Showing results by narrator "Lara Sawalha" in All Categories

Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. Until Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him. She refuses—and is banished forever from Paradise. Demonized and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a secret: she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah—God's wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven—is missing. Lilith has a plan: she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world, and regain her rightful place in Paradise.

Assyria, in the reign of Ashurbanipal. For Aurya and her daydreaming brother, Sharo, every day is a struggle for survival, as they dodge the beatings of their drunken father and scrabble for scraps of food. One violent evening, everything changes. Soon, they are on the barge of King Ashurbanipal, bound for the beautiful, near-mythical city of Nineveh.

No topic has gripped the public imagination so dramatically as the spectre of global jihadism. While much has been said about the way jihadists behave, their ideology remains poorly understood. Shiraz Maher charts the intellectual underpinnings of Salafi-jihadism from its origins in the mountains of the Hindu Kush to the jihadist insurgencies of the 1990s and the 9/11 wars.

Morocco, 1968. As she stands at the window, Mathilde reflects on the opportunities before her. Looking out at her garden, the roses - brought in from Marrakech - have bloomed and their sweet, fresh scent pervades the garden. Anything feels possible, and she is determined to celebrate it. Don't they have the right to enjoy life, after dedicating their best years to the war and then to this farm?

The World by Simon Sebag Montefiore is a fresh and original history of humanity, unlike any previous world history: it uses family, the one thing all humans have in common, to tell the story. It is genuinely global, spanning all eras and all continents, from the perspective of places as diverse as Haiti, Congo and Cambodia as well as Europe, China and America.       

In this singular and imaginative story collection, Cecelia Ahern explores the endless ways in which women blaze through adversity with wit, resourcefulness, and compassion. Ahern takes the familiar aspects of women's lives—the routines, the embarrassments, the desires—and elevates these moments to the outlandish and hilarious with her astute blend of magical realism and social insight.

It is the summer of 2011, and Nour has just lost her father to cancer. Her mother, a cartographer who creates unusual, hand-painted maps, decides to move Nour and her sisters from New York City back to Syria to be closer to their family. But the country Nour's mother once knew is changing, and it isn't long before protests and shelling threaten their quiet Homs neighborhood. More than 800 years earlier, Rawiya, 16 and a widow's daughter, knows she must do something to help her impoverished mother. Restless and longing to see the world, she leaves home to seek her fortune.

In the early summer of 2014, Farida Khalaf was a typical Yazidi teenager living with her parents and three brothers in her village in the mountains of Northern Iraq. In one horrific day, she lost everything: ISIS invaded her village, destroyed her family, and sold her into sexual slavery. The Girl Who Escaped ISIS is her incredible account of captivity and describes how she defied the odds and escaped a life of torture in order to share her story with the world.

After World War II, Mathilde leaves France for Morocco to be with her husband, whom she met while he was fighting for the French army. A spirited young woman, she now finds herself a farmer’s wife, her vitality sapped by the isolation, the harsh climate, and the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner. But she refuses to be subjugated or confined to her role as mother of a growing family.

Jo Nesbø is known the world over as a consummate mystery/thriller writer. Famed for his deft characterization, hair-raising suspense and shocking twists, Nesbø’s dexterity with the dark corners of the human heart is on full display in these inventive and enthralling stories.

It’s the 1960s, and the air is electric. On the cusp of adulthood, two biracial siblings—their father is Moroccan, their mother French—search for their place in a newly independent Morocco brimming with both possibility and peril. Aicha, strong-willed and strait-laced, aspires to become a doctor and spends most of her time studying. Her free-spirited younger brother, Selim, falls in with the American and European hippies descending en masse on Tangier and Casablanca and Essaouira to do drugs and practice free love.

Nour is a young Syrian girl who has lost her father to cancer. Wanting to be close to her relatives, Nour's mother - a cartographer who makes beautiful hand-painted maps - moves her family back to the city of Homs. Nour's father was a real storyteller, and he told her that the roots of the trees connect to the ground across the world. She knows they left her father in the ground back in America, so she starts telling him the ancient fable of Rawiya, whispering it into the ground so he might hear. Rawiya left her home dressed as a boy in order to explore the world.

Since the revolution-turned-civil war in Syria began in 2011, over 500,000 civilians have been killed and more than 12 million Syrians have been displaced. Rania Abouzeid, one of the foremost journalists on the topic, follows two pairs of sisters from opposite sides of the conflict to give listeners a firsthand glimpse of the turmoil and devastation this strife has wrought.

A man marked by magic. A woman marked by her past. On the other side of the Shadowpass, rebellion is brewing and refugees have begun to trickle into the city at the edge of the world. Looming high on the cliff is The Nest, a fortress full of mages who offer protection, but also embody everything the rebellion is fighting against: a strict hierarchy based on magic abilities. When Isha arrives as a refugee, she attempts to fit in amongst the other mages, but her tattoo brands her as an outcast. She can't remember her past or why she has the tattoo. All she knows is that she survived.

When Rana finds herself not only falling for a man of the wrong faith, but also getting into trouble with him, where can they go to escape? Can Hayat’s secret liaisons really suppress the memories of her abusive father? When Ali is pressured by society’s homophobia into a fake heterosexual marriage, how long can he maintain the illusion? And when spinsterhood and divorce spell social catastrophe, is living a lie truly the best option for Leila?

Contrary to popular assumption, Arab women were instrumental in shaping world history. Between Rome's intervention in the Arabian Peninsula and the Arab conquests, noblewomen ruled independently, conducting trade and making war. Their power was often celebrated as queen, priestess and goddess. With time they delegated power to the most important holy men of their age, influencing Arabian paganism, Christianity and Islam forever.

A big-hearted, captivating, modern-day Muslim Pride and Prejudice, with hijabs instead of top hats and kurtas instead of corsets. Ayesha Shamsi has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been overtaken by a demanding teaching job. Her boisterous Muslim family, and numerous (interfering) aunties, are professional naggers. And her flighty young cousin, about to reject her 100th marriage proposal, is a constant reminder that Ayesha is still single.

Aya is 11 years old and has just arrived in Britain with her mum and baby brother, seeking asylum from war in Syria. When Aya stumbles across a local ballet class, the formidable dance teacher spots her exceptional talent and believes that Aya has the potential to earn a prestigious ballet scholarship. But at the same time, Aya and her family must fight to be allowed to remain in the country, to make a home for themselves and to find Aya's father - separated from the rest of the family during the journey from Syria.

This is the story of Mary Magdalene. The Gospels tell us she was a successful woman. But they also tell us she found herself under the control of seven demons until the day Jesus set her free. From that day forward she was one of the women who traveled with Jesus. She was a firsthand witness to much of His ministry. She was one of the few who stood at the foot of the cross. She was one of a handful who journeyed to the garden tomb. She was the first to actually see Jesus after He had risen.

On an orange-tinted evening in September 1905, Scheherazade is born to an opium-dazed mother in the ancient city of Smyrna. At the very same moment, a dashing Indian spy arrives in the harbour with a secret mission from the British Empire. He sails in to golden-hued spires and minarets, scents of fig and sycamore and the cries of street hawkers selling their wares. When he leaves, 17 years later, it will be to the heavy smell of kerosene and smoke as the city, and its people, are engulfed in flames.