Showing results by narrator "Jacqui Bardelang" in All Categories

'A great insight' - Michael Rosen Listening connects us to others and the world around us. Learn how to harness its power in this life-changing new book. Drawing on the Japanese concept of 'kiku' - a deep listening practice - sociologist and listening expert Dr Haru Yamada brings together...

When Suyin Lim is offered the opportunity of a lifetime - a place as a trainee nurse in London's Bethnal Green Hospital - she jumps at the chance to leave her job as a seamstress and unite with her sister, who left for the same path a year before. However, without warning her sister returns to Penang, a shadow of her former self and Suyin is forced to leave without any answers. Suyin soon finds herself starting a new life in London, falling in love with the vibrant city and its people.

Fleeing Scotland in the wake of family disgrace, 16-year-old Ida Campbell secures a scholarship at a failing girls' boarding school on a remote part of the south English coast. Despite the eccentricities of her new Headmistress, who warns her of the dangers of the Cold War and the ever-present threat of the bomb, St Anne's seems like a refuge to Ida. But all this is about to change. For a start, her new room-mate is the infamous Louise Adler, potential arsonist and total outcast.

Seventeen-year-old Nareeka “Niki” Gill grew up in the small town of Longrove, living next door to her beloved Aunt Sandra. She hasn't been back to the town, though, since Aunt Sandra's death three years ago–her parents wanted a fresh start. But with her mum and dad going on a weeklong cruise to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary, she's staying for one week only, with her uncle and cousin, Rosie. But when Niki arrives in Longrove on Monday, it is to find a threat has been left on her bed: Get ready for the next week because we're going to play a game.

Brought to you by Penguin. For fans of THE TRAVELLING CAT CHRONICLES and translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, translator of CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN, a tender and mesmerizing story about kindness, community and the wonder of life On the outskirts of Tokyo, in a neighbourhood crossed by a commuter...

Pearl Fitzgerald arrives in Limehouse - London's very ­first Chinatown - to settle her late father's affairs and claim her inheritance. But when she unwittingly ­finds herself at the scene of a murder, her plans are thrown off course. Even more so by the alluring Mei, sister to the dead man. Utterly infatuated, Pearl promises Mei that she will bring her brother's killer to justice, and she dives into the East End's criminal underworld.

1930s Europe - as the Roaring Twenties wind down and the world rumbles towards war, the great minds of the time have other concerns. Jean-Paul Sartre waits anxiously in a Parisian café for his first date with no-show Simone de Beauvoir. Marlene Dietrich slips from her loveless marriage into the dive bars of Berlin. Father and son Thomas and Klaus Mann clash over each other's homosexuality. And Vladimir Nabokov lovingly places a fresh-caught butterfly at the end of Verá's bed. Little do they all know, the book burning will soon begin.

In the summer of 2020, as Germany slowly emerges from lockdown, a young Japanese woman studying in Göttingen waits at the train station to meet an old friend. Nomiya died a decade earlier in the Tōhoku tsunami, but he has suddenly returned without any explanation. The reunited friends share a past that's a world away from the tranquillity of Göttingen. Yet Nomiya's spectral presence destabilises something in the city...

Elizabeth Zhang knows her place in the world. She knows she’s in the tenth percentile for likability, the seventieth percentile for attractiveness, and the ninety-ninth percentile for academics. With a hard-working ethic instilled in her by immigrant parents, armed with impeccable grades, Elizabeth thinks she is set for Harvard Law School. Until she is rejected for being too ordinary, which she translates to mean she's just another boring Asian female. But when her classmate Laura Kim gets in, everything falls apart. Why was Laura accepted? What makes her so interesting?

Hyo Hakai is a hellmaker. But when a curse destroys her village, she and her brother are forced to flee to the Island of Onogoro—a place where Gods live among humans. Hyo expects the bodies when they show up, but as she investigates she is drawn into a tangled web of demons, death, conspiracy, and secrets.

Yui Sanada struggles to raise her twelve-year-old brother, Hiro, while contending with a neglectful, alcoholic mother. During a trip to Ueno Park, Hiro runs away from his sister into a strange passage beneath a samurai statue. Yui chases after him and soon finds herself in a Tokyo far removed from the familiar world of 1995. When Yui emerges from the tunnel, she cannot find Hiro but meets a young woman named Chiyo and her family and learns she has travelled back through time to 1923.

In this playful and daring interrogation of language, the globally acclaimed Yoko Tawada reveals the poetics, politics and potential of existing outside one's mother tongue. From Senegalese writers discarding colonial-enforced French to the increasing use of loan words in her native Japanese, Tawada deconstructs the ways in which the world shapes and is shaped by languages: their hidden systems of power, their sweeping histories and, ultimately, the people who claim, reject, adapt or romanticise them.

Forgotten Women reaches around the world and its history to rediscover, retell and reinstate the lives of over 190 important and significant women. From Neolithic times to modernity, Zing Tsjeng has traced the women who have shaped their age and revolutionised society. In this book lies the strength, lives and sacrifices of women who have refused to accept the hand they've been dealt and have changed the course of our futures accordingly.

Jade has the life she always wanted: a husband and three perfect children. She's happy. Except, recently that isn't enough. Then she unexpectedly finds herself reconnecting with Christina, an old friend from university, and she starts to feel like herself again. As the women become closer, and Christina needs a place to stay, Jade welcomes her into their chaotic family home. But when Jade discovers a suspicious text on her husband's phone, she soon starts questioning those around her.

From uncertainty and risk to ambiguity, emotion and non-verbal behaviour, life can be like a game of poker. So approach it like one, with every day critical thinking. In The Truth Detective, journalist and competitive poker player Alex O'Brien shows how we can survive and make better life decisions using the rules of the game. In a world full of uncertainty and incomplete information, this is a book about getting to the truth.

2005: While researching her Japanese ancestors, Isla travels from Scotland to Kagoshima. There, a vicious typhoon hurls her through a strange white gate and back to 1877, amid the dawn of the Satsuma Rebellion–the conflict that ended the samurai. When she meets Keiichiro Maeda, a samurai who introduces her to a way of life only previously encountered in books, Isla begins to wonder if she has found her true home. But as the samurai fight a losing battle, she is increasingly distraught. Should she warn Keiichiro and save the man she loves or let him die the glorious death he so believes in?

Poe Myat Sabei has the publishing career that any writer would kill for: her first novel became an international number one bestseller and is being turned into a Netflix film. But now on deadline for her second book, Poe is facing a catastrophic case of writer's block. The solution? Book a two-week getaway to an exclusive island resort for her and her best friend Zwe where she'll undoubtedly be inspired to write her next bestseller. But the vacation of their dreams turns into a nightmare when the resort is taken over by a mysterious group that's very armed and very angry.

When freelance journalist Khin Hlaing is assigned by Vogue to get a scoop on Tyler Tun, Hollywood's hottest movie, she's determined to succeed. Tyler has returned home to Myanmar to shoot his latest film, and if Khin's able to get an exclusive, there may well be a permanent position waiting for her at Vogue Singapore. Tyler has a very private life and doesn't show any sign of letting down his walls for Khin. But then one night on set, a man follows Khin into the park. When he threatens her, Tyler steps in and things escalate fast.

A moving, inspiring and thought-provoking collection of 50 coming-out stories from around the world. From the good, the sad, the surprising and the funny, no two stories are the same, yet all are by people who share the courage to be vulnerable, take huge risks to find love and acceptance and are brave enough to be their authentic selves. Whether you have any experience of coming out or not, these stories are incredibly powerful and moving.

“An enthralling and insightful cultural history—one that shows how, over the course of one pivotal decade, love, freedom and the freedom to love gave way to fear, madness and despair.” —Malcolm Forbes, Washington Post Book Review An ingeniously orchestrated popular history brings to life...