Showing results by narrator "Zehra Naqvi" in All Categories

This book explores the nature and essential role of hope in human life under conditions of oppression. Oppression is often a threat and damage to hope, yet many members of oppressed groups, including prominent activists pursuing a more just world, find hope valuable and even essential to their personal and political lives. Katie Stockdale offers a unique evaluative framework for hope that captures its intrinsic value, the rationality and morality of hope, and ultimately how we can hope well in the non-ideal world we share.

In the Bangalore, India, of the 2070s, a young woman who is internet-famous enters an empty police station and tells the virtual assistant that her life is in danger. When she disappears out of her own apartment, it's up to Police Sub-Inspector Ferron and her partner to determine whether a crime has even been committed. In a world of enhanced tech and extreme interconnectedness, can someone truly disappear?

In 1942, when Mahatma Gandhi asks Indians to give one family member to the freedom movement, 10-year-old Anjali is devastated to think of her father risking his life for the freedom struggle. But it turns out he isn't the one joining. Anjali's mother is. And with this change comes many more adjustments designed to improve their country and use "ahimsa" - non-violent resistance - to stand up to the British government. First the family must trade in their fine foreign-made clothes for homespun cotton, so Anjali has to give up her prettiest belongings.

Every girl needs a knight in shining armor.... When kitchen witch Gwen Young discovers the spirit of King Arthur in the suit of armor that stands in her cafe only an hour after finding a dead body in the library, she knows it's going to be a very strange day....

Naima is a talented painter of traditional alpana patterns, which Bangladeshi women and girls paint on their houses for special celebrations. But Naima is not satisfied just painting alpana. She wants to help earn money for her family, like her best friend, Saleem, does for his family. When Naima's rash effort to help puts her family deeper in debt, she draws on her resourceful nature and her talents to bravely save the day.

No one ever expected Catriona Menzies-Pike to run a marathon. She hated running and was a hopeless athlete. But a decade after her parents died suddenly, she started running and found that her grief started to move, too. Until very recently it was frowned upon for women to run long distances. Running was deemed unladylike - and probably dangerous.

The cosmic gods are about to strike, humanity is on the verge of losing its free will, and Carmella Hunter and her friends are the last line of defense. The task of being anchor between the witches and the skein is draining Carmella by the hour, but she isn't one to sit by and let her friends do the work. With the clock ticking toward the eclipse, Carmella is determined to wrestle a plan B into place.

When kitchen witch Gwen Young discovers a local artist has gone missing, she and Arthur set out to solve the mystery. Neither of them suspects that their past - and their future - is closely tied to this case....

Families are going missing in the city, and investigative operative Carmella Hunter has been tasked to find them. With the public eye on her every move, Carmella must work against a ticking clock to locate the missing humans. When the evidence begins to point to an entirely alien and sinister plot, the government agency Carmella works for is forced to change strategy. Now, Carmella and her friends must go undercover in the hopes of becoming the next victims. But will the kidnapper take the bait? And if he does, will Carmella and her friends make it out alive?

A stunning fantasy inspired by familiar fairy-tales, complete with cursed princesses, thieves-turned-soldiers, and an orphan girl transformed into an immortal, shapeshifting heroine. The Nissera Chronicles start here.... Bristal, a 16-year-old kitchen maid, finds herself in a gritty fairy-tale gone wrong when she discovers she has elicromancer magic in her blood. Elicromancers are an ancient breed of immortal people, but only two remain in Nissera after a bloody civil war. Bristal joins their ranks without knowing that one of them has a dark secret.

Kate and Harriet are best friends who are growing up together on an isolated Australian cape in the 1880s. As daughters of the lighthouse keepers, the two girls share everything until a fisherman, McPhail, arrives in their small community. When Kate witnesses the desire that flares between him and Harriet, she is torn by her feelings of envy and longing. Ultimately a moment of skylarking in McPhail's hut changes everything....

Madeleine d'Leon doesn't know where Edward came from. He is simply a character in her next book. But as she writes, he becomes all she can think about. His charm, his dark hair, his pen scratching out his latest literary novel . . . Edward McGinnity can't get Madeleine out of his mind—softly smiling, infectiously enthusiastic, and perfectly damaged. She will be the ideal heroine for his next book.

As more and more people align themselves with the Palestinian people, Palestine in a World on Fire provides the global perspective and analysis needed to inform how we forge ahead on this path of newfound solidarity. Editors Ilan Pappé and Katherine Natanel have gathered a collection of interviews that are intimate, challenging, and rigorous—many of them conducted before October 7th but still startlingly prescient.

Bound to the queen of Chandela by a forbidden soul bond that saved her when she was a child, Katyani has never fallen short of what’s expected of her—becoming the best guardswoman the Garuda has ever seen and an advisor to the crown prince when he ascends to the throne. But when the latest assassination attempt against the royals leaves them with a faceless body and no leads to the perpetrator, Katyani is unwillingly shipped off to guard the Chandela princes in Acharya Mahavir’s esteemed monastic school in Nandovana, a forest where monsters have roamed unchecked for generations.

This is the real world of modern Karachi as seen through the eyes of a young woman in an elite family. Here are the hidden dramatic realities of the upper class, the undertow of religion, revealing the truth sometimes spoken in hushed whispers, more often swept away by the flourish of silk saris at extravagant dinner parties...or perhaps never mentioned at all.

A century after her legendary ancestors overcame a bloodthirsty tyrant, 17-year-old Valory Braiosa attends a training academy for elicromancers, immortal beings with magical gifts. Yet Valory's immense power seems impossible to tame, and she faces imprisonment by the Nisseran authorities. Then a forbidden resurrection spell awakens a long-dormant evil, and Valory may be the only one who can vanquish this terrifying villain.

The Second Half explores how the second half of life is experienced by women from many different cultures. From a French actress to a British novelist, from an Algerian nomad to a Saudi Arabian doctor, and an American politician, Ellen Warner traveled all over the world to interview women about their lives. She asked them what they learned in the first half that was helpful in the second, and what advice they would give to younger women. Their revealing and inspiring stories are enlightening for all listeners.

Kiran Mathur knows firsthand how dangerous love can be. After all, her sister's marriage in India nearly destroyed Kiran's family. So she's decided to redeem romance herself - by not falling for anyone who might disappoint her parents. That is, that was her plan right up until she met her new neighbor, Nash Hawthorne. Nash is a dedicated psychologist and committed to being alone. His family life has taught him the inevitability of abandonment, and he isn't ready to question his beliefs. But spending time with Kiran makes him start to experience emotions he's never felt before.

At a time when many proclaim the death of active investing, Rupal J. Bhansali, global contrarian, makes a clarion call for its renaissance. Non-consensus thinking has resulted in breakthrough successes in science, sports, and Silicon Valley. Bhansali shows how to apply it to the world of investing to improve one's odds of achieving above-average returns with below-average risks.

Amber Gryce believes in magic the way anyone does: as a thing of the past, marked now only by the long reign of an ancient queen sworn to live until her stolen son is returned to her. Such stories are romantic but distant for Amber, surrounded by family and wealth. But like magic, wealth can disappear. Left destitute, Amber's family retreats to a forest holding far from their city home, where Amber's love of roses leads her into the heart of enchantment