Audiobooks narrated by Mike Cooper

A Brain for Business-A Brain for Life: How insights from behavioral and brain science can change bus

Behavior change is hard, but O'Mara shows that by adopting strategies that are well-founded in the science of brain and behavior individuals and organizations can adapt to the demands of the modern world. The brain matters in business. The problem is that our brains have many biases, heuristics, and predilections that can distort behavior and decision making. The good news is that we know more about how these work than ever before. O'Mara's starting point is that, as our behavior arises from the structure and function of our brains, careful examination of a series of brain-based ("neurocognitive") analyses of common aspects of human behavior relevant to business and management practice reveals lessons that can be used at work. He begins by looking at neuroplasticity and how it enables a shift from a restrictive "fixed mindset" to an enabling "growth mindset." He shows how this changing mindset approach-where the focus is on task and improvements based on effort-is scalable within organizations. Next, as the brain is a living organ like the heart and lungs, O'Mara shows how to keep it physically in the best possible shape before examining how we exercise control over our behavior, build resilience and create positive brain states. He also considers the implications for business of our brains wiring for status and illustrates how research shows that it is possible to de-bias assumptions about gender and race-and the impact that this has on performance.

Shane O'mara (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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A Primer of Life Histories: Ecology, Evolution, and Application

Life histories can be defined as the means by which individuals (or more precisely genotypes) vary their age-or stage-specific expenditures of reproductive effort in response to genetic, phenotypic, and environmental correlates of survival and fecundity. Life histories reflect the expression of traits most closely related to individual fitness, such as age and size at maturity, number and size of offspring, and the timing of the expression of those traits throughout an individual's life. Life-history research plays an integral role in species conservation and management. This accessible primer encompasses the basic concepts, theories, and applied elements of life history evolution, including patterns of trait variability, underlying mechanisms of plastic/evolutionary change, and the practical utility of life-history traits as metrics of species/population recovery, sustainable exploitation, and risk of extinction. A Primer of Life Histories is designed for listeners from a broad range of academic backgrounds and experience, including graduate students and researchers of ecology and evolutionary biology. It will also be useful to a more applied audience of academic/government researchers in fields such as wildlife biology, conservation biology, fisheries science, and the environmental sciences.

Jeffrey A. Hutchings (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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A Short History of Tomb-Raiding: The Epic Hunt for Egypt’s Treasures

A spine-tingling exploration of a venture as ancient as the pyramids themselves. To secure a comfortable afterlife, ancient Egyptians built fortress-like tombs and filled them with precious goods, a practice that generated staggering quantities of artifacts over the course of many millennia-and also one that has drawn thieves and tomb-raiders to Egypt since antiquity. Drawing on modern scholarship, reportage, and period sources, this book tracks the history of treasure-seekers in Egypt and the social contexts in which they operated, revealing striking continuities throughout time. Listeners will recognize the foibles of today's politicians and con artists, the perils of materialism, and the cycles of public compliance and dissent in the face of injustice. In describing an age-old pursuit and its timeless motivations, A Short History of Tomb-Raiding shows how much we have in common with our Bronze Age ancestors.

Maria Golia (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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A Story of Us: A New Look at Human Evolution

In a few decades, a torrent of new evidence and ideas about human evolution has allowed scientists to piece together a more detailed understanding of what went on thousands and even millions of years ago. We now know much more about the problems our ancestors faced, the solutions they found, and the trade-offs they made. Our species' unique capacity for culture began to evolve millions of years ago, but it only really took off in the last few hundred thousand years. This capacity allowed our ancestors to survive and raise their difficult children during times of extreme climate chaos. Understanding how this has evolved can help us understand the cultural change and diversity that we experience today. Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson, a husband-and-wife team based at the University of California, Davis, have spent years researching and collaborating with scholars from a wide range of disciplines to produce a deep history of humankind. In A Story of Us, they present this rich narrative and explain how the evolution of our genes relates to the evolution of our cultures. Newson and Richerson take listeners through seven stages of human evolution, beginning seven million years ago with the apes that were the ancestors of humans and today's chimps and bonobos. The story ends in the present day and offers a glimpse into the future.

Lesley Newson, Pete Richerson (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the ultimate guide to earning a full-time income without leaving your house or having to order a shipment full of products. This beginners guide aims to teach you everything from A to Z about affiliate marketing and how you can use this lucrative business venture to fund your dreams and earn financial freedom with little or no grunt work to get there. Inside, you’ll learn: What affiliate marketing is and how this business model works How to get started How to maximize profits How to level up your business as you learn more And so much more!

Michael Allen (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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Age of Emergency: Living with Violence at the End of the British Empire

When uprisings against colonial rule broke out across the world after 1945, Britain responded with overwhelming and brutal force. Although this period has conventionally been dubbed 'postwar,' it was punctuated by a succession of hard-fought, long-running conflicts that were geographically diffuse, morally ambiguous, and impervious to neat endings or declarations of victory. Age of Emergency traces facts and feelings about violence as torture, summary executions, collective punishments, and other ruthless methods were employed in 'states of emergency.' It examines how Britons at home learned to live with colonial warfare by examining activist campaigns, soldiers' letters, missionary networks, newspaper stories, television dramas, sermons, novels, and plays. Some contemporaries cast doubt on facts about violence. Still others aestheticized violence by celebrating visions of racial struggle or dramatizing the grim fatalism of dirty wars. Through their voices, Erik Linstrum narrates what violence looked, heard, and felt like as an empire ended, a history with unsettling echoes in our own time. Vividly analyzing how far-off atrocities became domestic problems, Age of Emergency shows that the compromising entanglements of war extended far beyond the conflict zones of empire.

Erik Linstrum (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd Edition

The ancient Egyptians are an enduring source of fascination-mummies and pyramids, curses, and rituals have captured the imagination of generations. We all have a mental picture of ancient Egypt, but is it the right one? How much do we really know about this great civilization? This second edition of Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction explores the history and culture of pharaonic Egypt, including ideas about Egyptian kingship, ancient Egyptian writing systems, and the history of Egyptology. Ian Shaw introduces the listener to issues relating to ethnicity, race, gender, and sexual relations; the latest ideas about death, funerary rites, and mummification; and thoughts on religion and ethics in ancient Egypt. He also looks at the phenomenon of Egyptomania, whereby certain books and films have sensationalized aspects of Egyptian culture. Finally, Shaw takes the story to the present day by illustrating the impact of the Arab Spring on approaches to Egyptian museums and cultural heritage.

Ian Shaw (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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Arctic Convoys: Bletchley Park and the War for the Seas

An incisive account of the Arctic convoys, and the essential role Bletchley Park and Special Intelligence played in Allied success Between 1941 and 1945, more than eight hundred shiploads of supplies were delivered to the Soviet Union protected by allied naval forces. Each journey was a battle against the elements, with turbulent seas, extreme cold, and the constant dread of torpedoes. These Arctic convoys have been mythologized as defenseless vessels at the mercy of deadly U-boats-but was this really the case? David Kenyon explores the story of the war in the Arctic, revealing that the contest was more evenly balanced that previously thought. Battles included major ship engagements, aircraft carriers, and combat between surface ships. Amid this wide range of forces, Bletchley Park's Naval Section played a decisive role in Arctic operations, with both sides relying heavily on Signals Intelligence to intercept and break each other's codes. Kenyon presents a vivid picture of the Arctic theater of war, unearthing the full-scale campaign for naval supremacy in northern waters.

David Kenyon (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London's Lost Artist; Revised & Expanded Edition

London has harbored many curious characters, but few more curious than the artist and visionary Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956). A controversial enfant terrible of the Edwardian art world, the young Spare was hailed as a genius and a new Aubrey Beardsley, while George Bernard Shaw reportedly said 'Spare's medicine is too strong for the average man.' But Spare was never made for worldly success and he went underground, falling out of the gallery system to live in poverty and obscurity south of the river. Absorbed in occultism and sorcery, voyaging into inner dimensions, and surrounding himself with cats and familiar spirits, he continued to produce extraordinary art while developing a magical philosophy of pleasure, obsession, and the subjective nature of reality. Today Spare is both forgotten and famous, a cult figure whose modest life has been much mythologized since his death. This groundbreaking biographical study offers wide-ranging insights into Spare's art, mind, and world, reconnecting him with the art history that ignored him and exploring his parallel London; a bygone place of pub pianists, wealthy alchemists, and monstrous owls.

Phil Baker (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid

While doing fieldwork on the remote Indonesian island of Flores, anthropologist Gregory Forth came across people talking about half-apelike, half-humanlike creatures that once lived in a cave on the slopes of a nearby volcano. Over the years he continued to record what locals had to say about these mystery hominoids while searching for ways to explain them as imaginary symbols of the wild or other cultural representations. In Between Ape and Human, we follow Forth on the trail of this mystery hominoid, and the space they occupy in islanders' culture as both natural creatures and as supernatural beings. In a narrative filled with adventure, Lio culture and language, zoology and natural history, Forth comes to a startling and controversial conclusion. Unique, important, and thought-provoking, this book will appeal to anyone interested in human evolution, the survival of species (including our own), and how humans might relate to 'not-quite-human' animals. A must-listen for all those interested in cryptozoology, it is the only firsthand investigation by a leading anthropologist into the possible survival of a primitive species of human into recent times-and its coexistence with modern humans.

Gregory Forth (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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Bohemians: A Very Short Introduction

The Romantic myth of Bohemia originated in the early nineteenth century as a way of describing the new conditions faced by artists and writers when the previous system of aristocratic patronage collapsed in the wake of the Age of Revolution. Without the patron system, the artist was free to move around, to seek an audience wherever fortune beckoned. This marketing model likening the artist's vagabond career to the 'gypsy' life helps to explain part of the bohemian myth, but not all of it. Most bohemians have scant interest in commercial gain and are not so itinerant after all, confining their movements to down-market urban neighborhoods where the rent is cheap and the morals are loose. This Very Short Introduction traces the myth of Bohemia through its various fictional manifestations, from Henry Murger's novel Scenes of Bohemian Life and Giacomo Puccini's opera La Boheme to Aki Kaurismäki's film La vie de Boheme and Jonathan Larson's musical Rent. It goes on to examine the history of different bohemian communities, including those in the Latin Quarter of Paris and the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York. David Weir also considers the politics of Bohemia and traces the careers of the artists Gustave Courbet and Pablo Picasso and the great chanteuses Yvette Guilbert, Frehel, and Edith Piaf in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris.

David Weir (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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Brave New Workplace: Designing Productive, Healthy, and Safe Organizations

After a period of tremendous upheaval, it is necessary for organizations to transform alongside their employees and welcome new ways of working. While it is impossible to predict which changes will be successful, it is crucial for leaders to now ask: what should work look like to achieve productive, healthy, and safe organizations? In Brave New Workplace, Julian Barling argues that we should focus on creating environments in which employees can flourish, rather than relying on the resiliency of workers to withstand difficult working conditions. Synthesizing centuries of research from scholars such as Abraham Maslow, Fred Herzberg, and Richard Hackman, among others, Barling identifies seven elements that are key to building an exceptional workplace: high quality leadership, autonomy, belonging, fairness, growth, meaning, and safety. Throughout the book, chapters touch on pressing issues affecting today's organizations such as working through crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic, and the impact of gender differences on people's experiences in the workplace. Barling illustrates that small changes make a big difference in the long term-perhaps especially during the most trying times-and that effective, evidenced-based interventions are needed to achieve productive, healthy, and safe, work.

Julian Barling (Author), Mike Cooper (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Mike Cooper