Showing results by narrator "J D Jackson" in All Categories

In recent decades there has been a decline in the quality and availability of psychotherapy in America that has gone largely unnoticed—even though rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are on the rise. In Saving Talk Therapy, veteran psychologist Dr. Enrico Gnaulati presents evocative case studies from his practice to remind patients and therapists alike how and why traditional talk therapy works and, using cutting-edge research findings, unpacks the problematic incentives in our health-care system and in academic psychology that explain its decline.

Bill Russell was not the first African American to play professional basketball, but he was its first Black superstar. From the moment he stepped onto the court of the Boston Garden in 1956, Russell began to transform the sport in a fundamental way, making him, more than any of his contemporaries, the Jackie Robinson of basketball. In King of the Court, Aram Goudsouzian provides a vivid and engrossing chronicle of the life and career of this brilliant champion and courageous racial pioneer. Russell's leaping, wide-ranging defense altered the game's texture.

Southern fables usually go the other way around. A white woman is killed or harmed in some way, real or imagined, and then, like the moon follows the sun, a black man ends up dead. But when it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules - a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger working the backwoods towns of Highway 59, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about his home state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.

Despite its omnipresence and long history, imprisonment is a deeply troubling practice. In the United States and elsewhere, prison conditions are inhumane, prisoners are treated without dignity, and sentences are extremely harsh. Mass incarceration and its devastating impact on black communities have been widely condemned as neoslavery or “the new Jim Crow.” Can the practice of imprisonment be reformed, or does justice require it to be ended altogether?

Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher of the Dallas Cowboys, Dancing with the Stars champion, and successful real-estate investor, outlines the principles that helped him become a winner on and off the football field.

On a hot day in July 1919, five black youths went swimming in Lake Michigan, unintentionally floating close to the white beach. An angry white man began throwing stones at the boys, striking and killing one. Racial conflict on the beach erupted into days of urban violence that shook the city of Chicago to its foundations. This mesmerizing narrative draws on contemporary accounts as it traces the roots of the explosion that had been building for decades in race relations, politics, business, and clashes of culture.

In 1831, the American ship Comet, carrying 165 enslaved men, women, and children, crashed onto a coral reef near the shore of the Bahamas, then part of the British Empire. Shortly afterward, the Vice Admiralty Court in Nassau set the rescued captives free. In a work of profoundly relevant research and storytelling, historian and Frederick Douglass Prize–winner Jeff Forret uncovers how the Comet incident—as well as similar episodes that unfolded over the next decade—resulted in the British Crown making reparations payments to a U.S. government that strenuously represented slaveholder interests.

In Rebuild the Dream, green economy pioneer Van Jones reflects on his journey from grassroots outsider to White House insider. For the first time, he shares intimate details of his time in government – and reveals why he chose to resign his post as a special advisor to the Obama White House. Jones puts his hard-won lessons to good use, proposing a powerful game plan to restore hope, fix our democracy and renew the American Dream.

Among these biographies, listeners will find aviators and artists, politicians and pop stars, athletes and activists. The exceptional men featured include artist Aaron Douglas, civil rights leader John Lewis, dancer Alvin Ailey, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, musician Prince, photographer Gordon Parks, tennis champion Arthur Ashe, and writer James Baldwin.

Rising from poverty-stricken Louisville in the 1950s, Ali became one of the world's greatest athletes. Beginning life as Cassius Clay, Ali would struggle against opponents both in and out of the ring. Segregation and racism stood as obstacles in his path, but as he climbed the boxing ranks, his social conscience grew. He refused to be pigeonholed as a stereotypical black athlete in the 1960s and changed his name to Muhammad Ali after converting to Islam.

Telling the remarkable tale of a man who is still remembered on the streets of New Orleans and in the hearts of professional-wrestling fans, this book aims to restore the overlooked Junkyard Dog to his proper place in the history books. In 1979, Sylvester Ritter, also known as the Junkyard Dog, managed to break one of the final color barriers in the sport by becoming the first Black wrestler named undisputed top star of his promotion, and this biography reveals all the famous feuds and business back stories that made him a wrestling legend.

Persistently unlucky with women, Mitchell is tired of dates that seem to go nowhere fast. He's just decided to become a player - replete with a swaggering style and cocky attitude. Now all the women he meets find him irresistible! Enter Nikki, a beautiful woman whose luck with the opposite sex has also been pretty bad. Will they hit it off?

You know the Super Soaker. It's one of the top 20 toys of all time. And it was an accidental discovery that brought it into being. Trying to create a new cooling system for refrigerators and air conditioners, inventor Lonnie Johnson instead created the mechanics for the iconic toy. A love of rockets, robots, and inventions and a mind for creativity were present in Lonnie Johnson's early life.

Cemetery Road is a riveting standalone thriller that follows Errol “Handy” White, a man whose past has come back to haunt him. Years ago, Handy left his life as a Los Angeles thief behind, and now lays low in the Twin Cities. But when he hears that his old friend R. J. Burrows has been murdered, Handy must return to L.A. for the funeral and face a terrible secret.

On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a young White man, attended the Wednesday evening Bible study at the predominantly Black Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. An hour later, Roof pulled a concealed weapon and killed nine African Americans as they prayed, including Myra Thompson, the wife of Reverend Anthony Thompson. This audiobook is the account of Reverend Thompson's wife's murder, the grief he experienced, and the radical choice to forgive the killer. But beyond that, Reverend Thompson casts a compelling vision of the power of forgiveness to transform our lives.

The Civil War is over, though for Jupiter Smith, a former slave and Union soldier, many battles still lie ahead. He returns to the plantation he worked on before the war in search of his woman but rather finds his old master gone mad, haunting the ruins like a ghost. Out of pity for the now mentally ill colonel, Jupiter strangles him and heads west to seek a new life in San Francisco.

Henry Brogan is an elite assassin who becomes the target of a mysterious operative who can seemingly predict his every move. To his horror, he soon learns that the man who’s trying to kill him is a younger, faster, cloned version of himself. This is the official novelization of the hotly anticipated Gemini Man, the latest film from Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee (Life of Pi; Brokeback Mountain; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

A two-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Award, Sharon Draper has penned numerous modern classics of youth literature. The third installment of her acclaimed Jericho trilogy, Just Another Hero returns to familiar territory for a new spin on her indelible characters. Arielle Gresham is faced with numerous problems at home, and a rash of petty crimes has beset her school. After alienating just about everyone who could help her, Arielle makes a fateful decision to help solve these crimes.

Washington, D.C., 1972. Derek Strange has left the police department and set up shop as a private investigator. His former partner, Frank "Hound Dog" Vaughn, is still on the force. When a young woman comes to Strange asking for his help recovering a cheap ring she claims has sentimental value, the case leads him onto Vaughn's turf, where a local drug addict's been murdered, shot point-blank in his apartment. Soon both men are on the trail of a ruthless killer: Red Fury, so called for his looks and the car his girlfriend drives, but a name that fits his personality all too well.

The Drift is a fast-paced trip through the lurid world of modern hobos. Charles Harmon had a firm grip on the American dream until his mind started to crack. Now he's a know-it-all tramp riding the rails. When a friend asks Charles to help find his missing niece, the trail leads to an unsavory world of drug running and white supremacy.