Showing results by narrator "Michael Lewis" in All Categories

The government is a vast, complex system that citizens pay for, rebel against, rely upon, dismiss, and celebrate. It’s also our shared resource for addressing the biggest problems of society. And it’s made up of people, mostly unrecognized and uncelebrated, doing work that can be deeply consequential and beneficial to everyone. Michael Lewis invited his favourite writers to find someone doing an interesting job for the government and write about them.

On his 13th birthday, foster child Alcatraz Smedry gets a bag of sand in the mail - his only inheritance from his father and mother. He soon learns that this is no ordinary bag of sand. It is quickly stolen by the cult of evil Librarians who are taking over the world by spreading misinformation and suppressing truth. Alcatraz must stop them, using the only weapon he has: an incredible talent for breaking things.

Sam Bankman-Fried wasn't just rich. Before he turned thirty he'd become the world's youngest billionaire, making a record fortune in the crypto frenzy. CEOs, celebrities and world leaders vied for his time. At one point he considered paying off the entire national debt of the Bahamas so he could take his business there. Then it all fell apart.

The long-awaited follow-up to the global best-seller Liar's Poker, The Big Short tells a story of spectacular, epic folly. It has taken the world's greatest financial meltdown to bring Michael Lewis back to the subject that made him famous. His international best seller Liar's Poker exposed the greed and carnage of the City and Wall Street in the 1980s; he wrote it as a cautionary tale, but people seem to have read it as a how-to guide. Now, he wants to settle accounts.

In 1986, before Michael Lewis became the best-selling author of The Big Short, Moneyball, and Flash Boys, he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms. During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to New York- and London-based bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush. Liar’s Poker is the culmination of those heady, frenzied years - a behind-the-scenes look at a unique and turbulent time in American business.

Some people think the workplace is no place for funny business. But the upside of humour for our careers is significant. A recent survey of more than 700 CEOs showed that 98 per cent prefer job candidates with a sense of humour and 84 per cent think that funny employees do better work. Psychologist Dr Jennifer Aaker and comedian Naomi Bagdonas' research has shown that humour makes us feel more competent and confident, strengthens relationships and boosts resilience during difficult times.

All over America, families are investing blood, sweat, tears, and retirement savings in their children’s sports careers, all with the ultimate goal of…what exactly? A college scholarship? A professional contract? Simply the taste of victory? Through the lens of the highly competitive world of girls’ softball, Lewis reveals the youth sports industrial complex that has arisen to aggressively monetize after-school pastimes.

Notes from the author: The following is a short story I wrote in the Elantris world back in January of 2006. There were always a few holes in Elantris where I decided not to include viewpoints or sections of explanation in the name of streamlining, particularly at the end. In the back of my mind, I knew what happened. This story talks about one of those holes; it is meant to be heard after you’ve finished the novel and takes place during the events of the climax.

The city of the gods. Elantris once stood as the symbol of all that is beautiful. A sprawling metropolis of unrivaled grandeur, it was a symbol of power and strength, built to be as imposing as it was magnificent. The only thing more glorious than the city itself was its inhabitants, Godlike beings, with silvery skin and hair of the purest flowing white. Able to create powerful magics with a mere wave of their hands, the Elantrians were able to heal mortal wounds and create any object they desired. But Elantris fell...10 years ago.

My name is James Thorne, and I wasn't supposed to matter. Before the invasion, I was just a guy in a dead-end job, keeping my head down and my past buried. The Gehenna want our annihilation. Thankfully, they angered the Aetherion who may help humanity not only fight back, but turn the tide. When I’m offered the chance to be Cleansed, to become something more than I was, I take it. And it turns out I’m special. No, I’m not the Chosen One. And yes, there are others like me, but as a Psyker, I can do things most can't. Things that make me very dangerous.

In ‘Lost But Not Forgotten,’ Sittenfeld gives listeners of her novel Prep a chance to see how our beloved character Lee Fiora is doing twenty years later, when she returns for a school reunion and grapples with memories of an incident that happened while she was a student. In ‘Pretzels are for Biting,’ a woman looks up two best friends that she moved away from after her divorce. In ‘Creative Differences,’ a photographer from the mid-west quickly realizes that the ‘documentary’ she stars in is actually a commercial for a multi-national corporation.

Full-cast dramatisations of seven of Ruth Rendell's tense psychological thrillers. This collection includes The Bridesmaid, Going Wrong, King Solomon’s Carpet, People Don’t Do Such Things, The Fever Tree, The Dreadful Day of Judgment and Thornapple. Among the casts of these seven suspenseful adaptations are Jamie Glover, Mark Strong, Reece Shearsmith, Paul Rhys, Danny Sapani and Juliet Aubrey.

In The Unquenchable Thirst of Dracula, one of seven 'unmade movies' available on audio, it is 1934, and young Englishwoman Penny is travelling by train across India in search of her missing sister. En route, she meets sibling artistes Prem and Lakshmi, who have been hired by a Maharajah and his wife, the Rani, to entertain their aristocratic European guest. But evil lurks in the hidden caverns beneath the ancient palace, where the acolytes of a fiendish blood cult await their next human sacrifice....

When archaeologist Annja Creed is hired to find the lost city of Promise in Brazil, she is more than intrigued. Legends abound of a magical place where slaves were rumored to have discovered the secret to eternal youth and life. But strangers are not welcome in Promise. Annja soon learns that the residents have gone to extreme lengths to guard their precious secret. Making her way from the steamy port of Belém to the brutal slums of Northeast Brazil, Annja faces unexpected peril, from poisoned arrows to Amazonian anacondas.

An interview recorded on an iPhone. A police interrogation tape. An FBI wire. At the center of them all is a writer researching a legal thriller...or is he? And somewhere within those recordings is the truth about a murder trial and a web of lies stretching back three decades.

Gaelan Starfire is a farmer, happy to be a husband and a father; a careful, quiet, simple man. He’s also an immortal, peerless in the arts of war. Over the centuries, he’s worn many faces to hide his gift, but he is a man ill-fit for obscurity and all too often he’s become a hero, his very names passing into legend: Acaelus Thorne, Yric the Black, Hrothan Steelbender, Tal Drakkan, Rebus Nimble.

Archaeologist Annja Creed reluctantly accepts an assignment on behalf of the US Government. She is to lead an expedition to the top of Mount Ararat to find the truth about what is thought to be the remains of Noah's Ark. But while she doubts the massive anomaly is really the Ark, she can't help but wonder what is up there. Annja must escort a group of militant fundamentalists through civil unrest in eastern Turkey, but the impending war is nothing compared to the danger that lies hidden within the team.

Archaeologist Annja Creed narrowly escapes an attack by unknown figures when she tries to collect a package near her loft. She later learns that the sender — an old colleague named Fellini — has been brutally murdered. Fellini had been researching the Hammer of Thor, the Norse god of thunder, and had linked it to a Viking warrior and a 12th-century Latvian village. A coded message in Fellini's package leads Annja on a wild chase along the canals of Venice to Latvia for more clues to an ancient treasure.

Necromancer is such an ugly word, but it's a title Eric Carter is stuck with. He sees ghosts, talks to the dead. He's turned it into a lucrative career, putting troublesome spirits to rest, sometimes taking on even more dangerous things. For a fee, of course. When he left LA 15 years ago, he thought he'd never go back. Too many bad memories. Too many people trying to kill him.

Working on a dig on the southern coast of India, the last thing Annja Creed expects is to be hit by a tsunami. Or to strike archaeological gold. But that's exactly what happens when several objects wash ashore in the storm. The relics carry unfamiliar markings that hint at a legendary city. Excited by the prospect of discovering a culture believed lost to civilization, Annja embarks on a perilous journey deep into the heart of danger.