Science & Technology Audiobooks

The Trolls of Wall Street: How the Outcasts and Insurgents Are Hacking the Markets

From renowned financial and technology journalist Nathaniel Popper, the dramatic story of a new generation of financial strivers, living online and playing the stock and crypto markets by a new set of rules. Following a cast of young, all male characters, who went from the fringes of the internet to the front pages of newspapers, The Trolls of Wall Street tells the tale of how social media and startups like Robinhood and Reddit allowed for the formation of a powerful online movement in which the most unlikely participants took on the old guard—and each other. In The Trolls of Wall Street, journalist Nathaniel Popper charts the evolution from the idealism of Occupy Wall Street in 2011 to the anarchic chaos of online outrage leading to the market crash of 2022, showing how a combination of new technology and broader cultural and economic forces created an online revolution led by bands of predominantly young men, who gathered on Reddit and proudly referred to themselves as “degenerates.” This unlikely online gang took their frustration at the current economic system and social climate and created a powerful cultural movement that upended global financial markets and set in motion far reaching changes to how money flows through the economy—all of this just a decade after a financial crisis that most people assumed would forever kill interest in the stock markets. A character-driven, human story of kids who made and lost millions, battled with each and with Wall Street for power, and ultimately upended the economy, The Trolls of Wall Street is a fast moving, suspenseful, and sobering account of how millions of young Americans became obsessed with money and the markets and how that has affected politics, popular culture, finance and more.

Nathaniel Popper (Author), Robert Fass, Tbd (Narrator)

Audiobook

Playing with Reality: How Games Shape Our World

Brought to you by Penguin. A sweeping intellectual history of games and their importance to human progress. We play games to learn about the world, to understand our minds and the minds of others, and to make predictions about the future. They're also a lot of fun. But what happens when we mistake games for reality? WIN OR LOSE explores the riveting history of games since the Enlightenment, weaving an unexpected path through military theory, biology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and the future of democracy. As neuroscientist and physicist Kelly Clancy shows us, games have been deeply intertwined with the arc of history. War games shaped the outcomes of real wars in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe. Game theory warped our understanding of human behavior and brought us to the brink of annihilation-yet still underlies basic assumptions in economics, politics, and technology. We used games to teach computers how to learn for themselves, and now we are designing games that will determine the shape of society and future of democracy. Lucid, thought-provoking, and masterfully told, WIN OR LOSE makes the bold argument that the human fascination with games is the key to understanding our nature. ©2024 Kelly Clancy (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Kelly Clancy (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Pets and the City: True Tales of a Manhattan House Call Veterinarian

New York City's premier "house call veterinarian" takes you into the exclusive penthouses and four-star hotel rooms of the wealthiest New Yorkers and shows that, when it comes to their pets, they are just as neurotic as any of us. When a pet is sick, people-even the rich and famous-are at their most authentic and vulnerable. They could have a Monet on the wall and an Oscar on the shelf, but if their cat gets a cold, all they want to talk about are snotty noses and sneezing fits. That's when they call premier in-home veterinarian Dr. Amy Attas. In Pets and the City, Dr. Amy shares all the shocking, heartbreaking, and life-affirming experiences she's faced throughout her thirty-year career treating the cats and dogs of New Yorkers from Park Avenue to the projects. Some of her stories are about celebs, like the time she saw a famous singer naked (no, her rash was not the same as her puppy's). Others are about remarkable animals, like the skilled service dog who, after his exam was finished, left the room and returned with a checkbook in his mouth. Every tale in this rollicking, informative, and fun memoir affirms a key truth about animal, and human, nature: Our pets love us because their hearts are pure; we love them because they're freaking adorable. On some level, we know that by caring for them, we are the best version of ourselves. In short: Our pets make us better people.

Amy Attas (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Do I Know You?: A Faceblind Reporter's Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination

An award-winning science writer discovers she's faceblind and investigates the neuroscience of sight, memory, and imagination-while solving some long-running mysteries about her own life. Science writer Sadie Dingfelder has always known that she's a little quirky. But while she's made some strange mistakes over the years, it's not until she accosts a stranger in a grocery store (whom she thinks is her husband) that she realizes something is amiss. With a mixture of curiosity and dread, Dingfelder starts contacting neuroscientists and lands herself in scores of studies. In the course of her nerdy midlife crisis, she discovers that she is emphatically not neurotypical. She has prosopagnosia (faceblindness), stereoblindness, aphantasia (an inability to create mental imagery), and a condition called severely deficient autobiographical memory. As Dingfelder begins to see herself more clearly, she discovers a vast well of hidden neurodiversity in the world at large. There are so many different flavors of human consciousness, and most of us just assume that ours is the norm. Can you visualize? Do you have an inner monologue? Are you always 100 percent sure whether you know someone or not? If you can perform any of these mental feats, you may be surprised to learn that many people-including Dingfelder-can't. A lively blend of personal narrative and popular science, Do I Know You? is the story of one unusual mind's attempt to understand itself-and a fascinating exploration of the remarkable breadth of human experience.

Sadie Dingfelder (Author), Sadie Dingfelder, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Title TBA 328292

Author 77511, Nate Silver (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Death of Truth

A best-selling author documents how facts-shared truths-have lost their power to hold us together as a community, as a country, globally, and how belief in "alternative facts" and conspiracy theories has destroyed trust in institutions, leaders, and legitimate experts. Drawing on the front-row seat he has had as the cofounder of a company that uses journalists to track online misinformation, Steven Brill takes us inside the decisions made by executives in Silicon Valley to code the algorithms embedded in their social media platforms to maximize profits by pushing divisive content. He unravels the ingenious creation of automated advertising buying systems that reward that eye-attracting content, and describes the exploitation of that ad-driven machinery by politicians, hucksters, and conspiracy theorists. He also explains how the most powerful adversaries of America have used these American-made social media and advertising tools against us with massive disinformation campaigns. Brill explains how with the development of generative artificial intelligence everything could get exponentially worse-unless we act. Apropos of that, in The Death of Truth, he offers thoughtful, provocative but realistic prescriptions for how we can act and reverse course-proposals that are certain to stir debate, and even action. Finally, Brill chillingly recounts how his company's role in exposing Russian disinformation operations resulted in a Russian agent targeting him and his family.

Steven Brill (Author), Dan Woren, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Atomic Human: Understanding Ourselves in the Age of AI

Brought to you by Penguin. A vital perspective is missing from the discussions we're having about Artificial Intelligence: what does it mean for our identity? Our fascination with AI stems from the perceived uniqueness of human intelligence. We believe it's what differentiates us. Fears of AI not only concern how it invades our digital lives, but also the implied threat of an intelligence that displaces us from our position at the centre of the world. Neil D. Lawrence's visionary book shows why these fears may be misplaced. Atomism, proposed by Democritus, suggested it was impossible to continue dividing matter down into ever smaller components: eventually we reach a point where a cut cannot be made (the Greek for uncuttable is 'atom'). In the same way, by slicing away at the facets of human intelligence that can be replaced by machines, AI uncovers what is left: an indivisible core that is the essence of humanity. By contrasting our own (evolved, locked-in, embodied) intelligence with the capabilities of machine intelligence through history, The Atomic Human reveals the technical origins, capabilities and limitations of AI systems, and how they should be wielded. Not just by the experts, but ordinary people. Either AI is a tool for us, or we become a tool of AI. Understanding this will enable readers to choose the future we want. ©2024 Neil D. Lawrence (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Neil D. Lawrence (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever

This cat-and-mouse story of a vast FBI sting operation reveals how the criminal underworld has become a globalized economy in its own right--one that can't be policed without crossing complicated ethical boundaries. Beginning in 2018, a powerful app for secure communications, called Anom, began to take root among drug dealers and other criminals. It had extraordinary safeguards to keep out prying eyes--the power to quickly wipe data, voice-masking technology, and more. It was better than other apps popular among organized crime syndicates, except for one thing: it was secretly run by law enforcement. Over the next few years, the FBI, along with law enforcement partners in Australia and parts of Europe, got a front row seat to the global criminal underworld. They watched drug deals and hits being planned in real time, making arrests where they could without blowing their cover. For a period of years, some one hundred thousand criminals worldwide, including members of South American drug cartels, the Calabrian mafia, and the Chinese Triad, did their business in full view of the officers they were trying to evade. It was a sprawling global economy as efficient and interconnected as the legal one. But a surveillance operation like this couldn't last. It was too dangerous, too ethically fraught, too large. And it all ended in spectacular fashion. Dark Wire is more than the story of this enormous sting operation--it shows the fundamental problems of policing in such a vast and high-speed economy. This is a caper for our modern world, where everyone is connected and no one is completely free.

Joseph Cox (Author), Peter Ganim, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Opt-Out Family: How to Give Your Kids What Technology Can't

Discover a new and hopeful path forward as you consider your family's approach to social media, screen time, and technology. We've all heard the mind-boggling statistics about technology and social media use. The numbers don't lie; our obsession with smartphones and social media is slowly eroding the very essence of our homes and families. We see it. We feel it. We know it. So what do we do about it? Spoiler alert: Forget parental control apps, time limits, or reward charts. This revolutionary path takes us into the heart of the beast itself: the social media algorithm. Former social media influencer and trailblazer Erin Loechner has seen the perks and pitfalls of social media usage, and she knows how to hack the strategies of tech wizards and platform experts so you can borrow their billion-dollar playbook to engage your family in meaningful ways away from screens. The Opt-Out Family is packed with eye-opening research and startling insights, as well as practical encouragement and creative ideas to transform your family's relationship with today's ever-evolving technology. As a result, you will: - Experience more quality time with your children that doesn't revolve around screens - Create healthy habits as a family that will set your children up for success in the future - Discover what your kids actually need from you, and learn how to delight and engage them better than a device can - And, ultimately, establish true and lasting influence within your own four walls--and far beyond The Opt-Out Family unlocks a world where genuine connections flourish and technology takes a backseat. It's time to reclaim your home and build a tech-free family culture that's stronger than your Wi-Fi signal.

Erin Loechner (Author), Lisa Larsen (Narrator)

Audiobook

A Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life

A radically thought-provoking account of a major shift in how we understand our Earth, not simply as an inanimate planet on which life evolved, but rather as a planet that came to life. The notion of a living world is one of humanity's oldest beliefs. Though once scorned by many scientists, the concept of Earth as a vast interconnected living system has gained acceptance in recent decades. Life not only adapts to its surroundings-it also shapes them in dramatic and enduring ways. Over billions of years, life transformed a lump of orbiting rock into our cosmic oasis, breathing oxygen into the atmosphere, concocting the modern oceans, and turning rock into fertile soil. Life is intertwined with Earth's capacity to regulate its climate and maintain balance. Through compelling narrative, evocative descriptions, and lucid explanations, Jabr shows us how Earth became the world we've known, how it is rapidly becoming a very different world, and how we will determine what kind of Earth our descendants inherit for millennia to come.

Ferris Jabr (Author), Joe Ochman, TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

Reversing Alzheimer's: The New Tool Kit to Improve Cognition and Protect Brain Health

A revolutionary and much-needed exploration of Alzheimer’s, how it is a complex disease that requires a complex approach, how the vast majority of dementia research overlooks this fundamental truth, and how patients and their caregivers can simplify this complexity and take back control from this insidious disease. An estimated 6.7 million Americans aged 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's dementia today. The toll is stunning: it is the fifth-leading cause of death among older Americans, and in 2023 alone, the cost of health care, long-term care, and hospice services for people with dementia has been estimated at $345 billion. But that doesn’t mean most of us are doomed to develop Alzheimer’s. Research in neuroplasticity has proven that our brains have the capacity to keep changing, learning, and growing even into our later years. Few know better about what Alzheimer’s does to people—to their brains, their bodies, their families, their lives—than Dr. Heather Sandison, one of the foremost Alzheimer’s dementia-care clinicians. In Reversing Alzheimer’s, she shows how we can alleviate the factors that nudge the brain into decline, add more of the things that contribute to brain regeneration, and either make significant improvements in cognitive function or prevent cognitive decline from happening in the first place. Hers is an individualized, step-by-step, whole-body approach: Dr. Sandison systematically guides the reader through addressing the factors that contribute both positively and negatively to our cognitive health—from the biological and the physical (toxins, nutrition, hormones, infections, exercise) to the psychological (negative self-talk, trauma); from the social (personal engagement with our community, loneliness and relationships); to the cultural (ageism, stress). She provides patients and caregivers with an evidence-based approach to reversing and preventing cognitive decline—and distills a multi-factorial approach to treating this complex disease into a doable, step-by-step, customizable program. Reversing Alzheimer’s aims to help people suffering from dementia return to themselves, to give families their loved ones back, and to help those who are living in fear of developing dementia the confidence of knowing they are taking good care of their current and future brain health.

Dr. Heather Sandison (Author), TBD, Teri Clark Linden (Narrator)

Audiobook

Your Postpartum Body: The Complete Guide to Healing After Pregnancy

A comprehensive, one-of-a-kind, evidence-based handbook to support postpartum healing and recovery What should you expect when you're done expecting? Too many of us think that there's no way to fix everyday concerns after a pregnancy, such as pelvic floor issues, exhaustion and burnout, and getting back into a fitness routine. But it's simply not true. With this revolutionary resource in hand, you'll learn what happens to the body during pregnancy and childbirth, common changes in function and feeling, and solutions for healing. Your Postpartum Body was written with expertise by a pelvic floor physical therapist who wants you to know that you can feel like yourself again-physically and mentally. You've probably heard plenty of anecdotes about what might help or hurt (to Kegel or not to Kegel?), but they're not necessarily backed up with medical expertise and practical advice. Your Postpartum Body fills that gap as a complete reference guide for every eventuality, from making sure you're getting enough fluids to troubleshooting breastfeeding to pelvic floor recovery, with helpful illustrations and photos throughout. While your body is undoubtedly different (after all, you just grew a human!), you do not have to live with pain, incontinence, weakness, or nursing/feeding stress. You now hold the tools and techniques you need to heal and nourish your body and mind.

Courtney Naliboff, Ruth E. Macy (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook