Showing results by narrator "Nick Podehl" in All Categories

What is the XYZ factor? The XYZ Factor isn't a place or a company or an age. It's a new kind of culture where innovation, accessibility, and transparency are the norm. It's an environment created on the principles of the Millennial generation to foster intergenerational productivity in a new kind of office culture. An XYZ organization's employees are challenged, engaged, and excited to produce. Simply put, XYZ companies have an "it" factor that helps them rise above the competition. Any company can become an XYZ company. This audiobook is your blueprint.

Gabe is officially living in Vegas. It's his dream scenario - except for the fact that his girlfriend, Irina, is back in Seattle and surrounded by college guys. And his apartment is a little sketchy. Still, Gabe manages to pull off the bluff of a century: he finishes bartending school and gets a job at a club, even though, technically, he's not of legal age to serve. Being a man means paying the bills, and Gabe wants to show everyone that he can make it on his own and stay faithful to Irina.

Unemployed Colin is living back at home in the small town where he grew up in the shadow of his older brother and a gang of neighborhood bullies. He's still struggling to overcome his best friend Danny's unexpected death five years before. The strange series of events that took place on Danny's last night haunt Colin, and as he puts the pieces together, he discovers it may not have been an accident after all.

Four months ago, Taemon was able to stave off an invasion by the Republik Army by using tricks to convince his enemies that the people of Deliverance still had the telekinetic ability known as psi. Now, though, the truth of his deception has come to light, and the Republik is preprared to mount another attack, led by General Sarin and his son, Gevri.

The disturbing visions that helped Daniel Byers solve a deadly mystery have finally quieted, and the sixteen-year-old basketball star is looking forward to things settling back to normal. But when his father mysteriously disappears, Daniel realizes that the key to finding his dad rests in deciphering his chilling hallucinations.

When a steamboat arrives heralding the news that Iowa has been called up to represent the Union of the United States of America, Ike is beside himself with excitement. For months, the promise of war has enveloped small-town Keokuk like a grand game that everyone's in on - everyone but Ike, his swaybacked pony, and his best friend and checkers partner, Albirdie. Left behind with Mother and the aunts and girl cousins while the Button men march forth toward glory, Ike's fate is sealed.

The cards are stacking up against Gabriel James: first there’s Phil, the guy paying the bills for Gabe’s mom (but not leaving his wife). Then there’s Gabe’s new school, filled with kids competing for the Ivies, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street—while Gabe’s just trying to swing enough Cs to graduate.

David is a freshly minted NYU grad who's working a not-quite-entry-level job, falling in love, and telling his parents he's studying for the LSAT. He starts a Tumblr blog, typing out posts on his BlackBerry under his desk - a blog that becomes wildly popular and brings him to the attention of major media ( The New York Times) as well as the White House. But his outward fame doesn't quell his confusion about the world and his direction in it.

>In this beautifully imaginative collection, young people attempt to negotiate the often surreal terrain of childhood and adolescence where family, friends, clergy, and teachers often pose a threat instead of providing safe harbor. At the heart of the collection is the relationship between the meek narrator, his best friend alpha-male Clip, and the near-feral Roger - but there are also agoraphobic mothers, gorgeous babysitters from New Zealand, paranoid stoned veterans, and deeply sad older sisters.

Violet Wilson is a wallflower. Shy, serious, and accident prone, she’s got a bad habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The night she's forced to pose as her friend might just be the worst time of all - that's when she's meets Jet Blevins. She knows better than to get involved with someone like him, but he touches her in ways she never expected, never wanted before.

They come from different walks of life, with different problems and different hopes and dreams. But they have one thing in common: they need a scholarship to college. And they’re ready to battle seven other contestants on a reality TV show to get it. But only one contestant can win on "The Benefactor". Who will take home the big prize? Tune in to find out.

Speakeasy manager Clara Woodsen will do anything to save her silent film idol from an untimely death. Even summon a demon. Even bet her soul she can teach his half-human/half-cheetah assistant to foxtrot. But people around town are acting strange. Have Clara's efforts unleashed a zombie plague? Or are her customers just really bad at dancing the Charleston? And can Clara find true happiness with the man of her dreams if she uses her...brains?

Boldly go where no geek has gone before! You keep your action figures in their original packaging. Your closets are full of officially licensed Star Wars merchandise. You’re hooked on Elder Scrolls and Metal Gear, but now you’ve discovered an even bigger obsession: the new girl who just moved in down the hall. What’s a geek to do? Take some tips from The Geek’s Guide to Dating. This hilarious primer is jam-packed with cheat codes, walkthroughs, and power-ups for navigating the perils and pitfalls of your love life with ease.

Dave Harris is a scientist living aboard the Alley, a military space station where he carries out hyperfield experiments. The technology to harvest energy from hyperspace saved humanity from extinction thirty years ago, and Dave’s research is at the cutting edge of hyperfield technology. Just as Dave’s experiments make progress, an accident engulfs the Alley in a whirlwind of chaos and mysterious forces, leading Dave to a disturbing discovery: His work has uncovered the energy behind psychic powers...

Walker shouldn’t be so surprised to find Jesus standing in the middle of his bedroom. After all, he prayed for whoever was up there to help his mom, who hasn’t stopped crying since Noah died, two months ago. But since when have prayers actually been answered? And since when has Jesus been so...irreverent? As astounding as Jesus’ sudden appearance is, it’s going to take more than divine intervention for Walker to come to terms with his brother’s death. Why would God take 17-year-old Noah when half of the residents in his mom’s nursing home are waiting to die?

It’s been four months since Taemon got rid of psi, or telekinesis, in the secluded city of Deliverance. But rather than ushering in a new era of peace and prosperity, Taemon’s actions seem to have driven a deeper wedge between the people. Worse yet, Taemon soon discovers that he alone still has psi - a revelation that is sure to make him a target of the angry populace. make him a target of the angry populace. With society in disarray, his mother in a coma, and a target on his back, Taemon decides to attempt to rescue his father.

Russia, 1945: For Petka, a rambunctious 12-year-old boy with dreams too big for his tiny village, the prospect of invasion is dangerously thrilling. He watches the Red Army troops march off to engage the enemy, and wages his own war - against boredom, bullies, and his lot in life as a bastard in a backwoods world. Secretly raising a wolf in his grandmother’s goat barn, happily raising hell with the local troops, stowing away in a shipment of bootleg booze destined for the combat zone, and defying death by the noose, Petka eagerly takes all he can from life.

To become a demon, you must die in complete and utter despair. Three hundred years ago, Max passed that test with flying colors and joined the afterlife resolving never again to have innocent blood on his hands. Now Max has been given the job of breaking a young witch's family curse. But what she doesn't know, what Max can't bring himself to tell her, is that completing his mission almost certainly means her death.

Ever open your locker and find that some joker has left something really weird inside? Seventh grader Dorso Clayman opens his and finds a dead body. Thirty seconds later, it disappears. It’s not the first bizarre thing that has appeared in his locker and then vanished. The ultimate gamesters have decided to make Dorso and his buddy Frank the target of some strange techno-practical jokes. They’ve hacked into the time line, and things from the past keep appearing in the present. Soon, the pranks aren’t funny anymore - they’re dangerous.

Being yourself can be such a bad idea. For 16-year-old Badi Hessamizadeh, life is a series of humiliations. After withdrawing from public school under mysterious circumstances, Badi enters Magnificat Academy. To make things "easier", his dad has even given him a new name: Bud Hess. Grappling with his Iranian-American identity, clinical depression, bullying, and a barely bottled rage, Bud is an outcast who copes by resorting to small revenges and covert acts of defiance, but the pressures of his home life and the unrequited affection of his new friend, Nikki, prime him for a more dangerous revolution.