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ID: 714410

Title: Prisoner's Dilemma: John von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb

Author: William Poundstone

Narrator: Rich Miller

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10:56:54

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-23

Publisher: Tantor Media

Genres: Non-Fiction, Science & Technology, Mathematics, Social Science

Summary:

Should you watch public television without pledging? Exceed the posted speed limit? Hop a subway turnstile without paying? These questions illustrate the 'prisoner's dilemma', a social puzzle that we all face every day. Though the answers may seem simple, their profound implications make the prisoner's dilemma one of the great unifying concepts of science. Watching poker players bluff inspired John von Neumann to construct game theory, a mathematical study of conflict and deception. Game theory was readily embraced at the RAND Corporation, the archetypical think tank charged with formulating military strategy for the atomic age, and in 1950 two RAND scientists made a momentous discovery.

Called the 'prisoner's dilemma,' it is a disturbing and mind-bending game where two or more people may betray the common good for individual gain. The prisoner's dilemma quickly became a popular allegory of the nuclear arms race. Intellectuals such as von Neumann joined military and political leaders in rallying to the 'preventive war' movement, which advocated a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union. Though the Truman administration rejected preventive war the US entered into an arms race with the Soviets and game theory developed into a controversial tool of public policy-alternately accused of justifying arms races and touted as the only hope of preventing them.

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ID: 704231

Title: Traitor Queen

Author: Adele Jordan

Narrator: Esther Wane

Format: Unabridged

Length: 07:51:09

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-23

Publisher: Tantor Media

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Mystery, Thriller & Horror, Suspense, Historical Fiction

Summary:

Kit Scarlett is once more spying for Elizabeth Tudor! For fans of S. J. Parris, Andrew Taylor, S. W. Perry, and Andrew Swanston.

Two powerful queens are pitted against each other-but who will be victorious?

1586: Female espionage agent, Kit Scarlett is stationed at Chartley Castle, where Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, is under house arrest for plotting against the English Queen Elizabeth.

Kit helps Sir Francis Walsingham's top code-breaker, Thomas Phelippes, as they intercept Mary Stuart's communications with her conspiring supporters. And when they have the proof that Mary Stuart has sanctioned Queen Elizabeth's assassination, Kit races to deliver the message to Walsingham.

But before they can persuade Queen Elizabeth to sign Mary Stuart's death warrant, the Scottish queen escapes.

And as Kit delves deeper into her mission, she finally discovers answers about her own past that shock her to her core.

With Queen Elizabeth's life now in imminent jeopardy, can Kit find Mary Stuart and bring her to justice? Even if Kit achieves her task, will she find the London she returns to is no longer the home she once thought it was?

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ID: 704221

Title: How to Kiss Your Enemy: A Sweet Romantic Comedy

Author: Jenny Proctor

Narrator: Lidia Dornet, Philip Alces

Format: Unabridged

Length: 08:58:25

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-23

Publisher: Tantor Media

Genres: Romance, Rom-Com, Contemporary, Clean & Wholesome

Summary:

How is it possible for the chemistry between two chefs to be hotter than a ghost pepper yet colder than liquid nitrogen?

When THE Tatum Elliott shows up to run the catering kitchen at my family's farm and event center, I don't trust her any more than I did back in culinary school.

But like it or not, she's here. On my territory. My turf. In the kitchen that shares a building with my farm-to-table restaurant. And she can't seem to keep her hands off my parmesan.

Our old rivalry flares to life faster than a flambe, but there's something else flaming between us too. And it's heating up quicker than anything we're making in the kitchen.

But I can't forget that Tatum is the daughter of Christopher Elliott-America's most famous chef. She belongs in a big city, in a restaurant with her name on it. Not running the catering arm of Stonebrook Farm.

Whatever her reasons for being here now, I can't see her permanently walking away from the fame and fortune her father can offer her, no matter how well she fits in on the farm-how well she fits with me.

She'll leave eventually-I'm sure of it. I just have to make sure that when she does, she doesn't take my heart with her.

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ID: 716020

Title: Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World

Author: Brett Christophers

Narrator: Mike Cooper

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10:21:42

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-23

Publisher: Tantor Media

Genres: Business & Economics

Summary:

Banks have taken a backseat since the global financial crisis over a decade ago. Today, our new financial masters are asset managers, like Blackstone and BlackRock. And they don't just own financial assets.

The roads we drive on; the pipes that supply our drinking water; the farmland that provides our food; energy systems for electricity and heat; hospitals, schools, and the homes in which many of us live-all now swell asset managers' bulging investment portfolios.

As the owners of more and more of the basic building blocks of everyday life, asset managers shape the lives of each and every one of us in profound and disturbing ways. In this eye-opening follow-up to Rentier Capitalism, Brett Christophers peels back the veil on 'asset manager society.'

Asset managers are unlike traditional owners of housing and other essential infrastructure. Buying and selling these life-supporting assets at a dizzying pace, the crux of their business model is not long-term investment and careful custodianship but making quick profits for themselves.

In asset manager society, the natural and built environments that sustain us become one more vehicle for siphoning money from the many to the few.

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ID: 694383

Title: Peking: An Epic Novel of Twentieth-Century China

Author: Anthony Grey

Narrator: Cindy Kay

Format: Unabridged

Length: 28:37:16

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-23

Publisher: Tantor Media

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Historical Fiction, General

Summary:

This epic novel of a wide-eyed missionary and a rebellious woman thrust into China's Communist revolution is 'an excellent read, panoramic in scope' (Financial Times).

In 1931, young English-born missionary Jakob Kellner brings all the crusading passion of his untried Christian faith to a China racked by famine and bloody civil war. He burns to save the world's largest nation from Communism.

But when he is swept along on the cold, unforgiving Long March, Jakob becomes entangled with Mei-ling, a beautiful and fervent revolutionary. Soon, powerful new emotions challenge and reshape his faith-and entrap him forever in the vast country's tortured destiny.

Once held hostage by Red Guards in Peking for more than two years, author Anthony Grey traces the path of China's Communist party from its covert inception through purge and revolution. He crafts a portrait of China as a land of great beauty and harshness-of triumph and tragedy-in a sweeping narrative, rich in historical and cultural revelations.

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ID: 720297

Title: Still True

Author: Maggie Ginsberg

Narrator: Amy Melissa Bentley

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10:48:59

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-23

Publisher: Tantor Media

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Literary Fiction, General

Summary:

One summer evening, Lib Hanson is confronted by her painful past when Matt Marlow, the forty-year-old son she abandoned as an infant, shows up on her porch. Fiercely independent, Lib has never revealed her son's existence-or her previous marriage-to her husband, Jack. Married nearly three decades but living in separate houses (to the confusion but acceptance of their neighbors), they enjoy an ease and comfort together in small-town Anthem, Wisconsin. But Jack is a stickler for honesty, and Lib's long-dormant secret threatens to unravel their lives.

When ten-year-old Charlie Taylor arrives at Jack's workshop shortly thereafter, he's not the first kid in town to need help with a flat tire, and Jack gladly makes the repair to his bike. The Taylors are new to Anthem, and Jack soon discovers that Charlie and his mom, Claire, are struggling to fit in, even as Charlie's dad, Dan, is thriving in his new job. Extending friendship and kindness, as well as introductions around the local cafe, Jack assumes a grandfatherly role. What he doesn't see is the drinking that Claire hides from everyone, or the secret son that Lib has allowed to move into her house and the growing attraction between Claire and Matt. When the terrible events of a fateful evening threaten everyone's carefully crafted lives, they must each determine the value of truth for the ones they love.

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ID: 707621

Title: Wedded Midlife

Author: L.A. Boruff, Lia Davis

Narrator: Coleen Marlo

Format: Unabridged

Length: 02:52:19

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-23

Publisher: Tantor Media

Genres: Thriller & Horror, Detective Stories, Cozy Mystery

Summary:

Ava and Drew are getting married!

SQUEE!

But it's not going to be easy. C'mon, this is Ava we're talking about. As her powers go completely bonkers, everything that can go wrong suddenly does. After all, she's a witch and her beloved is technically a witch hunter.

Drew's family isn't helping matters either. Everyone Ava loves turns out to be a creature that freaks them all out.

Witches? Check. Vampires? Check. Shifters? Check. Ghouls? Check (Check, check.) Add in the devil, a snarky talking cat, and the fae (boy, they are not helpful at all). It seems like the only direction anyone will be marching is away from each other as quickly as possible.

The last thing Ava needs as she tries to get to the altar is an old nemesis turning up, so surprise, surprise that's exactly what happens. As chaos wreaks havoc for the witches and hunters alike, Luci decides that now is the perfect time to go MIA. The devil is in the details, and it turns out no one knows anything about this demon king after all.

Will it be hell on earth or happily ever after for the newlyweds? No one's really sure yet . . .

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ID: 707598

Title: Fixing Justice

Author: Suzanne Halliday

Narrator: Bradley Ford

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10:37:12

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-23

Publisher: Tantor Media

Genres: Romance, General, Military

Summary:

Sometimes the last thing you need is exactly what you get . . .

He's the sexy 007 type complete with tuxedo and an icy blue stare. She's a tom-boy waif who's more nerd than goddess.

When Tori Bennett ends up at the Justice Brothers compound in the Arizona desert, she's running away from an epic scandal with her in the starring role as whistleblower. She'd had enough of powerful, arrogant men, and just wanted to fly off the radar for a while and get her confidence back.

Draegyn St. John was all that and then some . . . and he knew it.

As if being a trust-fund kid with the blonde good looks of a Nordic god wasn't enough, he was also a Special Forces Vet with a serious attitude. Women fell at his feet. Until Victoria Bennett comes along and rocks his high and mighty world in a very big way.

Sparks fly each time they meet. When an agency crisis throws them together on an out-of-town trip, their business relationship becomes personal in a hurry. For Drae, it's an itch he needs to scratch and for Tori, it's a flat out case of lust. No harm, no foul, right?

Contains mature themes.

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ID: 716014

Title: Truman and the Bomb: The Untold Story

Author: D. M. Giangreco

Narrator: Mitch Crawford

Format: Unabridged

Length: 07:56:46

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-23

Publisher: Tantor Media

Genres: History, World, North America, Military

Summary:

Many myths have grown up around President Harry S. Truman's decision to use nuclear weapons against Imperial Japan. In destroying these myths, Truman and the Bomb will discomfort both Truman's critics and his supporters, and force historians to reexamine what they think they know about the end of the Pacific War.

Using previously unpublished material, D. M. Giangreco busts myths and more. An award-winning historian and expert on Truman, Giangreco is perfectly situated to debunk the many deep-rooted falsehoods about the roles played by American, Soviet, and Japanese leaders during the end of the World War II in the Pacific. Truman and the Bomb, a concise yet comprehensive study of Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb, will prove to be a classic for studying presidential politics and influence on atomic warfare and its military and diplomatic components.

Making this book particularly valuable for professors and students as well as for military, diplomatic, and presidential historians and history buffs are extensive primary source materials, including the planned United States naval and air operations in support of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. These documents support Giangreco's arguments while enabling the listener to enter the mindsets of Truman and his administration as well as the war's key Allied participants.

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ID: 719848

Title: Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World

Author: Richard Cockett

Narrator: Gareth Richards

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14:49:53

Language: English

Release date: 12-26-23

Publisher: Tantor Media

Genres: Business & Economics, History, Europe

Summary:

How can one European capital be responsible for most of the West's intellectual and cultural achievements in the twentieth century?

Viennese ideas saturate the modern world. From California architecture to Hollywood Westerns, modern advertising to shopping malls, orgasms to gender confirmation surgery, nuclear fission to fitted kitchens-every aspect of our history, science, and culture is in some way shaped by Vienna.

The city of Freud, Wittgenstein, Mahler, and Klimt was the melting pot at the heart of a vast metropolitan empire. But with the Second World War and the rise of fascism, the dazzling coteries of thinkers who squabbled, debated, and called Vienna home dispersed across the world, where their ideas continued to have profound impact.

Richard Cockett gives us the entirety of this extraordinary story. Tracing Vienna's rich intellectual history from psychoanalysis to Reaganomics, Cockett encompasses everything from the communist rebels of Red Vienna to the neoliberal economists of the Austrian School. This is the panoramic account of how one city made the modern world-and how we all remain inescapably Viennese.

Contact: [email protected]