Showing results by narrator "Fajer Al-Kaisi" in All Categories

Between 1846 and 1873, California's Indian population plunged from perhaps 150,000 to 30,000. Benjamin Madley is the first historian to uncover the full extent of the slaughter, the involvement of state and federal officials, the taxpayer dollars that supported the violence, indigenous resistance, who did the killing, and why the killings ended. This deeply researched book is a comprehensive and chilling history of an American genocide.

On the morning of March 27, 1995, four quick shots cracked through Milan’s elegant streets. Maurizio Gucci, heir to the fabulous fashion dynasty, had been ambushed, slain on the steps to his office by an unknown gunman. Two years later, Milan’s chief of police entered the sumptuous palazzo of Maurizio’s ex-wife, Patrizia Reggiani - nicknamed “the Black Widow” by the press - and arrested her for the murder. Did Patrizia kill her ex-husband because his spending was wildly out of control? Or is it possible Patrizia didn’t do it at all?

The Patriot Jihadi: A Child Soldier's Transformation to A Patriot Guardian is a compelling memoir that traces the remarkable journey of Shawn Pardazi from a child soldier to a dedicated guardian of peace and security. Born into a tumultuous world, Shawn's early years were marked by the brutal realities of war and violence. As a child soldier, he experienced firsthand the horrors and complexities of armed conflict. But in the midst of chaos, Shawn found a spark of hope that would change the course of his life forever.

It's been said that all great literature boils down to one of two stories—a man takes a journey, or a stranger comes to town. While mystery writers have been successfully using both approaches for generations, there's something undeniably alluring in the nature of a stranger: the uninvited guest, the unacquainted neighbor, the fish out of water. In the newest collection of stories by the Mystery Writers of America, each author weaves a fresh tale surrounding the eerie feeling that comes when a stranger enters our midst, featuring stories by prolific mystery writers.

Bloomberg: A Billionaire's Ambition tells the story of how one of America's most successful entrepreneurs was elected mayor of New York City and what he did with the power he won. Bloomberg's stunning victory against all odds just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attack left him facing challenges unlike any mayor in history. For the next 12 years, he kept the city safe, managed budgets through fiscal crises, promoted private sector growth, and more. But his time as mayor was not without controversy.

Young Jawad, born to a traditional Shi'ite family of corpse washers and shrouders in Baghdad, decides to abandon the family tradition, choosing instead to become a sculptor, to celebrate life rather than tend to death. He enters Baghdad's Academy of Fine Arts in the late 1980s, in defiance of his father's wishes and determined to forge his own path. But the circumstances of history dictate otherwise.

Selected testimonies to living history-speeches, letters, poems, songs-offered by the people who make history happen, but are often left out of history books: women, workers, nonwhites. Featuring introductions to the original texts by Howard Zinn. New voices featured in this 10th Anniversary Edition include Chelsea Manning, speaking after her 35-year prison sentence; Naomi Klein, speaking from the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Liberty Square; a member of Dream Defenders, a youth organization that confronts systemic racial inequality; and more.

When a series of suspicious fires leaves multiple victims dead in their homes, NYPD hostage negotiator Abby Mullen knows in her bones that the terrors of her childhood have returned. As a young girl, she narrowly escaped a fire set by Moses Wilcox, a fanatical cult leader who’s been presumed dead for thirty years. These murders have his fingerprints all over them.

He was the brother of "the Arab" killed by the infamous Meursault, the antihero of Camus' classic novel. Seventy years after that event, Harun, who has lived since childhood in the shadow of his sibling's memory, refuses to let him remain anonymous: He gives his brother a story and a name - Musa - and describes the events that led to Musa's casual murder on a dazzlingly sunny beach.

Described by the New York Times as "arguably the most important intellectual alive," Noam Chomsky is known throughout the world for his highly influential writings on language and politics. Featuring two of Chomsky's most popular and enduring books in one omnibus volume, On Language contains some of the noted linguist and political critic's most informal and accessible work to date, making it an ideal introduction to his thought.

If you were asked when America became polarized, your answer would likely depend on your age: You might say during Barack Obama’s presidency, or with the post-9/11 war on terror, or the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s, or the “Reagan Revolution” and the the rise of the New Right. How did the US become so divided? Fault Lines offers a richly told, wide-angle history view toward an answer.

Mark has a wife and two kids, a sense of purpose, financial security, and a fragile contentment. However wistful his visions of the future, Mark knows who he is. But a summer trip with his abrasive brother-in-law and unhappy sister-in-law leave Mark questioning everything he thinks he knows about his family—and himself.

In this intricate debut fantasy introducing a queernormative Persian-inspired world, a nonbinary refugee practitioner of blood magic discovers a strange disease that causes political rifts in their new homeland. Persian-American author Naseem Jamnia has crafted a gripping narrative with a moving, nuanced exploration of immigration, gender, healing, and family. Powerful and fascinating, The Bruising of Qilwa is the newest arrival in the era of fantasy classics such as the Broken Earth Trilogy, The Four Profound Weaves, and Who Fears Death.

The Backstreets is an astonishing novel by a preeminent contemporary Uyghur author who was disappeared by the Chinese state. It follows an unnamed Uyghur man who comes to the impenetrable Chinese capital of Xinjiang after finding a temporary job in a government office. Seeking to escape the pain and poverty of the countryside, he finds only cold stares and rejection. He wanders the streets, accompanied by the bitter fog of winter pollution, reciting a monologue of numbers and odors, lust and loathing, memories and madness.

In Going Home, Raja Shehadeh, the Orwell Prize-winning author of Palestinian Walks, takes us on a series of journeys around his hometown of Ramallah. Set in a single day - the day that happens to be the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank - the audiobook is a powerful and moving record and chronicle of the changing face of his city.

Vincent van Gogh’s paintings look utterly unique - his vivid palette and boldly interpretive portraits are unmistakably his. Yet however revolutionary his style may have been, it was actually built on a strong foundation of paintings by other artists, both his contemporaries and those who came before him. Now, drawing on Van Gogh’s own thoughtful and often profound comments about the painters he venerated, Steven Naifeh gives a gripping account of the artist’s deep engagement with their work.

Drive-by shootings, drug overdoses, and multi-car accidents—as a paramedic, he thought he had seen it all, until he answered a small job advertisement that changed his life forever. Welcome to the mysterious world of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of the most fundamentalist Islamic countries on the globe. Working as a paramedic at the only level one trauma center in the Middle East, he found his skills and knowledge tested to the limit on a daily basis.

Indelbed is a lonely kid living in a crumbling mansion in the super-dense, super-chaotic third-world capital of Bangladesh. His father, Dr. Kaikobad, is the black sheep of their clan. A drunken loutish widower, he refuses to allow Indelbed go to school, and the only thing Indelbed knows about his mother is the official cause of her early demise: "Death by Indelbed". But when Dr. Kaikobad falls into a supernatural coma, Indelbed and his older cousin, the wise-cracking slacker Rais, learn that Indelbed's dad was in fact a magician - and a trusted emissary to the djinn world.

This book attempts to explore the military lives of Moses, the Buddha, and Muhammad, and the role their war experiences played in their religious lives.

In this offering from Morris Award finalist Stephanie Oakes, three riveting points of view are woven together in a story that's part historical mystery, part contemporary coming-of-age, and completely unputdownable. When Molly gets a package leading her to Pepper, they're tasked with solving a decades-old mystery: find out who killed Ava back in 1989. Using Ava's diary for clues, Molly and Pepper realize there's more to her life - and death - than meets the eye. Someone is lying to them. And someone out there is guiding them along, desperate for answers.