True Professional

From the acclaimed author of The Nobel Prize comes this fascinating portrait of four of the greatest minds in the history of science and the impossible turning point they faced. As World War II wound down, and it became increasingly clear that the Allies would emerge victorious, Albert Einstein invited three close friends - all titans of contemporary science and philosophy - to his home at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, New Jersey, to discuss what they loved best: science and philosophy.

This account describes how a 28-year-old from Watford, Nick Leeson, plunged Barings Bank into ruin. In 1994, Leeson seemed to be making the company millions of pounds a week, but he explains how the cover-up of a colleague's small error led to the crash of Britain's oldest merchant bank.

The Hiltons is a sweeping saga of the success-and excess-of an iconic American family. Demanding and enigmatic, patriarch Conrad Hilton's visionary ideas and unyielding will established the model for the modern luxury hotel industry. But outside the boardroom, Conrad struggled with emotional detachment, failed marriages, and conflicted Catholicism.

German by birth, British by naturalization, Communist by conviction, Klaus Fuchs was a fearless Nazi resister, a brilliant scientist, and an infamous spy. He was convicted of espionage by Britain in 1950 for handing over the designs of the plutonium bomb to the Russians and has gone down in history as one of the most dangerous agents in American and British history. He put an end to America's nuclear hegemony and single-handedly heated up the Cold War. But, was Klaus Fuchs really evil?

Tired of the pace and noise of life near London and longing for a better place to raise their young children, Mary J. MacLeod and her husband, George, encountered their dream while vacationing on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides. Enthralled by its windswept beauty, they soon were the proud and startled owners of a near-derelict croft house - a farmer’s stone cottage - on “a small acre” of land. Mary assumed duties as the island’s district nurse.

Mary MacLeod's mother died in childbirth when Mary was five, an event that marked for the child a "before time" - a lost joyful time - and after. She was shunted from one relative to another while her father coped with his grief. He married again only nine months later, perhaps to have a mother for his child, but her new mum, harsh and withholding of her love, quickly exerted complete control over her thoughts and deeds, with her father oblivious.

At the height of the roaring 20s, Swedish émigré Ivar Kreuger made a fortune raising money in America and loaning it to Europe in exchange for matchstick monopolies. His enterprise was a rare success story throughout the Great Depression. Yet after Kreuger's suicide in 1932, the true nature of his empire emerged.

In Miracles and Mayhem in the ER, Dr. Brent Russell shares true-life stories of his early days as an emergency room doctor. Contemplative and oftentimes hilarious, Dr. Russell leads the listener through the glass doors and down the narrow halls of the ER where desperate patients, young and old, come to get well. Occasionally heart wrenching and always fast-paced, Miracles and Mayhem in the ER will have listeners holding their breath one second and celebrating the next.

Many people grapple with destructive thought processes or a "critical inner voice" that directs their behavior and, to varying degrees, limits their lives. Using deeply personal and very human stories based on his own clinical practice, noted psychologist Robert W. Firestone illustrates the struggles of his clients to give words to this "enemy within", and in the process overcome its damaging influence.

Inside one of the world's most dangerous jobs with the star of History's top-rated reality show, Ice Road Truckers. The highest-rated reality show ever to hit the History channel, Ice Road Truckers follows the heart-pounding adventures of the tough-as-nails truckers who risk peril every day to deliver goods and supplies in Alaska and across Canada's frozen north. Alex Debogorski here shares tales of his adventures - and misadventures.

According to Winston Churchill, Alan Turing made the single biggest contribution to the Allied victory over Nazi Germany with his code-breaking machine. The world is also indebted to Turing's genius for the modern computer. It was clear that Turing had a remarkable mind from an early age. He taught himself to read in just three weeks. At his first school, the headmistress said, "I have had clever and hardworking boys, but Alan has genius."

In this compelling memoir, Jane Hawking relates the inside story of her extraordinary marriage. As Stephen's academic renown soared, his body was collapsing under the assaults of motor neurone disease, and Jane's candid account of trying to balance his 24-hour care with the needs of their growing family is inspirational. This is a book about optimism, love and change that will resonate with listeners everywhere.

Twitter seems like a perfect start-up success story. In barely six years, a small group of young, ambitious programmers in Silicon Valley built an $11.5 billion business out of the ashes of a failed podcasting company. Today Twitter boasts more than 200 million active users and has affected business, politics, media, and other fields in innumerable ways.

Vincent Di Maio, MD, son of a famous New York City medical examiner, is one of the lions of forensic science. In this clear, gritty, and enthralling narrative, Di Maio himself guides us into the inner sanctum, through the cases that have made him famous, from the exhumation of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and the racially charged shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin to the unmasking of a serial baby killer and the mysterious death of troubled genius Vincent van Gogh.

In What We Wish Were True, Quinn achingly grapples with the possibility of leaving behind the husband and children she adores, and what it means to live with a terminal diagnosis and still find meaning. “I think about how my purpose may be the same in death as it continues to be in life—surrendering to the hope that our weaknesses can be made strong, that what is broken can be made whole,” she writes.

Early in the morning on August 27, 1996, 20-year-old Scott Dominguez showed up for an ordinary day at the fertilizing plant where he worked. By 11:00 am, he was clinging to life, unconscious and suffocating from toxic exposure to cyanide in a tank that was supposed to contain only mud and water. EPA Special Agent Joseph Hilldorfer was tasked with finding out what really happened on that horrific day in Soda Springs, Idaho, but the answers would not be easily uncovered.

As a forensic psychiatrist, it's Dr Das' job to treat and rehabilitate what the tabloids might call the 'criminally insane', many of whom assault, rob, rape and even kill. His work takes him to high-security prisons and securely locked hospital wards across the country, as well as inside courtrooms, giving evidence as an expert witness.

In this astounding account, Wall Street's notorious bad boy - and original million-dollar-a-month stock chopper - leads us through a drama worthy of The Sopranos, from his early rise to power to the FBI raid on his estate to the endless indictments at his arrest, to his deal with a bloodthirsty prosecutor to rat on his oldest friends and colleagues - while they were doing the same.

Jadie never spoke. She never laughed, or cried, or uttered any sound. Despite efforts to reach her, Jadie remained locked in her own troubled world - until one remarkable teacher persuaded her to break her self-imposed silence. Nothing in all of Torey Hayden's experience could have prepared her for the shock of what Jadie told her - a story too horrendous for Torey's professional colleagues to acknowledge.

An insider exposes the shocking facts deliberately left out of the hit Netflix series Making a Murderer - and argues persuasively that Steven Avery was rightfully convicted in the 2005 killing of Teresa Halbach.