Books That Make You Podcast

Books That Make You Stand at the Crossroads of God, Science, Technology and History

A scientist who believes in both God and evolution, Mark J. Rose is also an author who whisks readers back in time with his series Matt Miller in the Colonies, a set of historical science-fiction stories. Along with his curiosity and creativity, he carries an adventurous and exploratory spirit, which has him traveling and researching in-person many of the places he writes about.

For Mark, travel enriches his writing. One can Google a place, he says, but physically being there gives off an irreplaceable “vibration” the virtual world can’t duplicatee. For The Virginian, he visited Ben Franklin’s house in London — hardly a big tourist destination there. While writing the series’ most recent book, Architect, he organized a private tour of the Capital building in Colonial Williamsburg.

Mark is a director of research and development at a startup biotech company, and holds a doctorate in pharmaceutical chemistry.

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Books That Make You Succeed in the Workplace, and Avoid Burnout

More and more, it’s becoming important for women in the workplace to recognize that the old rules no longer apply, and to adopt a new playbook.

Women may be natural leaders, but they’re burnt out. Even after playing by the rules, they still don’t achieve their much-deserved leadership roles. Now, with Randi Braun as their coach, they stand on the edge of something major.

Randi addresses subjects such as addiction to perfectionism, the reasons for burnout and unhappiness, what exactly is broken with the old system, the hard process of silencing our inner critic and rising above the quest for external validation.

A sought-after thought leader, speaker, and author of the women’s leadership book Something Major: The New Playbook for Women at Work (New Degree Press, 2023). Randi’s book brims with stories, testimonials, facts and figures. One play at a time, she’s changing women’s lives—all while wearing pink three-inch pumps.

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Books That Make You Feel Like You’ve Been Taken Off on a Grand Fantastic Journey

In J.W. Zarek’s BookFest Award-winning novel “The Devil Pulls the Strings,” time-travel, twisted history and secret societies come crashing together.

Since Boone was six, he’s been haunted by a Wendigo spirit, which doesn’t help his debilitating panic attacks or gut-wrenching guilt. Now, come Saturday, a cursed Immortal seeks to destroy New York City. But all Boone wants is to just keep a promise to a friend, a friend he nearly killed last Sunday.

Set in modern-day New York City, 1813 Genoa, Italy and Wentzville, MO, the book threads together Slavic mythology, secret societies, bromance, Paganini’s music and time travel.

In his day job, J.W. Zarek has helped catch bad guys for the government. While in Japan, he taught English Conversation in Japan, and can analyze anyone’s handwriting. He’s hunted pirates in the Persian Gulf, and has sailed twice through the Suez Canal.

While working at the FBI, his thesis on relationship red-flag behaviors earned him an invitation to present a paper at the First Annual Forensics Congress in China. This, in turn, led him to writing his award-winning book “Naughty or Nice – Whose List Are You On?”, now available as a handout during lectures.

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Books That Make You Feel the Power of Loyalty, Nobility, Friendship—and Share Them with the Young Ones

Children’s books with positive, uplifting messages are a great way to not only introduce children to reading, but to give them a baseline of virtues, with ideas that impart life lessons to help them grow. And empathy, courage and friendship are all thematic virtues found in the Bookfest-Award-winning “Bunky and the Walms: The Christmas Story.”

Aleksandra Tryniecka, the author, a poet, writer and Assistant Professor at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Poland, as well as a poet and fiction writer. In addition to “Bunky and the Walms: The Christmas Story” (Wipf and Stock/Resource Publications, October 2021), she is the author of the forthcoming book, “Women’s Literary Portraits in the Victorian and Neo-Victorian Novel” (Rowman & Littlefield, Lexington Books, February 2023).

While working on Bunky’s further adventures, she enjoys 19th-century British literature, especially anything by Anthony Trollope and Wilkie Collins. The Cheshire Cat is one of her favorite literary characters...aside, of course, from Bunky!

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Books That Make You Reconsider an Element Like Calcium

Even as so many things connect us in this world and in nature, often we fail to see the most fundamental, and important, elements. Literally.

Not Korynn Newville. She kicks off her new series “Indiscernible Elements” with a unique take on the element calcium, in her book, Indiscernible Elements: Calcium. Yes, that well-known health benefit touted in so many a milk or orange juice commercial. But, as Korynn shows, it’s so much more.

An architectural designer, artist and activist, she describes how calcium is in us, and all around us. Through illustration, poetry and dialogue, Korynn explores in her book the path a molecule of calcium can take through various stages of life and death.

Korynn’s passion for the environment was the impetus that led to her writing and her eco-activism. She seeks to deliver a message of hope, connection, and adaptation to share with the world.

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