yet, for the sake of the mission—always the mission—she must put her hate aside and attempt to trust the Crimson Fang’s greatest enemy.

Why do well-intentioned plans for improving the human condition go tragically awry? Author James C. Scott analyzes failed cases of large-scale authoritarian plans in a variety of fields. Centrally managed social plans misfire, Scott argues, when they impose schematic visions that do violence to complex interdependencies that are not - and cannot - be fully understood. Further, the success of designs for social organization depends upon the recognition that local, practical knowledge is as important as formal, epistemic knowledge.

The No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling modern classic: A Bravo Two Zero for the Second Gulf War. They were branded as cowards and accused of being the British Special Forces Squadron that ran away from the Iraqis. But nothing could be further from the truth. Ten years on, the story of these sixty men can finally be told. In March 2003 M Squadron - an SBS unit with SAS embeds - was sent 1,000 kilometres behind enemy lines on a true mission impossible, to take the surrender of the 100,000-strong Iraqi Army 5th Corps.

Gather round as today’s most diabolically clever authors twist simple moments into otherworldly horrors. An empty baby stroller. A scratching underneath the bed. A farmhouse in the moonlight. With an unnerving sense of the macabre, these stories transform our greatest fears into bone-chilling realities.

All over America, families are investing blood, sweat, tears, and retirement savings in their children’s sports careers, all with the ultimate goal of…what exactly? A college scholarship? A professional contract? Simply the taste of victory? Through the lens of the highly competitive world of girls’ softball, Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes.

Jessie is well on her way to learning her new life and settling in. The tough alpha, Austin, has joined her team, and she has painstakingly learned to fly. At the moment, life couldn’t get any better. But it can get a whole lot…more irritating. Her parents have decided to visit. They don’t know anything about magic, about Jessie’s new digs, or about the crazy crew living in and around Jessie’s house. She must do everything in her power to keep the truth away from them. Which would be much easier without the unfelt presence lurking within Ivy House’s borders.