Showing results by narrator "Shawn Jain" in All Categories

A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer and series editor Heidi Pitlor. Andrew Sean Greer, “an exceptionally lovely writer, capable of mingling humor with sharp poignancy” (Washington Post), selects twenty stories out of thousands...

Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore, where everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve. With the right image, values, and opinions, you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Twenty Percent—the Virtual elite—and have the world at your feet. Otherwise you risk falling to the precarious Ten Percent, and deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water, or even humanity. The system has no flaws. Until the elusive "Ten Percent Thief" steals a single jacaranda seed from the Virtual city.

National bestselling author Phil Stamper crafts the perfect summer friendship story, starring four queer boys with big hearts and even bigger dreams. It’s the summer before senior year. Gabriel, Reese, Sal, and Heath are best friends, bonded in their small, rural town by their queerness, their...

An incisive and inspiring call to look beyond capitalism to chart a road map for a planet ravaged by pandemics, climate crisis, and wars. Prompted by trenchant questions by international solidarity organizer Frank Barat, renowned author and activist Vijay Prashad shows that the path toward hope and liberation lies in looking closely at myriad, under covered struggles being waged all across the world by workers in countries such as India, Kenya, Peru, Tunisia, and Argentina. A marvelously global but grassroots perspective.

Within the confines of Mélusine lies the Mirador, the city's citadel of power and magic. A stronghold where Felix Harrowgate has found his place once more, his sorcery and his sanity restored. But even a wizard at the height of his powers knows well to watch his back. Which is why Mildmay Foxe won't let Felix out of his sight. The ex-assassin and former cat burglar is Felix's half-brother, a man deeply tied to him by blood and magic. But Mildmay gets caught up in a dangerous attraction to Mehitabel Parr, professional actress and unwilling spy for the Bastion.

Chased by evil her whole life, Leila was accused of lighting the fire that killed her beloved foster brother, Zeke. Now, she's one of the badass assassins fated to wield holy relics that will stop the apocalypse. When Zeke turns up alive, handsome as the devil and working for her rivals, she's forced to confront her worst fear… is she evil? Why else would he fake his death and abandon her? Burdened by guilt, Zeke joined Team Saint as a gunslinging demon hunter to pursue a path of redemption. He failed everyone in his life… including the only girl he ever loved, his foster sister Leila.

Two generations of a Muslim Indian family grapple with what parts of life we control and what we must humbly accept in pursuit of the American dream--for readers of Min Jin Lee, Mohsin Hamid, and Ayad Akhtar. In suburban Miami, sixty-year-old Sakeena--co-owner of a Dunkin' franchise along with...

Leadership shouldn't cost us our souls, yet too many leaders find themselves spiritually and emotionally exhausted, leading organizations that drain rather than nurture human potential. This book offers a different path—one where personal transformation becomes the foundation for positive organizational change.

I've lived a very quiet life, keeping my deepest secrets close to my chest. I let no one in, not even my closest friends. When I'm invited to participate in the All-Star Games, I'm suddenly forced to share a hotel room—and a single bed—with a stranger. My carefully guarded world starts to come undone when he kisses me, and I can't get enough.

Ideology consists of normative prescriptions regarding how society should be shaped, together with an interpretive roadmap indicating how this normative vision can be implemented in reality. Ideological Fixation is the result of tensions and conflicts between these two elements. The book focuses on ideologies' factual claims about the world, typically subordinate to, and often distorted by, their normative commitment. In exploring this phenomenon, the book combines insights from evolutionary psychology regarding the nature of some of our deepest proclivities.

Combining poignant memoir and historical research, a son of Holocaust survivors grapples with the dream of Zionism and its consequences. Israel: A Personal History takes off where Göran Rosenberg's internationally acclaimed and award-winning childhood memoir, A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz, ends. After his father's suicide in 1960 in a small industrial town in Sweden, the remainder of the family, a single mother with two children, emigrates to Israel.

His sanity restored, Felix Harrowgate knows there's only one way back to the life he once knew as one of an elite society of wizards: return to Melusine and restore the Virtu, the source of the city's power and protection. After all, it was the manipulations of Felix's former master that destroyed the magical orb. Now that Felix has determined his course of action, there's a very specific companion he needs for this epic journey.

It's no secret that steering a business has become dramatically more complex and uncertain in our modern era. Constant exploration of new territory by teams is the name of the game. Yet most companies are stuck with yesterday's approach to problem solving. Having reached the highest levels of the Fortune 500, digital disrupter Atif Rafiq has written Decision Sprint to pull the curtain back on the hidden management systems within your organization that impact how people think, collaborate, and make decisions.

Trapped in a cave in the Hindu Kush, Annja Creed has a dream vision of the Monkey King, trickster hero of the Chinese classic Journey to the West, who charges her to protect her rescuer, a historian seeking the scepter that may have inspired the Monkey King’s magic staff. The key lies in a lost journal from the Dunhuang Library, an ancient trove of knowledge deep in the Gobi Desert. But unseen rivals will kill to protect the secret or claim it for themselves. Annja begins her own journey, protecting her friend from danger and death, in the footsteps of the Monkey King himself.

Romeo and Juliet meets Chinese mythology in this magical novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Astonishing Color of After. Hunter Yee has perfect aim with a bow and arrow, but all else in his life veers wrong. He’s sick of being haunted by his family’s past mistakes. The only...

Traveling across India, interviewing Hindu zealots, armed insurgents, jailed dissidents, and politicians and thinkers from across the political spectrum, Siddhartha Deb reveals a country in which forces old and new have aligned to endanger democracy. The result is an absorbing—and disturbing—portrait. India has become a religious fundamentalist dystopia, one depicted here with a novelist's precise language and eye for detail.

Terrible twos, temper tantrums, and grocery store meltdowns are usually the first things that come to mind when people think of toddlers. But pediatric emergency medicine physician and researcher Dr. Hasan Merali has long thought toddlers are among the best people in our society and adults could do well to learn from them. These extraordinary youngsters can be impulsive, yes, but with this comes a remarkable ability to take risks and ask questions—two qualities that can help us enjoy life more

It’s the most romantic time of the year. Three adult siblings, each at a personal and romantic crossroads, reunite with their larger-than-life mother at her Catskills manor for an unforgettable Christmas in “the funny queer holiday rom-com [we’ve] always wanted to read” (Self)...

In 1766, an insatiable vampire sails from London to the Malabar Coast, aboard an East India Company ship. But along the shores of the Indus lurk darker and more ancient powers, and a war is brewing in the night. Two centuries after the first European ship sailed to the Malabar Coast and made landfall at Calicut, The East India Company seeks to secure its future along the lucrative Silk Route, in the year 1766. An old evil now sails aboard a company ship, hoping to make a home in this new found land.

Completed as casualties mounted in the latest political and humanitarian crisis, Israelis and Palestinians is essential for anyone concerned by the ongoing violence in the Middle East.