Showing results by narrator "Neil Shah" in All Categories

Imagine having recurring nightmares of a woman who has one normal leg and one baby leg, and then waking up to wonder if today will be the day when they—whoever “they” are—find you and kill you. Unless you’re missing the point. Maybe “they” already have “you” and the world is a great deal more grotesque than you could ever imagine. Film noir collides with virtual worlds in this dark and strange novella that only Brian Evenson could have written.

Classic fables take on new meaning as five of today’s most original bestselling authors serve up some deliciously modern twists. New reflections on evil queens, charmless princes, and star-crossed lovers branch out in provocative and enchanting directions. Follow the path and see where it leads...

A body so badly burned that it could be mistaken for a movie prop...except for the smell. That's not something the LAPD finds lying on the street every day. And when Detective Tully Jarsdel is called to the scene, it's clear to him that something about the placement of the corpse is intentional, even ritualistic. Jarsdel's former career in academia seems to finally be coming in handy, rather than serving merely as material for jokes from his partner, Morales. But nothing Jarsdel learned in school can prepare him for the deep evil behind this case.

In the powerful travel-writing tradition of Ryszard Kapuscinski and V. S. Naipaul, a haunting memoir of a dangerous and disorienting year of self-discovery in one of the world's unhappiest countries.

A young woman in an arranged marriage awakens one day surprised to find herself in love with her husband. A retired divorcée tries to become the perfect partner by reading women's magazines. A man's longstanding contempt for his cousin suddenly shifts inward when he witnesses his cousin caring for a sick woman. The protagonists in A Life of Adventure and Delight deceive themselves and engage in odd behaviors as they navigate how to be good, how to make meaningful relationships, and the strengths and pitfalls of self-interest.

In the city of Mardin, near Turkey’s border with Syria, the orphaned Avdo finds purpose when an old mason takes him on as an apprentice. From Master Josef, he learns the importance of their art, which looks after the dead and bears witness to their lives. Avdo then travels the country and meets a woman he loves wholeheartedly, only to lose her through a tragic crime. Resigned to a lonely existence, he retreats from the world into his cemetery workshop, but even there, life, with all its sorrows, joys, injustices, and gifts, draws him in unexpected directions.

Eshkol Nevo's darkest, most thrilling novel to date, Inside Information weaves together three turbulent and unconventional love stories, diving deep into the enigma that lies at the heart of all intimacy, whether between a man and a woman, a parent and a child, or a person and what they've lost.

Beauty expert and influencer Jia Ahmed has her eye on the prize: conquering the internet today, the entire makeup industry tomorrow, and finally, finally proving herself to her big, opinionated family. She has little time for love, and even less time for the men in her private messages — until the day a certain international superstar slides into her DMs, and she falls hard and fast.

Evenson's first collection of 25 short stories and one novella, Altmann's Tongue (1994), garnered comparisons to Paul Bowles, Poe, and Kafka and is considered by many an existential masterpiece.

Insomnia has claimed everyone Biggs knows. Even his beloved wife, Carolyn, succumbed before disappearing into the quickly collapsing world. Yet Biggs can still sleep, and dream, so he sets out to find her. He ventures out into a world ransacked by mass confusion and desperation, where he meets others struggling against the tide of sleeplessness. Chase and Jordan are devising a scheme to live off their drug-store lootings; Lila is a high school student wandering the streets in an owl mask; Felicia abandons the sanctuary of a sleep research center to try to protect her family.

This audiobook explains why AI is unique, what legal and ethical problems it could cause, and how we can address them. It argues that AI is unlike any other previous technology, owing to its ability to take decisions independently and unpredictably. This gives rise to three issues: responsibility - who is liable if AI causes harm; rights - the disputed moral and pragmatic grounds for granting AI legal personality; and the ethics surrounding the decision-making of AI.

Gul has spent her life running. She has a star-shaped birthmark on her arm, and in the kingdom of Ambar, girls with such birthmarks have been disappearing for years. Gul’s mark is what caused her parents’ murder at the hand of King Lohar’s ruthless soldiers and forced her into hiding to protect her own life. So when a group of rebel women called the Sisters of the Golden Lotus rescue her, take her in, and train her in warrior magic, Gul wants only one thing: revenge.

In his trailblazing Harvard courses, internationally best-selling books, and lectures and videos, positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar has shared his essential, scientifically backed tools for finding fulfillment the world over. But even the happiness expert needs a boost from time to time! Tal found his not in a guru or fellow psychologist but rather in his longtime neighbourhood barber, Avi - a man with a gift for making his clients look and feel great with wisdom beyond his years. Tal's visits to Avi soon grew into a friendship deeper than most. 

This expert guide leads you through the process of improving operations building supply networks, increasing revenue, reimagining business models, and providing added value to customers, stakeholders, and society.

In the lush world-banking capital of Geneva, Switzerland, three friends from Harvard Business School find their lives and their work unexpectedly intertwined. Catherine and Majid are handling investments for clients with dubious pedigrees. When their friend Rafe shows up in Geneva, he claims to be just another start-up hedge fund manager. But Rafe, after a moral awakening, is now an undercover agent with the US Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and he’s in Geneva secretly investigating his old friends, one of whom was his former lover.

After Deputy Ben Patil finds an abandoned newborn in rural South Dakota, he and his wife Abbi seem the perfect foster parents. But the infant’s arrival opens old wounds for Abbi and reveals how much Ben has changed since his devastating tour in Afghanistan.

The son of a Brahmin ascetic and his lower-caste wife, Willie Chandran grows up sensing the hollowness at the core of his father's self-denial and vowing to live more authentically. That search takes him to the immigrant and literary bohemias of 1950s London, to a facile and unsatisfying career as a writer, and at last to a decaying Portuguese colony in East Africa, where he finds a happiness he will then be compelled to betray.

An ailing farmer in rural Iran unearths an extraordinary find: two parsnips, grown together and looking for all the world like entwined lovers. For now, the sublime treasure is his secret. Wrapping it in a silk handkerchief, he nestles it away in a dresser drawer. Day after day, he gazes at their unmistakable rapture, reminded of the long-gone youthful passions he once shared with his wife. So, too, he mourns the inevitable - the eventual decay of the parsnips in love. When he decides to share his discovery with the world, his life and the lives of those around him connect and change.

Known as the twice-born - first into the flesh and again when initiated into their vocation - the Brahmins are a caste devoted to sacred learning. But what Taseer finds in Benares, the holy city of death also known as Varanasi, is a window on an India as internally fractured as his own continent-bridging identity.

Cole McBride makes a chilling discovery while investigating a mysterious disease causing the deaths of endangered mountain gorillas in war-torn central Africa. When a humanitarian aid hospital nearby diagnoses a disturbingly similar human case, the former Special Forces veterinarian knows he must figure out how to stop this outbreak from spreading--before it blows up into a global pandemic.