Showing results by narrator "Matthew Josdal" in All Categories

Many of us assume that who we really are is something deep inside us, an inner sanctuary that contains our true selves. In Who You Are, Michael Spivey argues that the opposite is true: that you are more than a brain, more than a brain and body, and more than all your assumptions about who you are.

On a frigid February evening in 1805, Amos Babcock brutally murdered Mercy Hall. Believing that he was being instructed by God, Babcock stabbed and disemboweled his own sister before dumping her lifeless body in a rural New Brunswick snowbank. This is the tragic and fascinating story of how isolation, duplicity, and religious mania turned impoverished, hardworking people violent, leading to a murder and an execution.

Just after midnight on April 21, 1842, John McLoughlin, Jr. - the chief trader for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Stikine, in the northwest corner of the territory that would later become British Columbia - was shot to death by his own men. They claimed it was an act of self-defence, their only means of stopping the violent rampage of their drunk and abusive leader. Sir George Simpson, the HBC's Overseas Governor, took the men of Stikine at their word, and the Company closed the book on the matter.

Yasmin Olvera has a man problem. Her brother is in jail for murder, her ex-fiance has inconveniently forgotten he dumped her, and someone is leaving dead animals on her stoop. The last thing she needs is another male thrown into the mix, even a strong extra-terrestrial warrior who's crossed the galaxy to aid her.

This piece, set in the year 2024, follows the lovelorn travails of a hapless member of the Hungarian surveillance apparatus.

McSweeney's is a literary journal based in San Francisco. In this piece by Ryan Boudinot, a hangdog robot searches for romance.

A family takes in a tarantula as one of their own suffers from cancer. McSweeney's is a literary journal based in San Francisco.

It takes a starship to raise a child. Or a time machine. Or a tribe of elves. Fortunately, Geek Parenting offers all that and more, with thoughtful mini essays that reveal profound child-rearing advice (and mistakes) from the most beloved tales of geek culture. Nerds and norms alike can take counsel from some of the most iconic parent-child pairings found in pop culture: Aunt May and Peter Parker, Benjamin and Jake Sisko, Elrond and Arwen, even Cersei and Joffrey.

The Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, Canada, is about as close to urban hell as you can get in the Western Hemisphere. Yet in this cauldron of drugs, shattered dreams, and extreme violence, Tom Bauer and his girlfriend Paulie - both ex-junkies and parents of baby Melody - are trying to make a life for themselves.

On his 13th birthday, Buddy gets shipped up north by his religious mother, who can't cope with his sister's teenage pregnancy. Just as he resigns himself to spending the entire summer at Gram's farm caring for kittens and cows, his bitter sister Brinda arrives, ending his peace and solitude. When her boyfriend Jackie shows up and turns his attentions to Buddy from his bride-to-be, Buddy must do what Mama said - or take matters into his own hands.

An eye-opening account of how Congress today really works - and doesn’t - that follows the dramatic journey of the sweeping financial reform bill enacted in response to the Great Crash of 2008. The founding fathers expected Congress to be the most important branch of government and gave it the most power. When Congress is broken - as its justifiably dismal approval ratings suggest - so is our democracy.

Spanning four decades of dramatic advances in astronomy and planetary science, this book tells the story of eleven iconic exploratory missions and how they have fundamentally transformed our scientific and cultural perspectives on the universe and our place in it

Our health care system is crippled by desperate efforts to prevent the inevitable. A third of the national Medicare budget - nearly $175 billion - is spent on the final year of life, and a third of that amount on the final month, often on expensive (and futile) treatments. Such efforts betray a fundamental flaw in how we think about healthcare: we squander resources on hopeless situations, instead of using them to actually improve health.

In a moment of madness, Jeremy Holland's parents were killed by a gunman in a Seattle mall. Now he faces a new life with his uncle Ed, a man with a vastly different lifestyle from the one Jeremy is used to. As he sits on the train hurtling toward Chicago, he can barely believe the terrible truth. He has no mother, no father, no home. Suddenly the impossible happens - again - as the train crashes in a blaze of fire, twisted metal, and screaming people. Jeremy staggers off, wandering aimlessly. He finds a deserted cabin in the woods, which seems to be just waiting for him.

Why do we consider incest wrong, even when it occurs between consenting adults unable to have children? Why are words that gross us out more likely to be deemed "obscene" and denied the protection of the First Amendment? In Objection, psychologists Debra Lieberman and Carlton Patrick examine disgust and its impact on the legal system to show why the things that we find stomach-turning so often become the things that we render unlawful.

Tortured by nightmares about the teens who roughed him up, Steve Mariotti sought counseling. When his therapist suggested that he face his fears, Mariotti closed his small import-export business and became a teacher at the city's most notorious public school - Boys and Girls High in Bed-Stuy. Although his nightmares promptly ceased, Mariotti's out-of-control students rapidly drove him to despair. One day, Mariotti stepped out of the classroom so his students wouldn't see him cry.

Big Data Revolution is a guide to improving performance, making better decisions, and transforming business through the effective use of big data. Listeners are guided through tried-and-true methodologies for getting more out of data and using it to the utmost advantage. This audiobook describes the major trends emerging in the field, the pitfalls and triumphs being experienced, and the many considerations surrounding big data, all while guiding listeners toward better decision-making from the perspective of a data scientist.

For history buffs, travelers, and scholars alike, an indispensable behind-the-scenes guide to the great cathedrals of Paris.