Showing results by narrator "DEEPTI GUPTA" in All Categories

Proud grandmother Matelda Cabrelli always has something to say. But, as she faces the end of her life, she worries she's failed to tell the stories that matter. Most of all, she finds herself needing to tell the tale of her mother Domenica's two great loves. First, Domenica's childhood sweetheart: a boy from her own small coastal town of Viareggio. Second, a mysterious captain: an infatuation forged in the midst of WW2, and the father Matelda never knew.

In 1353, Giovanni ​Boccaccio wrote The Decameron: one hundred nested tales told by a group of young men and women passing the time at a villa outside Florence while waiting out the gruesome Black Death, a plague that killed more than 25 million people. Some of the stories are silly, some are bawdy, some are like fables. In March 2020, the editors of The New York Times Magazine worked to create a collection of stories written just as the pandemic first swept the globe.

In modern, beautiful Green City, the capital of Southwest Asia, gender selection, war, and disease have brought the ratio of men to women to alarmingly low levels. The government uses terror and technology to control its people, and now females must take multiple husbands to have children as quickly as possible. Yet there are some who resist, women who live in an underground collective and refuse to be part of the system. Secretly protected by the highest echelons of power, they emerge only at night....

For Elena Aadya Ravence, fire is yearning. She longs to feel worthy of her Phoenix god, of her ancestors who transformed the barren dunes of Sayon into a thriving kingdom. But though she knows the ways and wiles of the desert better than she knows her own skin, the secrets of the Eternal Flame elude her. And without them, she'll never be accepted as queen. For Leo Malhari Ravence, fire is control. He is not ready to give up his crown - there's still too much work to be done to ensure his legacy remains untarnished, his family protected. But power comes with a price.

When you believe a better life waits for you beyond death, the perfect place to die is a difficult thing to find. Content warning: This story contains self-harm and disordered eating.

A train stops at a railway station. A young woman jumps off. She has wild hair, sloppy clothes, and a distracted air. She looks Indian, yet she is somehow not. The sudden violence of what happens next leaves the other passengers gasping. The train terminates at Jarmuli, a temple town by the sea. Here, among pilgrims, priests, and ashrams, three old women disembark only to encounter the girl once again. What is someone like her doing in this remote corner, which attracts only worshippers? Find out.

Simi Desai is thirty years old and her husband is dying of cancer. He has two last wishes in his final months: first, that she'll have his baby so that a piece of him lives on, and second, that she'll reconcile with her old flame, who just happens to be their mutual best friend. And so over the course of their last summer together, Simi's husband plans a series of big and small adventures for this unlikely trio, designed to help them say goodbye to each other and prove to Simi that it's okay to move on without him—and even find love again.

Rudyard Kipling’s best loved book, full of timeless and beloved tales of adventure. The story of Mowgli, the abandoned "man-cub" who is brought up by wolves in the jungles of Central India, is one of the greatest literary myths ever created. As he embarks on a series of thrilling escapades, Mowgli encounters such unforgettable creatures as the bear Baloo, the graceful black panther Bagheera, and Shere Khan, the tiger with the blazing eyes.

Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 17 for speaking out against injustice even when it was terrifying to do so. She was an ordinary Muslim girl who wanted to attend school, and she refused to stop protesting for her rights even after being attacked by a powerful group in Pakistan who wanted women to remain in the shadows. She continues to fight for women’s rights and free education for children all over the world.

The year is 1909. It has been 10 years since Thomas Argyle, Charlie Cooper, and Livia Naylor set off a revolution by releasing Smoke upon the world. They were raised to think Smoke was a sign of sin manifested, but learned its suppression was really a means of controlling society. Smoke allowed people to mingle their emotions, to truly connect, and the trio thought that freeing the Smoke would bring down the oppressive power structure and create a fair and open society. But the consequences were far greater than they had imagined, and the world has fractured.

In India, two out of every three people are under the age of 35. These are men and women who grew up with the internet and the advent of smartphones and social media. But when it comes to love and marriage, they’re expected to adhere to thousands of years of tradition. It’s that conflict between obeying tradition and embracing modernity that drives journalist Mansi Choksi’s The Newlyweds.

Veena, Mala, and Nandini are three very different women with something in common. Out of love, each bears a secret that will haunt her life - and that of her daughter - because the risk of telling the truth is too great. But secrets have consequences. Particularly for Asha, a young woman on the cusp of adulthood, who links them together.

From the internationally bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies comes an exquisitely crafted work of fiction. Jhumpa Lahiri sets her gaze on the eternally beautiful city, illuminating the frailties of the human condition and dissecting lives lived on the margins.

Come Join Us by the Fire S2: Originals is the second installment of Nightfire's audio-first horror anthology, featuring a wide collection of short stories from emerging voices in the horror genre as well as longtime fan favorites.

A woman in an arranged marriage is liberated by a desire that threatens her family and future. An only child raised to become a dutiful wife, Astha is filled with unnamed longings and untapped potential. In the privacy of her middle-class Indian home, she dreams of the lover who will touch her soul. But her future was mapped out long ago: betrothal to a man with impeccable credentials, with motherhood to follow.

In England, far from his desert home, Ali bin-Massoud serves as apprentice to the famed Charles Babbage. One night a mysterious box is delivered by a clockwork falcon and Ali's world is never the same again. Heartache, danger, and thieves mark his journey as Ali is summoned home at the death of his father. It will take faith, knowledge, and yes, love to realize his destiny, and more than a little skill with steam-driven technology.

Laxmi never paid much attention to the tiny hairs above her lip. But one day while playing farm animals at recess, her friends point out that her whiskers would make her the perfect cat. She starts to notice body hair all over - on her arms, legs, and even between her eyebrows. With her parents' help, Laxmi learns that hair isn't just for heads, but that it grows everywhere, regardless of gender.

Khabaar is a food memoir and personal narrative that braids the global journeys of South Asian food through immigration, migration, and indenture. Focusing on chefs, home cooks, and food stall owners, the book questions: What does it mean to belong, and what does belonging in a new place look like in the foods carried over from the old country?

Throughout Southern India, eighty-six villages are set to completely submerge due to a government-sanctioned dam across the Krishna River. Nilgi, one such village on the banks of the mighty River Krishna, has so far escaped unscathed from the illegal iron-ore mining and floods that have ravaged the rest of the district for decades. The village believes itself to be indestructible and incorruptible despite warnings of impending doom.

The Chai House is a haunting debut novel that explores the complexity of community when individuals are unaware of their own roles in upholding systems of oppression. Swati has spent her entire life trying to live up to her family’s expectations of her. She has learned it is easiest to just do what is asked of her, without resistance; a skill that has helped her survive in the early years of the Knights, an authoritarian regime. When her mother has a request for Swati, she agrees to it as it is the only way to help her young niece have some sort of future.