Audiobooks narrated by Al Kessel

The Boy Generals: George Custer, Wesley Merritt, and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac: From th

Once below the Potomac River, the Union troopers raced down the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains but were unable to prevent General Lee's wounded Army of Northern Virginia from reaching Culpeper. The balance of 1863 was a series of maneuvers, raids, and fighting that witnessed the near-destruction of the Michigan Cavalry Brigade at Buckland Mills and the indecisive and frustrating efforts of the Bristoe Station and Mine Run campaigns. Alfred Pleasonton's controversial command of the mounted arm ended abruptly, only to be replaced by the more controversial Philip H. Sheridan, whose combustible personality intensified the animosity burning between George Custer and Wesley Merritt. Victory and glory followed the Cavalry Corps during the early days of the Overland Campaign. The spirited rivalry between Custer and Merritt took a turn for the worse and at Trevilian Station, the bitterness and rancor permeating their relationship broke into the open and made it into their official reports. This well-researched and meticulously detailed account of the increasingly dysfunctional relationship between Custer and Merritt follows the same entertaining style as Ovies's first installment. The Boy Generals will change the way Civil War enthusiasts understand and judge the actions of the Union's bold riders.

Adolfo Ovies (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Disciplined Entrepreneurship Expanded & Updated: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup

Disciplined Entrepreneurship Expanded & Updated starts by combining the timeless and insightful principles of Disciplined Entrepreneurship with the practical tools found in the Disciplined Entrepreneurship Workbook into a single, comprehensive package. The book also has been updated with recent developments in the field and examples as well as a robust new library of additional resources. Author, entrepreneur, professor, and managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, Bill Aulet, systematically walks listeners through exactly how to create a successful startup. This book presents a detailed, sequential-but not linear-integrated and proven twenty-four-step framework that any entrepreneur can apply immediately to improve their chances of entrepreneurial success. Listeners will also find: the number-one process reason that new ventures fail; that entrepreneurship is not an art, but rather a craft that can be learned; and how the best idea or product is no assurance at all that you will win-there is much more. Perfect for aspiring founders and entrepreneurs within existing organizations, Disciplined Entrepreneurship Expanded & Updated is also an invaluable resource for anyone who has already begun their entrepreneurial journey and needs practical, hands-on tools to help them take their business to the next level.

Bill Aulet (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Bitterness: The Root That Pollutes

When people treat you wrongly, insult you, or are outright sinful to you, how do you react? Are you satisfied to hold grudges against those who wrong you, as long as they don't lead to action? Unfortunately, your decision to harbor bitterness is just as much of a sin as the one originally committed against you, and your reaction to others' sin is a spiritual battle you are called on to win. Lou Priolo focuses on that battle in this vital book that seeks to weed out the problem of bitterness. By offering a biblical definition and identifying its outward signs, the author equips you to recognize bitterness in your own life, and he lays out a scriptural plan to ensure victory by repaying others' evil with good. You will find grudges losing their grip as you focus instead on how to show love. The Resources for Biblical Living series addresses a wide range of practical life issues in a straightforward, down-to-earth, and, most of all, biblical manner.

Lou Priolo (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Engineering Executive's Primer: Impactful Technical Leadership

As an engineering manager, you almost always have someone in your company to turn to for advice: a peer on another team, your manager, or even the head of engineering. But who do you turn to if you're the head of engineering? Engineering executives have a challenging learning curve, and many folks excitedly start their first executive role only to leave frustrated within the first eighteen months. In this book, author Will Larson shows you ways to obtain your first executive job and quickly ramp up to meet the challenges you may not have encountered in non-executive roles: measuring engineering for both engineers and the CEO, company-scoped headcount planning, communicating successfully across a growing organization, and figuring out what people actually mean when they keep asking for a 'technology strategy.' This book explains how to get an engineering executive job, negotiate the contract, and onboard at your new company; run an engineering planning process and communicate effectively with the organization; direct the core meetings necessary to operate an effective engineering organization; hire, onboard, and run performance management; manage yourself and remain effective through many challenges; and leave the job when the time is right.

Will Larson (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Preserved: A Cultural History of the Funeral Home in America

Funeral homes are immediately recognizable features of the American landscape, and yet the history of how these spaces emerged remains largely untold. In Preserved, Dean Lampros uses the history of this uniquely American architectural icon to explore the twentieth century's expanding consumer landscape and reveal how buildings can help construct identities. Across the United States, Lampros traces the funeral industry's early twentieth-century exodus from gloomy downtown undertaking parlors to outmoded Victorian houses in residential districts. As savvy retailers and accidental preservationists, funeral directors refashioned the interiors into sumptuous retail settings that stimulated consumer demand for luxury burial goods. These spaces allowed for more privacy and more parking, and they helped turn Americans away from traditional home funerals toward funeral homes instead. Moreover, by moving into neighborhoods that were once the domain of white elites, African American funeral directors uplifted their industry and altered the landscape of white supremacy. The funeral home has tracked major changes in American culture, including an increased reliance on the automobile and the rise of consumer culture. Preserved offers an in-depth cultural history of a space that is both instantly familiar and largely misunderstood.

Dean G. Lampros (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

HBR Guide to Your Job Search

Finding a new job can be stressful. Assessing positions and employers, meeting the requirements in a job description, competing with other job searchers, and submitting an application that will get noticed-each element comes with its own set of obstacles. And that's all before the nerve-wracking interview. The HBR Guide to Your Job Search is here to help. Whether you're fresh out of school, have been working for decades, or somewhere in between, this book offers you tips and advice for navigating your job hunt. You'll discover how to define what you want in a new role, find the position you want, and pitch yourself as a standout candidate. You'll learn how to: identify your strengths and create a personal brand; ignite your network to find the best opportunities; write an attention-grabbing resume and cover letter; prepare for and answer common interview questions; negotiate your job offer, from benefits to salary; and start your first day on the right foot. Arm yourself with the advice you need to succeed on the job, with the most trusted brand in business. Packed with how-to essentials from leading experts, the HBR Guides provide smart answers to your most pressing work challenges.

Harvard Business Review (Author), Al Kessel, Kitty Hendrix (Narrator)

Audiobook

Fort Ticonderoga, The Last Campaigns: The War in the North, 1777–1783

During the War for Independence, Fort Ticonderoga's guns, sited critically between Lakes Champlain and George, dominated north-south communications in upstate New York that were vital to both the British and American war efforts. The loss of Ticonderoga stunned patriot morale and ignited one of the greatest political firestorms of the war. But the fortunes of war turned. Two months later, the rebels mounted a sensational-if little known-counter-attack on Ticonderoga that had major implications for Burgoyne's eventual defeat at Saratoga in October. Yet Saratoga brought no peace, and Ticonderoga would be central to additional military and political maneuverings-many of them known only to specialist historians-that would keep the region on edge until the end of the war in 1783. Based on new archival research, Fort Ticonderoga, The Last Campaigns: The War in the North, 1777-1783 by distinguished historian Mark Edward Lender highlights the strategic importance of the fort as British, American, and regional forces fought for control of the northern front at a critical point in the war. The book tells the Ticonderoga story in all of its complexity and drama, correcting misconceptions embedded in many previous accounts, and sheds vital new light on this key chapter in America's struggle for independence.

Mark Edward Lender (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Strategy in 3D: Essential Tools to Diagnose, Decide, and Deliver

Strategy decision making and action used to be off limits to all but the select few at the very top of an organization. It was a largely cerebral activity focused on grand long-terms plans made at annual off-site retreats away from the daily challenges of the business. That is no longer the case. The current business environment does not wait for companies to slowly adjust in an annual meeting. The relentless pace of change renders today's long-term future tomorrow's history. Does this mean strategy is no longer useful, or even feasible? No. Good strategists are needed now more than ever. But today's high-performing organizations think of strategy differently than in the past. These companies make strategy part of every manager's role; they strategize continuously and tackle strategic problems through individuals from all parts of the organization. Strategy in this new, fast-paced world is about diagnosing the diverse array of complex challenges confronting organizations, deciding on novel solutions to address those challenges, and delivering by taking action on those solutions. Including a novel organizational framework and application examples, Strategy in 3D helps build these foundational skills and prepares the listener for success as a strategist in the twenty-first century.

Greg Fisher, John E. Wisneski, Rene M. Bakker (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade

Historian Jonathan W. White tells the riveting story of Appleton Oaksmith, a swashbuckling sea captain whose life intersected with some of the most important moments, movements, and individuals of the mid-nineteenth century, from the California Gold Rush, filibustering schemes in Nicaragua, Cuban liberation, and the Civil War and Reconstruction. Most importantly, the book depicts the extraordinary lengths the Lincoln Administration went to destroy the illegal trans-Atlantic slave trade. Using Oaksmith's case as a lens, White takes readers into the murky underworld of New York City, where federal marshals plied the docks in lower Manhattan in search of evidence of slave trading. Once they suspected Oaksmith, federal authorities had him arrested and convicted, but in 1862 he escaped from jail and became a Confederate blockade-runner in Havana. The Lincoln Administration tried to have him kidnapped in violation of international law, but the attempt was foiled. Always claiming innocence, Oaksmith spent the next decade in exile until he received a presidential pardon from U.S. Grant, at which point he moved to North Carolina and became an anti-Klan politician. Through a remarkable, fast-paced story, this book will give listeners a new perspective on slavery and shifting political alliances during the turbulent Civil War Era.

Jonathan W. White (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Lion of Round Top: The Life and Military Service of Brigadier General Strong Vincent in the Amer

The story of the true savior of Little Round Top at Gettysburg-a twenty-six-year-old Harvard-educated lawyer, who paid with his life to defend that hill. Citizen-soldier Strong Vincent was many things: Harvard graduate, lawyer, political speaker, descendant of pilgrims and religious refugees, husband, father, brother. But his greatest contribution to history is as the savior of the Federal left on the second day at Gettysburg, when he and his men held Little Round Top against overwhelming Confederate numbers. Forgotten by history in favor of his subordinate, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Vincent has faded into relative obscurity in the decades since his death. This book restores Vincent to his rightful place among the heroes of the battle of Gettysburg: presenting his life story using new, never-before-published sources and archival material to bring the story of one of the most forgotten officers of the American Civil War back to the attention of listeners and historians.

H.G. Myers (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Small but Important Riots: The Cavalry Battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville

June 1863. The American Civil War was two years old, and the U.S. Army in Virginia was in chaos. Reeling after the recent defeat at Chancellorsville, the Federals, especially the Cavalry Corps, scrambled to regroup. Confederate general Robert E. Lee seized the moment to launch a second invasion of the North. At this critical moment, the much-maligned Federal cavalry stepped to center stage. Small but Important Riots is a tactical study of fighting from June 17 to 22, 1863, at Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville, placed within the strategic context of the Gettysburg campaign. It is based on Robert O'Neill's thirty years of research and access to previously unpublished documents, which reveal startling new information. Since the fighting in Loudoun Valley of Virginia ended in June 1863, one perspective has prevailed-that Brigadier General Alfred Pleasonton, who commanded the Cavalry Corps, Army of the Potomac, disobeyed orders. According to published records, Pleasonton's superiors, including President Abraham Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and army commander Joseph Hooker, ordered Pleasonton to search for General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia during a critical stage of the Gettysburg campaign, and Pleasonton ignored their orders. Recently discovered documents prove otherwise.

Robert F. O’neill (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Resolving Conflict: How to Make, Disturb, and Keep Peace

Many Christians see conflict as a dirty word-something to be avoided at all costs. After all, aren't Christians to be peacemakers who strive to maintain unity? But, as Lou Priolo reminds us, many other things that the Bible exhorts us to do-such as convicting, rebuking, and admonishing other Christians-make conflict a necessary part of the Christian life. Lou takes us through the biblical principles of conflict resolution, beginning before conflict even starts. He shows us the prerequisites we must have in place as we go into conflict, what is at the heart of our conflict, what makes it biblical or unbiblical, and how we should respond to it. He also shares practical steps and advice, giving us specific talking points to resolve conflict and journaling exercises that help us to grow when it happens. Learn how to 'make every effort' to maintain unity-even when that effort must start with conflict!

Lou Priolo (Author), Al Kessel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Al Kessel