Showing results by narrator "Emily Zeller" in All Categories

In 2015, an aspiring young journalist named Shiori Ito charged prominent reporter Noriyuki Yamaguchi with rape. After meeting up for drinks and networking, Ito remembers regaining consciousness in a hotel room while being assaulted. But when she went to the police, Ito was told that her case was a “black box”—untouchable and unprosecutable. Upon publication in 2017, Ito’s searing account foregrounded the #MeToo movement in Japan and became the center of an urgent cultural and legal shift around recognizing sexual assault and gender-based violence.

Gunslinging, chain-smoking, and Stetson-wearing Taoist psychopomp Elouise "Lou" Merriwether might not be a normal 19-year-old, but she's too busy keeping San Francisco safe from ghosts, shades, and geung si to care much about that. It's an important job, though most folks consider it downright spooky. Some have even accused Lou of being more comfortable with the dead than the living, and, well...they're not wrong.

Korea's brightest literary star sets this complex and nuanced coming-of-age story against the backdrop of Korea's industrial sweatshops of the 1970s and takes on the extreme exploitation, oppression, and urbanization that helped catapult Korea's economy out of the ashes of war. But it was girls like Shin's heroine who formed the bottom of Seoul's rapidly changing social hierarchy, forgotten and ignored.

The need for love - obsessive, self-destructive, unpredictable - takes us to forbidden places, as in the chilling world of Give Me Your Heart, a new collection of stories by the inimitable Joyce Carol Oates. In ten razor-sharp stories, National Book Award winner Oates shows that the most deadly mysteries often begin at home.

Who are the greatest innovators in the world? You're probably thinking Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford - the usual suspects.

This book isn't about them. It's about people who are just as innovative, entrepreneurial, and visionary as the Jobses, Edisons, and Fords of the world, except they're not in Silicon Valley. They're in the street markets of Sao Paulo and Guangzhou, and the rubbish dumps of Lagos. They are pirates, slum dwellers, computer hackers, dissidents, and inner city gang members.

A fresh new voice emerges with the arrival of Sour Heart, establishing Jenny Zhang as a frank and subversive interpreter of the immigrant experience in America. Her stories cut across generations and continents, moving from the fraught halls of a public school in Flushing, Queens, to the tumultuous streets of Shanghai, China, during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s.

In Japan, a covert industry has grown up around the wakaresaseya (literally "breaker-upper"), a person hired by one spouse to seduce the other in order to gain the advantage in divorce proceedings. When Satō hires Kaitarō, a wakaresaseya agent, to have an affair with his wife, Rina, he assumes it will be an easy case.

The last thing Oliver Huang expects to see on the historic Mount Morris home tour is longtime acquaintance Fay Liu bustling up and kissing him hello. He’s happy to playact being a couple to save her from a pushy admirer. Fay’s beautiful, successful, and smart, and if he’s being honest, Oliver has always had a bit of a thing for her. Maybe more than a bit. Geeking out over architectural details is Oliver and Fay’s shared love language, and soon they’re touring pricey real estate across Upper Manhattan as the terribly faux but terribly charming couple Darling and Olly.

Things just got weird for Prudence Wu. One minute, she's cashing in on a routine smuggling deal. The next, she's escaping enforcers on the wings of what very much appears to be a sentient cybernetic dragon. Pru is used to life throwing her some unpleasant surprises—she goes to prep school, after all, and selling banned media across the border in a country with a ruthless corporate government obviously has its risks. But a cybernetic dragon? That's new. She tries to forget about the fact that the only reason she's not in jail is because some sort of robot saved her.

Anna Tang doesn't date Asian guys. Her own Chinese family is bad enough, and she's not looking to double the trouble. Besides, she's busy chasing her dream of becoming a music journalist, and she's going to march towards it single-mindedly—and single, if need be.

Air Command pilot Nova Whiteside is assigned to a remote outpost to guard the construction of a tethered orbiter, Skyranch Twelve, against rebel sabotage. The difference between the well-ordered Union air fields and this dusty garrison is made painfully clear when she runs afoul a brutal commander of ground troops. When she is trapped behind enemy lines in a bloody uprising, she meets Djari, a civilian whose trust in the governing Union is shattered by what he has witnessed.

Laura has found her calling - she was born to be a detective and is determined to prove it. The next case file on her desk turns out to be a bank heist, and it should be easy enough, but what starts off as a one-and-done job quickly begins to seem too by-the-book and oddly like a notorious series of deadly bank hits from years past dubbed Twilight. But it's a dead end - Twilight is only ever mentioned in hushed tones, and there's little to no history on it in the department. And then she receives her first sign, of many more to come, that her investigation is not welcome.

Throughout the galaxy, the reclusive alien race known as The One are incapacitated by terror. On the planet Luddeccea, wolf-human hybrid Volka harbors a terrible secret...a secret that must explain her nightmares. Trapped on a luxurious asteroid, pleasure ‘bot 6T9 struggles to find purpose - until he receives a message from an Unidentified Caller. The worlds of The One, Volka, and 6T9 are about to collide. The galaxy will be shaken to its core. The starship is waking.

The Galactic Peacekeepers are being hunted. The tables have turned. Marshals are going missing. Marshal Throttle Reyne and her Black Sheep are sent on a mission to investigate the recent surge in pirate attacks. But when the pirates unite and take over Free Station, the headquarters of the Galactic Peacekeepers, the Black Sheep must make a suicide run against the pirates and save the lives of their friends. If they fail, the system will belong to the pirates.

Six years after a virus wiped out most of the planet’s population, former pop star Moira is living under a new identity to escape her past. Desperate for a fresh start herself, jaded event planner Krista navigates the world for those still too traumatized to go outside, but she never reaches out on her own behalf. Rob has tried to protect his daughter, Sunny, by keeping a heartbreaking secret, but when strict government rules threaten to separate parent and child, Rob needs to prove himself worthy in the city’s eyes by connecting with people again.

Time Gate 8, one of humanity's portals between the stars, has been overrun by a mysterious alien intelligence, and the planet Luddeccea is now cut off. Haunted by those she left behind, Commander Noa Sato is on a desperate mission to save her homeworld. Navigating the ancient Ark, she seeks a hidden gate that will transport her ship to Earth and the Galactic Fleet. But the Luddeccean system harbors dangers, and so does her crew.

Find a future. Lose a past. She's a star on the rise, singing about the hard life behind her. She's also on the run. Nashville is where she's come to claim her destiny. It's also where the darkness she's fled might find her. And destroy her.

Betrayed by everyone she loves, Valerie Dearborn will do anything to get out of Fey and avoid becoming Cerdwellyn's queen. Even if it means she has to rely upon Lucas, the monster who betrayed her.

In Stress Less, Accomplish More Emily Fletcher shares an ancient meditation technique designed for busy lives. The focus of the practice is stress relief, mental clarity and improved productivity, so it's perfect for the fast pace of modern life. This style of meditation was developed specifically for people with a lot of demands on their time - those with busy jobs, lives and families - and so it has been designed to work anywhere, anytime. All you need is somewhere to sit, a little training and a few minutes to yourself.

In Those Who Wander, Vivian Ho delves deep into a rising subculture that’s changing the very fabric of her city and all of urban America. Moving beyond the disheartening statistics, she gives voices to these young people - victims of abuse, failed foster care, mental illness, and drug addiction. She also doesn’t ignore the threat they pose to themselves and to others as a dangerous dark side emerges. With alarming urgency, she asks what can be done to save the next generation of America’s vagabond youth.