True Professional

A quarter century ago, Charles Price was a successful and respected lawyer. So why was he miserable? After some serious soul-searching, he realized the truth. Education and work experience had misled him into believing that it was possible to be in total control of outcomes, that money is the ultimate measure of worth, and that success is more important than our connections with others.

On February 21, 1992, 22-year-old Brian Bechtold walked into a police station in Port St. Joe, Florida, and confessed that he’d shot and killed his parents in their family home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He said he’d been possessed by the devil. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and ruled “not criminally responsible” for the murders on grounds of insanity. But after the trial, where do the "criminally insane" go?

Thaïs is almost two. Like most well-loved children, she is happy. She laughs as she runs on the beach. But her footprints in the sand, with toes turned out, tell a different story. Two Small Footprints in Wet Sand relates the overwhelming tragedy experienced by a family as a result of a genetic disorder.

Although he was a suburban husband and father, living a far different life from The Wolf of Wall Street, Michael Kimelman had a good run as the co-founder of a hedge fund. But it all came crashing down in the wee hours of November 5, 2009, when the Feds came to his door, almost taking the door off its hinges. He was arrested as part of a huge insider trading case, and while he was offered a sweetheart no-jail probation plea, he refused, maintaining his innocence.

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.

Growing up in suburban Detroit, David Hahn was fascinated by science. While he was working on his Atomic Energy badge for the Boy Scouts, David's obsessive attention turned to nuclear energy. Throwing caution to the wind, he plunged into a new project: building a model nuclear reactor in his backyard garden shed. Posing as a physics professor, David solicited information on reactor design from the US government and from industry experts. Following blueprints he found in an outdated physics textbook, David cobbled together a crude device that threw off toxic levels of radiation.

Why would the multimillionaire producer of Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, and Miss Saigon take his limo from Manhattan to the struggling former steel town of Levittown, Pennsylvania, to see a high school production of Les Misérables? To see the show performed by the astoundingly successful theater company at Harry S Truman High School, run by its legendary director, Lou Volpe. Broadway turns to Truman High when trying out controversial shows such as Rent and Spring Awakening before they move on to high school theater programs across the nation. Volpe’s students from this blue-collar town go on to become Emmy-winning producers, entertainment executives, newscasters, and community-theater founders.

Maneater is a personal account by a specialist who approaches her work like a forensic scientist or a case-hardened private eye. Dr. Pamela Nagami is a leading authority on infectious diseases and her stories will shock, amaze, and warn listeners.The patients in Maneater are ordinary Americans. When Danielle Jordan innocently ordered a salad for lunch in Puerta Vallarta she had no idea she had just become the "host" to an organism that six years later would grow into a worm and burrow into her brain.

When Michael Woodford was made president of Olympus - the company to which he had dedicated thirty years of his career - he became the first Westerner ever to climb the ranks of one of Japan’s corporate giants. Some wondered at the appointment - how could a gaijin who didn’t even speak Japanese understand how to run a Japanese company? But within months Woodford had gained the confidence of most of his colleagues and shareholders.

For years, people have been asking Ezekiel “Zeke” Emanuel, the brash, outspoken, and fiercely loyal eldest brother in the Emanuel clan, the same question: What did your mom put in the cereal? Middle brother Rahm is the mayor of Chicago, erstwhile White House chief of staff, and one of the most colorful figures in American politics. Youngest brother Ari is a Hollywood super-agent, the real-life model for the character of Ari Gold on the hit series Entourage.

Throughout life, you experience so many emotions, decisions, people, and situations. It lies in your conscience to learn from life and handle it the right way. Afi Kingdom is an author, international podcaster, mindset coach, and an efficient educator. He tries to share his life's experiences through skills to shape and manipulate personalities, relationships, style, confidence, and other essential elements of living.

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.

Erin Arvedlund, the financial reporter who questioned the amazing returns of Bernie Madoff's hedge funds way back in 2001, traces the life of the infamous swindler and addresses the tough questions surrounding the collapse of his Ponzi scheme.

Few organizations solve as many impossible problems as NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and nobody knows more about leading rocket scientists to unlikely breakthroughs than Adam Steltzner. As the phase lead and development manager for EDL (entry, descent, and landing) of the Curiosity rover to Mars, Steltzner spearheaded the creation of one of engineering's wackiest kluges - the sky crane, which allowed the heaviest rover in the history of space exploration to land on Mars unscathed.

When Isaac Newton died in 1727 without a will, he left behind a wealth of papers that, when examined, gave his followers and his family a deep sense of unease. Some of what they contained was wildly heretical and alchemically obsessed, hinting at a Newton altogether stranger and less palatable than the one enshrined in Westminster Abbey as the paragon of English rationality. These manuscripts had the potential to undermine not merely Newton's reputation, but that of the scientific method he embodied.

Two murder trials were held in Toronto in the spring of 1962, only 19 days apart. The accused man in each trial, one a pimp accused of stabbing a fellow pimp to death, the other a thief who killed a policeman in a shootout, were the last two men to be hanged in Canada. Toronto criminal lawyer Ross Mackay was the counsel for the accused in both trials, a mere 30 years old when he lost them both to the gallows. But the trials were far from the last times that Mackay defended accused murderers in the most horrendous circumstances.

Who doesn't want to be a millionaire? Well, if you have ever wanted to join the growing ranks of British millionaires, then this is the audiobook for you. Here, 16 self-made multimillionaires come clean about how they became filthy rich. There is no such thing as a 'typical millionaire'. Some are middle-aged, others are barely out of school; some come from nothing, others reinvent themselves after changing careers. In fact, all they have in common is ambition, motivation and the ability to think big.

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.

Lisa Nowak had driven 900 miles from Houston to Orlando to intercept and confront her romantic rival in an airport parking lot. The "astronaut love triangle" scandal quickly made headlines. The world watched as Nowak was dismissed from NASA, pleaded guilty to a felony, and received an "other than honorable" military discharge. Investigative reporter Kimberly Moore offers behind-the-scenes insights into Nowak's childhood, her rigorous training, and her mission to space. Moore ventures inside the mind of the detective who studied the actions Nowak took that fateful February night.

In the world of high finance, multibillion-dollar Wall Street banks greedily guard their secrets. Enter Robert Kerbeck, a working actor who made his real money lying on the phone, charming people into revealing their employers’ most valuable information. In this exhilarating memoir that will appeal to fans of The Wolf of Wall Street and Catch Me If You Can, unsuspecting receptionists, assistants, and bigshot executives all fall victim to “the Ruse.”