Audiobooks narrated by Jonathan Beville

Team Players: The Five Critical Roles You Need to Build a Winning Team

"A New York Times-bestselling author shows you how to build the most successful team The conventional wisdom is wrong about how great teams are built. Great teams worry less about cohesion and more about assembling the right group of people with complementary talents and personalities. No amount of teambuilding, trust, or cohesion can overcome having the wrong mix of people in the room. In Team Players, Mark Murphy argues that the best teams contain an ideal mix of five vital roles: Director, Achiever, Stabilizer, Harmonizer, and Trailblazer. Murphy's groundbreaking research shows how to unlock each team member's talents and position them to succeed within the team. Murphy reveals how unlocking the Directors, Achievers, Stabilizers, Harmonizers, and Trailblazers on your team solves teams' absence of accountability, the torment of aimless meetings, the unfairness of uneven workloads, the scarcity of active participation, the chaos of clashing agendas, and the dearth of decisiveness. With a balance of hard-hitting research and compelling real-world examples, this book is a pivotal read for anyone keen on accelerating team development while allowing individual brilliance to shine through. "

Mark Murphy (Author), Jonathan Beville (Narrator)

Audiobook

Outmaneuvered: America's Tragic Encounter with Warfare from Vietnam to Afghanistan

"From a celebrated military historian, a "searing…persuasive" (Kirkus Reviews) exploration of why the mighty United States military has repeatedly failed in irregular wars and military campaigns from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Since the early 1960s, the United States has fought in four major wars and a cluster of complicated and bloody irregular warfare campaigns. The majority have ended in failure, or something close to it. Why has the US been so ineffective, despite the American armed forces being universally recognized as the best in the world? Most scholars and analysts believe that the primary cause of our abysmal war record since Vietnam has been the US military's overwhelmingly conventional approach to conflict, which favors highly mobile precision firepower and sophisticated systems of command and control. Here, James Warren argues that a much more formidable obstacle to success has been pervasive strategic ineptitude at the highest levels of decision-making, including the presidency, the National Security Council, and the foreign policy community in DC. Time and time again, American presidents have committed military forces to operations in foreign countries whose politics and cultures they did not fully understand. Presidents of both political parties, including Johnson, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama have overestimated the capacity of US forces to alter the social and political landscape of foreign nations, and underestimated the ability of insurgents and terrorists to develop effective protracted war strategies that eventually, inevitably sap Washington's will to carry on the fight. Warren asserts that in the War on Terror that followed September 11, 2001, senior military officers have been complicit in extending bankrupt strategies by refusing to speak truthfully about them to their civilian bosses. So have the American people, who lost interest in the "forever wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq and failed to press their presidents and Congress to bring an end to two futile conflicts. Warren advocates for a less hubristic foreign policy and a broader conception of warfare as a political and military enterprise. "An admirable must-read for military…foreign policy history buffs" (Booklist), and anyone interested in geopolitical strategy, this book offers unparalleled insights into America's prior—and potentially future—military conflicts."

James A. Warren (Author), Jonathan Beville (Narrator)

Audiobook

Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World

"In Ray Kurzweil's New York Times bestseller The Singularity is Near, the futurist and entrepreneur describes the Singularity, a likely future utterly different than anything we can imagine. The Singularity is triggered by the tremendous growth of human and computing intelligence that is an almost inevitable outcome of Moore's Law. Since the book's publication, the coming of the Singularity is now eagerly anticipated by many of the leading thinkers in Silicon Valley, from PayPal mastermind Peter Thiel to Google co-founder Larry Page. The formation of the Singularity University, and the huge popularity of the Singularity website kurzweilai.com, speak to the importance of this intellectual movement. But what about the average person? How will the Singularity affect our daily lives—our jobs, our families, and our wealth? Singularity Rising: Surviving and Thriving in a Smarter, Richer, and More Dangerous World focuses on the implications of a future society faced with an abundance of human and artificial intelligence. James D. Miller, an economics professor and popular speaker on the Singularity, reveals how natural selection has been increasing human intelligence over the past few thousand years and speculates on how intelligence enhancements will shape civilization over the next forty years. Miller considers several possible scenarios in this coming singularity: - A merger of man and machine making society fantastically wealthy and nearly immortal - Competition with billions of cheap AIs drive human wages to almost nothing while making investors rich - Businesses rethink investment decisions to take into account an expected future period of intense creative destruction - Inequality drops worldwide as technologies mitigate the cognitive cost of living in impoverished environments - Drugs designed to fight Alzheimer's disease and keep soldiers alert on battlefields have the fortunate side effect of increasing all of their users' IQs, which, in turn, adds a percentage points to worldwide economic growth Singularity Rising offers predictions about the economic implications for a future of widely expanding intelligence and practical career and investment advice on flourishing on the way to the Singularity."

James D. Miller (Author), Jonathan Beville (Narrator)

Audiobook

Somewhere Toward Freedom

"Considered one of "the most innovative studies of American emancipation in the Civil War" (David W. Blight, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Frederick Douglass), Somewhere Toward Freedom is a groundbreaking account of Sherman's March to the Sea—the critical Civil War campaign that destroyed the Confederacy—told for the first time from the perspective of the enslaved people who transformed it into the biggest liberation event in American history. In the fall of 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman led his army through Atlanta, Georgia, burning buildings of military significance—and ultimately most of the city—along the way. From Atlanta, they marched across the state to the most important city at the time: Savannah. Mired in the deep of the South with no reliable supply lines, Sherman's army had to live off the land and the provisions on the plantations they seized along the way. As the army marched to the east, plantation owners fled, but even before they did so, slaves self-emancipated to Union lines. By the time the army seized Savannah in December, as many as 20,000 enslaved people had attached themselves to Sherman's army. They endured hardships, marching as much as twenty miles a day—often without food or shelter from the winter weather—and at times Union commanders discouraged and even prevented the self-emancipated from staying with the army. Racism was not confined to the Confederacy. In Somewhere Toward Freedom, historian Bennett Parten brilliantly reframes this seminal episode in Civil War history. He not only helps us understand how Sherman's March impacted the war, and what it meant to the enslaved, but also reveals how it laid the foundation for the fledging efforts of Reconstruction. When the war ended, Sherman and various government and private aid agencies seized plantation lands—particularly in the sea islands off the Georgia and South Carolina coasts—in order to resettle the newly emancipated. They were fed, housed, and in some instances, taught to read and write. This first real effort at Reconstruction was short-lived, however. As federal troops withdrew to the north, Confederate sympathizers and Southern landowners eventually brought about the downfall of this program. Sherman's march has remained controversial to this day. But as Parten reveals, it played a significant role in ending the Civil War, due in no small part to the efforts of the tens of thousands of enslaved people who became a part of it. In Somewhere Toward Freedom, this critical moment in American history has finally been given the attention it deserves."

Bennett Parten (Author), Jonathan Beville (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Corporate Life Cycle: Business, Investment, and Management Implications

"THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING COMPANY GROWTH AND DECLINE -FROM THE UNDISPUTED EXPERT ON VALUATION Throughout his storied career, Aswath Damodaran has searched for the universal key to demystify corporate finance and valuation. Now, at last, he offers the groundbreaking answer to readers everywhere. It turns out there is a corporate lifecycle very much like our own - with unique stages of growth and decline. And just as we must learn to act our age, so too must companies. By better understanding how corporations age and the characteristics of each stage of their lifecycle, we can unlock the secrets behind any businesses behavior and optimize our management and investment decisions accordingly. In Aswath Damodaran's The Corporate Life Cycle, readers will learn- - What markers tell where a company falls on its corporate lifecycle, and crucial insights for managers as they navigate the different stages - Why the shape and timing of life cycles varies across different industries - When transition points pose special challenges to companies-and strategies to conquer them - How differences in investment philosophies, in particular the divide between growth and value investing, should lead investors towards companies at different lifecycle stages As the corporate lifecycle touches virtually every aspect of business, this book is for anyone with skin in the corporate finance game-from managers to investors, from novices to seasoned pros. Aswath Damodaran's The Corporate Life Cycle is the definitive guide to understanding businesses growth, behavior, and value. * This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF containing charts, diagrams, and graphs from the book."

Aswath Damodaran (Author), Jonathan Beville (Narrator)

Audiobook

Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age

"NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The internet as we know it is broken. Here's how we can seize back control of our lives from the corporate algorithms and create a better internet-before it's too late. "In the spirit of Thomas Paine's Revolution-era Common Sense, this manifesto challenges us to create new digital architectures to safeguard democracy."-Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Elon Musk It was once a utopian dream. But today's internet, despite its conveniences and connectivity, is the primary cause of a pervasive unease that has taken hold in the U.S. and other democratic societies. It's why youth suicide rates are rising, why politics has become toxic, and why our most important institutions are faltering. Information is the lifeblood of any society, and our current system for distributing it is corrupted at its heart. Everything comes down to our ability to communicate openly and trustfully with each other. But, thanks to the dominant digital platforms and the ways they distort human behavior, we have lost that ability-while, at the same time, we've been robbed of the data that is rightfully ours. The roots of this crisis, argue Frank McCourt and Michael Casey, lie in the prevailing order of the internet. In plain but forceful language, the authors-a civic entrepreneur and an acclaimed journalist-show how a centralized system controlled by a small group of for-profit entities has set this catastrophe in motion and eroded our personhood. And then they describe a groundbreaking solution to reclaim it: rather than superficial, patchwork regulations, we must reimagine the very architecture of the internet. The resulting "third-generation internet" would replace the status quo with a new model marked by digital property rights, autonomy, and ownership. Inspired by historical calls to action like Thomas Paine's Common Sense, Our Biggest Fight argues that we must act now to embed the core values of a free, democratic society in the internet of tomorrow. Do it right and we will finally, properly, unlock its immense potential."

Frank H. Mccourt (Author), Frank H. Mccourt, Jonathan Beville, Michael J. Casey (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Thirst for Murder: Sheriff Ulysses Walker, Book Two

"Ulysses Walker, Sheriff of Taos County, is facing a tough re-election campaign against a well-funded opponent when a respected historian and acequiero. The murder looks like a dispute over shared irrigation water at first. But after two more murders the sheriff uncovers a web of corruption born out of New Mexico's troubled history. Sheriff Walker, with help from Ray Pando, Picuris Tribal Council Member, and LizBeth Tallichet of the FBI, must battle powerful and well-connected adversaries who want to enrich themselves by gaining rights to scarce water and land distressed by forest fires. These current day criminals, like the Santa Fe Ring before them, commit murder and mayhem with impunity. Sheriff Walker's battle to prevail culminates in a deadly chase down the Rio Grande's notorious whitewater, the Taos Box."

C.R. Koons (Author), Jonathan Beville (Narrator)

Audiobook

Nemesis

Robert Kroese (Author), Jonathan Beville (Narrator)

Audiobook

Rikers: An Oral History

"NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE • A shocking, groundbreaking oral history of the infamous Rikers jail complex and an unflinching portrait of injustice and resilience told by the people whose lives have been forever altered by it "This mesmerizing and gut-wrenching book shows the brutal realities that tens of thousands of people have been forced to navigate, and survive, in America's most notorious jail."-Piper Kerman, New York Times bestselling author of Orange is the New Black A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR What happens when you pack almost a dozen jails, bulging at the seams with society's cast-offs, onto a spit of landfill purposefully hidden from public view? Prize-winning journalists Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau have spent two years interviewing more than 130 people comprising a broad cross section of lives touched by New York City's Rikers Island prison complex-from incarcerated people and their relatives, to officers, lawyers, and commissioners, with stories spanning the 1970s to the present day. The portrait that emerges calls into question the very nature of justice in America. Offering a 360-degree view inside the country's largest detention complex, the deeply personal accounts-featured here for the first time-take readers on a harrowing journey into every corner of Rikers, a failed society unto itself that reflects society's failings as a whole. Dr. Homer Venters was shocked by the screams on his first day working at Rikers: "They're in solitary, just yelling . . . the yelling literally never stops." After a few months, though, Dr. Venters notes, one's ears adjust to the sounds. Nestor Eversley recalls how detainees made weapons from bones. Barry Campbell recalls hiding a razor blade in his mouth-"just in case". These are visceral stories of despair, brutality, resilience, humor, and hope, told by the people who were marooned on the island over the course of decades. As calls to shutter jails and reduce the number of incarcerated people grow louder across the country, with the movement to close the island complex itself at the forefront, Rikers is a resounding lesson about the human consequences of the incarceration industry."

Graham Rayman, Reuven Blau (Author), Cary Hite, Eric Jason Martin, Gisela Chipe, James Fouhey, Jonathan Beville, Jose T. Nateras, Kamali Minter, Karen Murray, Kiiri Sandy, Nancy Bober, Nathan Agin, Nicky Endres, Philip Hernandez (Narrator)

Audiobook

Murder at Sleeping Tiger: Sheriff Ulysses Walker, Book One

C.R. Koons (Author), Jonathan Beville (Narrator)

Audiobook

Survival of the Fastest: Weed, Speed, and the 1980s Drug Scandal that Shocked the Sports World

"As featured on Netflix's "Bad Sport," the high-octane, Seabiscuit-meets-Scarface story of how Randy Lanier became a 1980s international sports star, soaring through the ranks of car racing while holding a dark secret: he was also one of the biggest pot smugglers in American history As a kid, Randy Lanier dreamed of achieving four-wheel glory at the Indianapolis 500, but knew he'd never be able to afford the most expensive sport on earth. That all changed when he bought a speedboat and began smuggling pot from the Bahamas. Fueled by what would become a historically massive smuggling operation, he started racing cars and became an overnight sensation. For Randy and his teammates, money was no object, and bigger hauls meant faster cars. At every event they attended, they were behind the wheel of the best machinery, flaunting their secret in front of huge crowds and live television cameras. But no matter how fast they drove, they couldn't outrun the law. As Randy came ever closer to reaching his dream of high-speed glory, one of the biggest drug scandals ever to hit the professional sports world was about to unfold. Set in the 1980s Florida of Miami Vice, this is the unbelievable, unforgettable, unparalleled story of an ordinary guy whose attempts to become famous doing the thing he wanted most-become a world class race car driver-devolved into a you-can't-make-this-up tale of one of the biggest crime rings and drug scandals of the 1980s. Now, with the help of New York Times bestselling author A.J. Baime, Randy tells the whole truth for the first time ever, a gripping narrative unlike any other, a sports story for the ages, and shocking a true crime epic."

Randy Lanier (Author), Jonathan Beville (Narrator)

Audiobook

Messiah

Robert Kroese (Author), Jonathan Beville (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Jonathan Beville

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