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  Missed Translations - Meeting...

  Sopan Deb

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  A bittersweet and humorous memoir of family—of the silence and ignorance that separate us, and the blood and stories that connect us—from an award-winning New York Times writer and comedian. 
  Approaching his 30 birthday, Sopan Deb had found comfort in his day job as a writer for the New York Times and a practicing comedian. But his stage material highlighting his South Asian culture only served to mask the insecurities borne from his family history. Sure, Deb knew the facts: his parents, both Indian, separately immigrated to North America in the 1960s and 1970s. They were brought together in a volatile and ultimately doomed arranged marriage and raised a family in suburban New Jersey before his father returned to India alone. 
  But Deb had never learned who his parents were as individuals—their ages, how many siblings they had, what they were like as children, what their favorite movies were. Theirs was an ostensibly nuclear family without any of the familial bonds. Coming of age in a mostly white suburban town, Deb’s alienation led him to seek separation from his family and his culture, longing for the tight-knit home environment of his white friends. His desire wasn’t rooted in racism or oppression; it was born of envy and desire—for white moms who made after-school snacks and asked his friends about the girls they liked and the teachers they didn’t. Deb yearned for the same. 
  Deb’s experiences as one of the few minorities covering the Trump campaign, and subsequently as a stand up comedian, propelled him on a dramatic journey to India to see his father—the first step in a life altering journey to bridge the emotional distance separating him from those whose DNA he shared. Deb had to learn to connect with this man he recognized yet did not know—and eventually breach the silence separating him from his mother. As it beautifully and poignantly chronicles Deb’s odyssey, Missed Translations raises questions essential to us all: Is it ever too late to pick up the pieces and offer forgiveness? How do we build bridges where there was nothing before—and what happens to us, to our past and our future, if we don't?   
  Missed Translations is a powerful memoir that explores the complexities of family relationships and cultural identity. 
  Through his journey to connect with his Indian heritage and reconcile with his parents, Sopan Deb offers a poignant reflection on the importance of forgiveness and the transformative power of love. 
  HarperCollins 2024

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  Surviving the Gulag - A German...

  Ilse Johansen

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  One woman’s story of her struggle to survive while imprisoned in a Soviet gulag following World War II. 
   
  “The terrified yell of my comrades makes me stop. I drop the potatoes into the grass and turn around. He has pulled out the pistol and is taking aim. Slowly I come back.” 
   
  Surviving the Gulag is the first-person account of a resourceful woman who survived five grueling years in Russian prison camps: starved, traumatized, and worked nearly to death. A story like Ilse Johansen’s is rarely told—of a woman caught in the web of fascism and communism at the end of the Second World War and beginning of the Cold War. The candid story of her time as a prisoner, written soon after her release, provides startling insight into the ordeal of a German female prisoner under Soviet rule. Readers of memoir and history, and students of feminism and war studies, will learn more about women’s experience of the Soviet gulag through the eyes of Ilse Johansen. 
   
  “Surviving the Gulag is an unflinching story of being a German woman in the very places that have been written about by so many men.” —Lolita Lark, RALPH Magazine

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  Is This OK? - One Woman's Search...

  Harriet Gibsone

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  'Persistently funny, ill-advisedly honest and deadly accurate' – Caitlin Moran'This book is a delight - very real and very entertaining' – Bob MortimerMusic journalist, self-professed creep and former winner of the coveted ‘Fittest Girl in Year 11’ award, Harriet Gibsone lives in fear of her internet searches being leaked. Harriet spent much of her young life feeding neuroses and insecurities with obsessive internet searching (including compulsive googling of exes, prospective partners, and their exes), and indulging in whirlwind ‘parasocial relationships’ (translation: one-sided affairs with celebrities she has never met).Suddenly, with a diagnosis of early menopause in her late twenties, her relationship with the internet takes a darker turn, as her online addictions are thrown into sharp relief by the corporeal realities of illness and motherhood.An outrageously funny, raw and painfully honest account of trying to find connection in the age of the internet, Is This Ok? is the launch of an exciting new comic voice.The audiobook is narrated by Harriet Gibsone and includes an exclusive audio Q&A with Harriet.'Very funny and deeply moving' – Sara Pascoe'Hilarious and brutal! I could not put it down' – Lou Sanders

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  Everything is Under Control - A...

  Phyllis Grant

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  Phyllis Grant's Everything Is Under Control is a memoir about appetite as it comes, goes, and refocuses its object of desire. Grant's story follows the sometimes smooth, sometimes jagged, always revealing contours of her life: from her days as a dancer struggling to find her place at Julliard, to her experiences in and out of four-star kitchens in New York City, to falling in love with her future husband and leaving the city after 9/11 for California, where her children are born. All the while, a sense of longing pulses in each stage as she moves through the headspace of a young woman longing to be sustained by a city into that of a mother now sustaining a family herself.Written with the transparency of a diarist, Everything Is Under Control is an unputdownable series of vignettes followed by tried-and-true recipes from Grant's table—a heartrending yet unsentimental portrait of the highs and lows of young adulthood, motherhood, and a life in the kitchen.

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  The Life and Miracles of St...

  The Venerable Bede

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  For centuries, St Cuthbert (c. 634-687) was the most worshipped saint in England, revered for his virtuous life and his miracles. Even centuries after his death, stories were told of his body remaining ‘incorrupt' in his tomb. What we know about his work and character comes from the records and significantly from the writings of the Venerable Bede (673-735). His Life of St Cuthbert (published in 721) was part of the tradition of hagiography, a reverential biography of a saint. Bede diligently collected accounts, both written and word of mouth, to compile his work.   
   
  Probably born in Northumberland and educated by monks - initially at Melrose Abbey - Cuthbert's religious practice, unusually, encompassed activities as monk, bishop and finally hermit. The numerous reports of his piety, his virtue, his ascetism and a reputation for healing made him a respected figure in his lifetime. These were difficult political times, and he clearly had diplomatic and administrative skills as well, which led to his appointment as bishop of Lindisfarne. However, his personal monastic leanings made him unhappy to occupy such a worldly position, and after a short time he resigned. Feeling his death was imminent he retired to his cell on Inner Farne island where, after a period of illness, he died. Bede's endearing Life, written within living memory of its subject, presents an untarnished view of St Cuthbert, whose shrine in Durham Cathedral, nearly 1,400 years on, continues to attract visitors and pilgrims.  
   
  Translated by J. A. Giles.

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  My Secret Life Vol 2 Chapter 21

  Anonymous

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  My Secret Life, the anonymously written erotic memoirs of a Victorian English gentleman who refers to himself simply as 'Walter' is one of the most idiosyncratic and sexually obsessed books ever written. In this vast autobiographical confessional the author recounts, in meticulous detail, his sexual exploits throughout the course of a life devoted entirely to the pursuit of carnal pleasure. Through this compelling exploration of the author's sexual behaviour we are left with a uniquely entertaining insight into life behind the closed doors of Victorian society. My Secret Life is evocative, provocative, sorrowful, suspenseful, obscene, exciting and highly erotic...in it we are privy to the thoughts, emotions and memories of one of the most unusual, unsung and colourful English eccentrics of the Victorian era.Now, for the first time, the complete unabridged version of this unique text is being narrated and scored by film composer Dominic Crawford Collins as an 'audiofilm' (an audiobook in which the emotional landscape is explored through the music score). Each chapter of My Secret Life will be released at monthly intervals over the next ten or so years culminating in what is likely to become the longest audio book ever to be produced.

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