Showing results by narrator "Ramiz Monsef" in All Categories

Call Me Athena: Girl from Detroit is a beautifully written novel in verse loosely based on author Colby Cedar Smith’s maternal grandmother. The story follows Mary as she and her family emigrate from Greece to Detroit in the 1930s, creating a historically accurate portrayal of life as an immigrant during the Great Depression, hunger strikes, and violent riots. Mary lives in a tiny apartment with her immigrant parents, her brothers, and her twin sister, and she questions why her parents ever came to America.

The room is watching. But Mira and Layla don't know this yet. When the two best friends are stranded on their spring break college tour road trip, they find themselves at the Wildwood Motel, located in the middle of nowhere, Indiana. Mira can't shake the feeling that there is something wrong and rotten about their room. Inside, she's haunted by nightmares of her dead brother. When she wakes up, he's still there.

Badger Kershaw was becoming a familiar figure on the frontier after the War between the States. Riding an Appaloosa with Lobo, his dog-wolf hybrid, often by his side, he was feared by most outlaws on the dodge on whom there was a bounty. It was not a savory profession, perhaps, but Kershaw was honest about what he did. Frontier lawmen for the most part were accustomed to dealing with Kershaw. When the fugitive was willing to surrender, Kershaw would bring in an outlaw alive, but it was not an option he encountered very often.

Kenneth Trachtenberg, an eccentric and witty native of Paris, travels to the Midwest to spend time with his famous American uncle, a world-renowned botanist and self-described "plant visionary". After numerous affairs and failed relationships, the restless Uncle Benn seeks a settled existence in the form of marriage - but tying the knot again opens the door to a host of new torments.

An FT Best Book of the Year 'Saad Mohseni is one of the most remarkable figures in modern Afghanistan – brave, entrepreneurial, with a knack for imagining the impossible – he transformed the Afghan media landscape and brought serious news, and exceptional entertainment to millions in the...

On Christmas Day, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a ten-minute televised speech announcing his resignation as Soviet president. Moments later, with little pomp and less circumstance, the red flag was lowered from its floodlit perch atop the Kremlin, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Into the vacuum—before a new democracy had time to put down roots—surged the Russian mafia, supplying what the new state could not: krysha, or “roof”—protection for the privately owned businesses sprouting across the country.

Acclaimed translator Dick Davis breathes new life into the timeless works of three masters of 14th-century Persian literature Together, Hafez, a giant of world literature; Jahan Malek Khatun, an eloquent princess; and Obayd-e Zakani, a dissolute satirist, represent one of the most remarkable...

Millennia ago the great empire of the Lazax brought the galaxy to heel, but now their ancient doctrine of strength and peace is failing. In the shadows, other factions begin to move against each other and their authoritarian masters. To rule themselves they must first tear down the crumbling regime they are forced to serve. When the Barony of Letnev, supplier of the Lazax's grand fleet, blockades a crucial wormhole to force the empire to listen to its demands, the spark of war is ignited and Zara Hail, an official for the Federation of Sol, is caught in the middle.

In the village of Yiwei, a fallen wasp nest unfurls into a beautifully accurate map. In a field in Louisiana, birdwatchers forge an indelible connection over a shared glimpse of a Vermilion Flycatcher, and fall. In Nineveh, a judge who prides himself on impartiality finds himself questioned by a mysterious god. On a nameless shore, a small monster searches for refuge and finds unexpected courage.

It’s 1979, and thirteen-year-old Joseph Nissan can’t help but notice that small-town Texas has something in common with Revolution-era Iran: an absence of fellow Jews. And in such a small town it seems obvious that a brown kid like him was bound to make friends with Latinos—which is a plus, since his new buds, the Ybarra twins, have his back. But when the Iran hostage crisis, two neighborhood bullies, and the local reverend’s beautiful daughter put him in all sorts of danger, Joseph must find new ways to cope at home and at school.

A coming-of-age story set against the rise of fascism, the collapse of democracy in Slovakia and Hungary, the attempted genocide of the Jewish people, and the eventual conquest of the Allied Forces over Nazi Germany, Escape to the Tatras tells the story of one child’s remarkable journey encompassing the essence of life before and throughout World War II.

Jeremy Schreiber was on top of the world—athletic, newly married, successful. And then something went terribly wrong. In this moving memoir, he shares his journey after he received a terrifying diagnosis: ALS. As the devastating disease robbed him of movement and speech, he was abandoned by his wife and betrayed by a society that shuns people with disabilities. But it’s not all doom and gloom. He found love, support, and a powerful purpose. While fighting for his independence and then for his life, Jeremy gave his all to the ALS and disability communities. 

Yakov Blumkin claimed to have had nine lives. Born to a poor Jewish family and orphaned as a child, he was a Socialist Revolutionary, a terrorist, the assassin of the German ambassador Wilhelm von Mirbach, a poet close to the avant-garde, a member of Cheka, a military strategist, a secret agent, and Leon Trotsky’s secretary. Executed in 1929 on Stalin’s orders at the age of only twenty-nine, he has continued to inspire a powerful curiosity, and wild rumors and falsehoods about his extraordinary life abound today.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service Special Agent Tyrone Benhoff is in purgatory. That’s what agents call it when they find themselves on the wrong side of command and are transferred to a place like Djibouti, Africa. He tried to open a case in Virginia that was too close to the wrong people. Now he’s being watched for even the slightest screw-up so his enemies at headquarters can drive him out of the agency. When a sailor on leave from Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, is killed outside a wildlife preserve in Zimbabwe, Ty is hand-picked to lead the investigation.

Saddle tramp Sam MacKinnon is in trouble. Double-crossed by his partners after robbing a saloon and gambling hall, MacKinnon has been left behind in the mountains of southern New Mexico with busted ribs, a banged-up head, no gun, and no horse. And no chance - because aging lawman Nelson Bookbinder and his Mescalero Apache scout, Nikita - both made legendary by dime novels MacKinnon has read - are leading a small posse hot in pursuit of the bandits. Miraculously, MacKinnon escapes the law, finds his horse and rifle, and, despite his injuries, sets out on the vengeance trail.

The small town of Ballester owes its prosperity to the confluence of three big ranches - Snowshoe, Mexican Hat, and Rainbow. Its single lawman, Deputy Sheriff Percy Whittaker, known as Perc, didn't have to deal with much lawbreaking other than the occasional drunk on a Saturday night. Until a drifter named Sam Logan rode into town looking for work.

You land in prison in your 20s, faced with the likelihood of spending the rest of your life behind the wall. What do you do? Danner Darcleight started writing. He writes about what he sees, what he has done, and the toll that his own past actions have exacted. Concrete Carnival brings us inside a maximum-security prison, introducing a colorful cast of rogues while revealing the day-to-day struggles experienced by millions of Americans now living inside the world's largest prison complex.

FBI Special Agent Drew Cady is reluctantly drawn into investigating the assassination of a sitting United States senator. Strangely, the senator’s death is linked to a murdered Baltimore junkie with an identical MO - a single stab wound to the heart and a typed eulogy left at the scene. As Agent Cady deals with a professional hit man known only as the Canadian, as well as a breakthrough Alzheimer’s drug, a misanthropic hacker, and a Mexican drug cartel, he peels back the layers of deceit and comes to realize that even the reddest of red herrings can bite.

Nelson Algren was a renowned writer, known for his penetrating and influential social novels such as The Man with the Golden Arm and A Walk on the Wild Side. Originally published in 1935, Somebody in Boots was Algren’s first novel, based on his experiences living in Texas during the Great Depression. A wonderful companion to Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, this new edition of Somebody in Boots features an introduction by Colin Asher, the author of a biography of Algren.

The fiction and reportage included in The Last Carousel, one of the final collections published during Nelson Algren’s lifetime, was written on ships and in ports of call around the world, and includes accounts of brothels in Vietnam and Mexico, stories of the boxing ring, and reminiscences of Algren’s beloved Chicago White Sox, among other subjects. In this collection, not just Algren’s intensity but his diversity are revealed and celebrated.