Mike Parson has 6 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 5 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 4 ratings. The most-rated is The Unwilling.
The Unwilling
Summary
This program includes a letter read by the author. “We the unwilling, led by the unqualified to kill the unfortunate, die for the ungrateful.” (Unknown Soldier) Set in the South at the height of the Vietnam War, The Unwilling combines crime, suspense, and searing glimpses into the human mind and soul in New York Times best-selling author John Hart's singular style. Gibby's older brothers have already been to war. One died there. The other came back misunderstood and hard, a decorated killer now freshly released from a three-year stint in prison. Jason won't speak of the war or of his time behind bars, but he wants a relationship with the younger brother he hasn't known for years. Determined to make that connection, he coaxes Gibby into a day at the lake: long hours of sunshine and whisky and older women. But the day turns ugly when the four encounter a prison transfer bus on a stretch of empty road. Beautiful but drunk, one of the women taunts the prisoners, leading to a riot on the bus. The woman finds it funny in the moment, but is savagely murdered soon after. Given his violent history, suspicion turns first to Jason; but when the second woman is kidnapped, the police suspect Gibby, too. Determined to prove Jason innocent, Gibby must avoid the cops and dive deep into his brother's hidden life, a dark world of heroin, guns, and outlaw motorcycle gangs. What he discovers there is a truth more disturbing than he could have imagined: not just the identity of the killer and the reasons for Tyra's murder, but the forces that shaped his brother in Vietnam, the reason he was framed, and why the most dangerous man alive wants him back in prison. This is crime fiction at its most raw, an exploration of family and the past, of prison and war and the indelible marks they leave. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press “Another scorcher from Hart...[he] keeps us engaged...subtly folding quiet, character-driven moments into the story while still powering the narrative toward an all-stops-out ending - and a chilling coda.” (Booklist, starred review)
©2020 John Hart (P)2020 Macmillan Audio
The Montessori Toddlers
Summary
Maria Montessori based her educational approach on a profound understanding of the spiritual nature of the child, on the spiritual preparation of the teacher, and the teacher-child relationship. However, she did not elaborate on the nature of teacher teams or the spiritual aspect of teamwork. Though most Montessori early childhood classrooms have two or more teachers who teach together as a team, very little research has been conducted on how these teams work together or on how spirituality influences their work. Moreover, love for the child undergirded everything that they did. In Montessori classrooms, children make creative choices in their learning, while the classroom and the highly trained teacher offer age-appropriate activities to guide the process. Children work in groups and individually to discover and explore the knowledge of the world and to develop their maximum potential. Every material in a Montessori classroom supports an aspect of child development, creating a match between the child’s natural interests and the available activities. Children can learn through their own experience and at their own pace. They can respond at any moment to the natural curiosities that exist in all humans and build a solid foundation for life-long learning. As Montessori stated: "If we ponder the influence that education can have on the attainment of world peace, it becomes clear that we must make the child and his education our primary concern."
©2020 Mike Parson (P)2020 Mike Parson
JFK
Summary
Nearly 50 years after the assassination, a majority of Americans continue to respond favorably toward President Kennedy’s conduct in office, despite revelations of his serial philandering and the cover-up of his serious health problems. This book examines the dominant images of the Kennedy presidency for some of the possible causes of the disparities between perception and reality. Kennedy was the nation’s first president to understand the power of imagery. He harnessed the power of media and television to cultivate favorable images and sustain popular appeal. Kennedy and others in the White House consciously worked to create positive images that portrayed the president’s youthful appearance and his wholesome appeal as a faithful husband and loving father. Many people identified with idealized images of Kennedy, who seemed like a picture of robust health and an ideal family man. Behind the scenes, though, a different image has emerged overtime of an enigmatic, complex man - a human being who was capable of both selfless and selfish motives and actions. This book assesses both the positive and negative dimensions of the Kennedy legacy to provide a fresh perspective. This book will survey John F. Kennedy’s life and highlight some of the images associated with his rise to the presidency. It will summarize Kennedy’s popular image to understand why some Americans embraced or rejected the president’s image. The final chapter will discuss the impact of the assassination, emergence of the Camelot myth and the legacy of the Kennedy presidency. Based on an examination of historic, sociological, scholarly documents and a lifelong interest in reading about the Kennedys, this book concludes that many Americans projected many positive values onto President Kennedy, but failed to account fully for the reality of his complexities and weaknesses.
©2020 Mike Parson (P)2020 Mike Parson
Branding Psychology
Summary
To establish a long-lasting relationship, the brand provides intangible benefits that sometimes overshadow the tangible benefits of a brand. It is getting tougher with the explosion of communication technology, where people stay connected, to update information. The emergence of branding topics has been witnessed in the past with the explosion of branding categories that apply to both the manufacturing and service industries. Brand is referred to as logo, symbol, name, or design that creates a trademark or signature that distinguishes goods or services. Creating a strong brand provides additional value that looks simple from the customer point of view, but is a great deal more important for a firm to survive the stiff competition in the market. The brand is a critical element to superior quality products, especially to a saturated market, hence, a trusted brand must be able to not only satisfy customer needs but also deliver superior quality on attributes that matter to customers: low cost of quality, overall cost leadership, and effective positioning.
©2020 Mike Parson (P)2020 Mike Parson
The Viking Myth
Summary
Vikings are a part of everyday life. For a people who lived around a thousand years ago, their omnipresence is remarkable. They are a marketing device, a tourist attraction, and a subject on the national curriculum. They appear at museums, Viking festivals, and in comic strips, films, novels, and children's history books. They are a focus of academic controversy, with scholars waging an ongoing war over the proper interpretations of the Viking past, and they lend themselves readily to use in constructing various national and regional identities. Vikings are a vibrant part of modern popular culture. Although the Viking Age ended nearly a millennium ago, today Viking images are everywhere, functioning as marketing devices, role models, and sources of regional/national pride and identity. This book examines the causes of the Vikings' adoption as icons of popular culture and looks at the various ways in which Vikings are used. The book also turns to a chronological overview of political, literary, and archaeological developments that have influenced the evolution of Viking images.
©2021 Mike Parson (P)2021 Mike Parson
The Link
Summary
An impossible enemy. A fleet surrounded. Jain and his fleet of elite AI warships hurry to Earth's defense when an alien empire known as the Link stages an all-out attack. Though his fleet is equipped with the most powerful weapons tech ever developed, with enough firepower to raze an entire moon base, even Jain's mighty vessels prove no match for the enemy. When unexpected allies show up, the tide seems to turn in his favor. But will it be enough? Perhaps. The aliens were expecting to find a race of organics barely out of the stone ages. It must have come as quite a shock when they realized they faced a budding AI Empire. Book One of a full-length military science fiction trilogy, The Link ends in a cliffhanger. Book Two, The Alliance, is available now.
©2019 Isaac Hooke (P)2021 Isaac Hooke