voice tracer

A reflection on how to listen and pay attention amid the constant noise that saturates our public and private lives.From podcasts sounding through earbuds to talk shows blaring from televisions, from the continuous stream of social media on our phones to doctors' waiting rooms with pumped-in music, we face different sounds, soothing and alarming. Some are welcome, some are not, but all demand our attention, often to distraction. Whether we're at home or out and about, someone or something is broadcasting—hoping to be heard. How do we navigate a culture, a society, like this? Through musical, literary, and cinematic examples—Stevie Wonder and David Bryne, James Joyce's "The Dead," John Krasinski's A Quiet Place films, Don DeLillo's The Silence, measured against Trumpspeak and a raging nation of podcasters and posters—Thomas Larson traces the dwindling influence of the artist's voice, and its chaotic replacement, everyone talking at once and very few listening.This multipart critique of our current audiosphere, its public nuisance and its private rapture, further explores the control our favored platforms and the unshutupable media have instilled, forcing us to adapt and fight back. On Listening & Not Listening: Living in the Age of Noise asks how we can manage the sound overload and indulge its joyful strains wisely.

Award-winning debut author, four-time Moth StorySLAM winner, and Lambda Literary Fellow "Funny, soulful, absolutely unafraid to look life in the eye, Molly McCloy's tough and tender voice is addictive. An electric debut!"-Michelle Tea, author of Knocking Myself Up A raw, defiant, and darkly hilarious queer memoir that traces nine pivotal moments of childhood trauma, blending humor, heartbreak, and resilience to illuminate the power of forgiveness, identity, and queer joy amid family dysfunction. On the cusp of her 1993 college graduation in Olympia, Molly McCloy spends her time drunk and high, pulling dykey pranks, and thrashing in mosh pits—anything to avoid the troubled, working-class family she left behind in Arizona. But after a vivid nightmare involving her dad, Molly writes him a letter, asking him to apologize for nine instances of mental, verbal, and physical abuse. To her surprise, her dad writes back. Nine Grudges is the story of Molly’s nine heartbreaking moments, her humor as a coping strategy, and her queerness as a source of joy. Celebrating dark victories snatched from the jaws of trauma, this book asks whether grudge-wielding is an act more powerful than forgiveness itself.

A social worker turns amateur sleuth when a teen in her care goes missing, and the girl's mother is found murdered, in this southern domestic thriller.This audiobook is narrated using advanced digital voice technology for clear, natural-sounding storytelling. Claire Conover is in a bind. The thirteen-year-old girl who had been taken into custody for sleeping behind a grocery store has disappeared without a trace. Worse, her mother's dead body is discovered on a construction site. Is it possible the runaway daughter pulled the trigger? Or is the girl a victim of her murdered mother's shady lifestyle? The only thing Claire knows is she needs to find the girl—fast—even if it means teaming up with an investigative reporter whose intentions toward her may be more than platonic. Prowling the streets of Birmingham, Claire works to solve the dark puzzle of the girl's life, desperate to find her alive and keep her safe, once and for all. Praise for Little Lamb Lost, Book 1 of the Claire Conover Mysteries: "Fenton puts her experiences as a social worker to good use in her promising debut. . . . With her fine ear for regional speech, Fenton may do for Birmingham what Margaret Maron has done for rural North Carolina." —Publishers Weekly "A relentless social worker makes an intriguing amateur sleuth, and Birmingham offers a fresh take on the New South as a setting for crime fiction. . . . [A] promising new series." —Booklist

Behind every royal decree lies a human voice. History breathes in these pages. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic: Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth, and James I, Volume I (1547-1580) opens the inner chambers of Tudor rule, arranging the surviving records of England 1547 to 1580 into a clear, chronological tapestry. Here are official letters, warrants and memoranda carefully condensed from primary source historical documents: Tudor court politics records, Elizabethan government correspondence and English Reformation state records that trace how power was argued over, written down and enforced. Prepared by archivist Robert Lemon from the great Tudor state papers collection, this authoritative British archival history reference serves both as a research tool for historians and a vivid sourcebook for Tudor scholars, students and interested general readers. The concise summaries map the day-to-day machinery of the Crown: the anxieties of minority rule under Edward VI, the confessional reversals of Mary I, and the early consolidation of Elizabeth I, offering direct access to Elizabeth I primary sources without the barrier of difficult handwriting or scattered archives. Republished by Alpha Editions in a careful modern edition, this volume preserves the spirit of the original while making it effortless to enjoy today - a heritage title prepared for readers and collectors alike. More than a reprint, it stands as a cultural treasure for anyone drawn to Tudor and early Stuart politics, government and religion, and an essential foundation for any serious library devoted to the calendar of state papers domestic.

#1 Sunday Times bestselling author Freida McFadden returns with Ward D: a gripping locked room thriller set in an eerie hospital ward. *** Medical student Amy Brenner is spending the night on a locked psychiatric ward. All she has to do is make it through the night shift... Ward D is the hospital's mental health unit and as a medical student, Amy is required to gain experience on the floor. But little do her colleagues know it may force her to confront a past she's fought hard to forget. The night starts. The countdown begins. As the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within the ward's tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger. Amy never wanted to spend the night on Ward D. Now, she might not make it out alive. Ward D once again demonstrates why Freida McFadden is the most talked-about voice in contemporary crime fiction, delivering a taut psychological thriller that will have you gripped right to the thrilling final twist. Tropes Claustrophobic Thriller Psychological Locked Room Mystery Thriller Suspense Thriller Survive the Night Also by Freida McFadden: The Crash The Boyfriend The Housemaid is Watching The Perfect Son The Coworker The Locker Door Never Lie The Teacher The Inmate One by One

Tailored for design enthusiasts, this visually striking volume captures how Arne Jacobsen fused architecture and design to redefine modern living. Best known for his sculptural Egg, Swan, and Series 7 chairs, Arne Jacobsen was far more than a furniture designer—he was a modernist whose belief in total design shaped every aspect of the built environment. His influence defined the clean, functional aesthetic of Scandinavian design, from architecture and interiors to lighting, textiles, and tableware, leaving a legacy that continues to inspire designers today. This comprehensive volume traces Jacobsen’s career as a designer from his early experiments with functionalism to his most influential works. Alongside his celebrated furniture and interior designs, it explores his lesser-known fabric and garden designs and offers insight into his approach to form, function, and materiality across the disciplines. The book also provides a richly detailed portrait of Jacobsen’s personal world—his friendships with fellow designers, the creative circles he moved in, and the moments of spontaneity and humor that shaped his working life. Authors Thomas Dickson and Henrik Lund-Larsen, both leading voices in architecture and design, provide a compelling narrative that blends rigorous research with engaging storytelling. Through their insight, Jacobsen emerges not just as a designer, but as a pioneer of Scandinavian modernism, whose work continues to influence contemporary aesthetics.

THE FIRST DAUGHTER IS FOR THE THRONE. THE SECOND DAUGHTER IS FOR THE WOLF. As the only Second Daughter born in centuries, Red has one purpose - to be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wood in order to save her kingdom. Red is almost relieved to go. Plagued by a dangerous power she can't control, at least she knows that in the Wilderwood, she can't hurt those she loves. Again. But the legends lie. The Wolf is a man, not a monster. Her magic is a calling, not a curse. And if she doesn't learn how to use it, the Wilderwood - and her world - will be lost forever. Hannah Whitten's New York Times bestselling debut is a sweeping tale of love, legends and the secrets that hide beyond the trees. 'I loved it! I was completely swept away by the world-building, the characters, and the delicate gorgeousness of the writing! A brilliant dark fantasy debut' Jodi Picoult 'Dazzling . . . This is sure to enchant' Publishers Weekly (starred review) 'An unputdownable fairy tale that traces the boundaries of duty, love, and loss. A masterful debut from a must-read new voice in fantasy' Kirkus 'A glorious journey through woods deep and so very dark. A stunning debut' Erin Craig, author of House of Salt and Sorrow

A USA Today Bestseller! From "one of the genre's most exciting voices" (E! News) comes one of the year's most-anticipated thrillers. For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali's piercing scream as she is taken. With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he's never charged, though that doesn't matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He's put his past behind him. Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali's car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali's handwriting: If something happens to me... Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night. As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the glittering streets of Paris in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff's deputy in Kansas working her first case, and a mobster in Philadelphia who's experienced tragedy of his own. In classic Alex Finlay form, If Something Happens to Me is told by several distinct, compelling characters whose paths intersect, detonating into a story of twist after pulse-pounding twist. The novel cements Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.

From the early 1990s, allegations that servicemen had been duped into taking part in trials with toxic agents at top-secret Allied research facilities throughout the twentieth century featured with ever greater frequency in the media. In Britain, a whole army of over 21,000 soldiers had participated in secret experiments between 1939 and 1989. Some remembered their stay as harmless, but there were many for whom the experience had been all but pleasant, sometimes harmful, and in isolated cases deadly. Secret Science traces, for the first time, the history of chemical and biological weapons research by the former Allied powers, particularly in Britain, the United States, and Canada. It charts the ethical trajectory and culture of military science, from its initial development in response to Germany's first use of chemical weapons in the First World War to the ongoing attempts by the international community to ban these types of weapons once and for all. It asks whether Allied and especially British warfare trials were ethical, safe, and justified within the prevailing conditions and values of the time. By doing so, it helps to explain the complex dynamics in top-secret Allied research establishments: the desire and ability of the chemical and biological warfare corps, largely comprised of military officials, scientists, and expert civil servants, to construct and identify a never-ending stream of national security threats which served as flexible justification strategies for the allocation of enormous resources to conducting experimental research with some of the most deadly agents known to man. Secret Science offers a nuanced, non-judgemental analysis of the contributions made by servicemen, scientists, and civil servants to military research in Britain and elsewhere, not as passive, helpless victims 'without voices', or as laboratory and desk perpetrators 'without a conscience', but as history's actors and agents of their own destiny. As such it also makes an important contribution to the burgeoning literature on the history and culture of memory.

Kate Zambreno's genre defining manifesto reclaiming the wives and mistresses of literary modernism that inspired a generation of writers and scholars, reissued after more than a decade with a new introduction by Jamie Hood On the last day of December 2009, Kate Zambreno, then an unpublished writer, began an online blog for her highly informed and passionate rants, and her heartfelt and melancholy portraits of the modernist 'wives and mistresses,' reclaiming the traditionally pathologised biographies of Vivienne Eliot, Jane Bowles, Jean Rhys and Zelda Fitzgerald: writers and artists themselves who served as male writers' muses only to end their lives silenced, erased and institutionalised. In Heroines, Zambreno extends the polemic into a dazzling, original work of literary scholarship. Combing theories that have dictated what literature should be and who is allowed to write it, she traces the genesis of a cultural template that consistently exiles feminine experience to the realm of the 'minor,' and diagnoses women for transgressing social bounds. 'ANXIETY: When she experiences it, it's pathological,' writes Zambreno. 'When he does, it's existential.' A book that has become its own canon, Heroines was named one of the '50 Books that define the past 5 Years in Literature' by Flavorwire, an 'Essential Feminist Manifesto' by Dazed, and one of the '50 Greatest Books by Women' in Buzzfeed. 'It's kind of a book of utterances... it's beautiful and I love it' Kristen Stewart 'If you thought you knew a lot about the "wives" of modernism and the various forms of silencing they suffered, Kate Zambreno's Heroines will teach you more; if you didn't know much, your mouth will fall open in enraged amazement' Maggie Nelson 'A lush, lyrical feminist memoir' Laurie Penny , New Statesman 'Zambreno doesn't write with the measured voice of someone who can count on being listened to, but with the wail of someone confined to a shed' Sheila Heti , London Review of Books

Bloomsbury presents Listening In by Toby Heys, David Jackson, and Marsha Courneya, read by Angus King.In 1945, W. Averell Harriman, US Ambassador to the Soviet Union, was presented with a carved wooden plaque of the Great Seal of the United States as a 'gesture of friendship' by a delegation from the Soviet's Young Pioneer Organization.Unbeknownst to him, one of the first covert listening devices, invented by Leon Theremin was hidden within it and was subsequently used to listen in on the ambassador's conversations for six years before being discovered. This book uses remarkable tales like this to tell the story of how modern audio surveillance developed and its important role in the evolution of today's artificial intelligence.Beginning with post-WW2 monitoring devices, Listening In traces an arc through the Cold War era into the present day in which state and commercial spyware can record our calls, copy messages and secretly film us. It subsequently moves into the near future where AI-assisted technologies can listen to things we have not yet said as well as digitally simulate and record our voices after we have died. Exploring how mass audio surveillance is carried out through devices such as smart phones, speakers and baby monitors and used to inform and train AI algorithms, the book provides fresh insights into how we are allowing our personal privacies to be traded for enhanced social connectivity and technological convenience. Ultimately Listening In reveals how the urge to listen and record everything that has ever been uttered is scored deeply into the technological operating systems of cultures from around the world.Listening In is also available in audiobook format from audiobook retailers.

Enter the Revolution through its paperwork: orders drafted in haste, petitions carried to Albany, and decisions that shaped a new nation. History is in the margins. Calendar Of Historical Manuscripts, Relating To The War Of The Revolution, In The Office Of The Secretary Of State, Albany, N.Y (Volume II) gathers a meticulously arranged historical manuscript calendar from the Albany State Archives, guiding you to the surviving voices behind the headlines. Compiled as an archival document collection and revolutionary war reference index, it points researchers to American Revolution manuscripts and revolutionary war government papers held in New York. Expect succinct entries for military and civil correspondence, reports, certificates, and administrative memoranda spanning 18th century New York, with particular strength in Albany, where state authority met frontier urgency. For genealogy and local history, the calendar helps trace names, places, and public service; for serious readers, it functions as an academic research reference that complements New York colonial records and other early American history collection staples. Cross-referenced and chronological, it saves hours in the reading room, directing you towards dates, offices, and repositories with confidence, even if you are new to archival work at once. More than a simple catalogue, this volume reflects how governments recorded war: the language of supply, loyalty, intelligence, and law. Its value lies in access - a practical map to sources that underpin modern histories of the conflict. Out of print for decades and now republished by Alpha Editions. Restored for today's and future generations. More than a reprint -- a collector's item and a cultural treasure, worthy of historians, students, and classic-library shelves alike.

Bloomsbury presents Sun Country by Howard Cunnell, read by Paul Thornley.'One of Britain's most distinctive and trustworthy voices ... A beautiful book' TIM WINTON'A book to lose yourself inside, and emerge from with enhanced clarity and wisdom' FRANCES WILSON'Tender and unflinching ... A masterclass in clarity and feeling' JIM CRACE'Cunnell writes with so much sensitivity to the sacredness of the everyday' SARA BAUMEA beautifully written, courageous and deeply moving journey from sorrow to acceptance, from loss to hope, shimmering with coastal light and hard-won wisdom.In Sun Country, Howard Cunnell returns to the southern England beachlands of his boyhood after the death of his mother.A love letter to the changing coast and sea, Sun Country is a book alive with light and shadow, where the white spaces between words are as charged with tension and power as the words themselves. It is a reckoning with the things we inherit – silence and absence, stories told and untold – and the transgression involved in turning a life into art. At the heart of the book is Gillian, his devoted single mother, and the small yet unforgettable details of her life that are woven into a powerful meditation on impermanence, grief, class and solitude.At once intimate and expansive, this luminous memoir traces one man's journey from loss back towards life. Through stories about the writers and painters with whom he feels a kinship – including the English Romantics, W. H. Hudson and Agnes Martin – and the history of his own Sussex working-class family, Cunnell writes his way home to a place, to a culture and to himself as an artist.Cunnell's descriptive power, so widely praised in his first memoir, reaches a new breathtaking level, with the simplicity that only comes from the finest craft and poetry.

The magnificent follow-up to Wild Swans, the multimillion copy, internationally bestselling sensation that traces the history of modern China through the true stories of three generations of courageous women in one family. “AT THE AGE OF FIFTEEN MY GRANDMOTHER became the concubine of a warlord general . . .” So begins Jung Chang's epic family memoir, Wild Swans, which defines a generation. The book ends in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping opened the door of Communist China, and Jung—twenty-six years old and unstoppably curious, despite years of brainwashing— seized the propitious moment and became one of the first Chinese to leave the tightly sealed country and come to the West. Fly, Wild Swans chronicles her journey and that of her family, along with that of China, as it rose from a decrepit and isolated state to a world power challenging American dominance. During those decades, although she lives in the West, Jung's life intertwines with her native land in unexpected ways, a rare relationship made more complex because all her books are banned there. Her family story mirrors the ups and downs of China's transformation, right up to today, as it enters another watershed. Chairman Xi Jinping's attempt to return China to the anti-American Maoist past has a devastating impact on Jung's life: She is unable to go to her mother's deathbed. Fly, Wild Swans is Jung's love letter and emotional tribute to her extraordinary mother. Profoundly moving, it is filled with drama, love, curiosity and incredible history—both personal and global. Told in Jung's clear, honest and compelling voice, it is memoir writing at its best.

An Instant New York Times bestseller One of most influential thinkers today, 'the woman who revolutionized feminism' (Guardian), offers a deeply engaging story of justice and power in America When Kimberlé Crenshaw was five years old in Ohio during the civil rights era, she was the only girl denied a lead role in her nursery play. Puzzled by her teacher's behaviour, she spoke up - and never stopped. That instinct to question power, to challenge what others accepted as fair, would shape not only her own life but the way we now understand race and gender. In Backtalker, Crenshaw traces her journey from a spirited girl in Canton, Ohio to one of the most influential legal thinkers today. Through childhood lessons and painful reckonings - a boyfriend's violence in college, a back door at Harvard Law, the silencing of women in the civil rights movement - Crenshaw learned to see the patterns others missed, refusing to stay behind the lines the world drew for her. Out of those experiences came two ideas that changed everything: intersectionality, the recognition that race, gender, and class overlap to create unique forms of discrimination; and critical race theory, the argument that racism is structural. Crenshaw's voice has since echoed through some of the most charged moments in recent history - from Anita Hill's testimony to the rise of Black Lives Matter - insisting that true justice means seeing the whole picture. Backtalker is both a memoir of awakening and the origin story of a transformative mind. Crenshaw's story is ultimately about fairness and power - and the enduring battle for America's soul.

The rollicking saga of reality television, a “sweeping” (The Washington Post) cultural history of America’s most influential, most divisive artistic phenomenon, from the Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker writer—“a must-read for anyone interested in television or popular culture” (NPR) “Passionate; exquisitely told . . . With muscular prose and an exacting eye for detail . . . [Nussbaum] knits her talents for sharp analysis and telling reportage well.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) In development as a docuseries from the studio behind Spencer and Spotlight ONE OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE AND THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe FINALIST FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION Who invented reality television, the world’s most dangerous pop-culture genre? And why can’t we look away? In this revelatory, deeply reported account of the rise of “dirty documentary”—from its contentious roots in radio to the ascent of Donald Trump—Emily Nussbaum unearths the origin story of the genre that ate the world, as told through the lively voices of the people who built it. At once gimlet-eyed and empathetic, Cue the Sun! explores the morally charged, funny, and sometimes tragic consequences of the hunt for something real inside something fake. In sharp, absorbing prose, Nussbaum traces the jagged fuses of experimentation that exploded with Survivor at the turn of the millennium. She introduces the genre’s trickster pioneers, from the icy Allen Funt to the shambolic Chuck Barris; Cops auteur John Langley; cynical Bachelor ringmaster Mike Fleiss; and Jon Murray and Mary-Ellis Bunim, the visionaries behind The Real World—along with dozens of stars from An American Family, The Real World, Big Brother, Survivor, and The Bachelor. We learn about the tools of the trade—like the Frankenbite, a deceptive editor’s best friend—and ugly tales of exploitation. But Cue the Sun! also celebrates reality’s peculiar power: a jolt of emotion that could never have come from a script. What happened to the first reality stars, the Louds—and why won’t they speak to the couple who filmed them? Which serial killer won on The Dating Game? Nussbaum explores reality TV as a strike-breaker, the queer roots of Bravo, the dark truth behind The Apprentice, and more. A shrewd observer who adores television, Nussbaum is the ideal voice for the first substantive history of the genre that, for better or worse, made America what it is today.

How a once-forgotten Dutch painter inspired generations of artists, writers, and filmmakers Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) is one of the most beloved painters in the world. But when an enterprising French journalist and art critic set out to recover his work in the mid-nineteenth century, both his name and achievement were virtually forgotten. Vermeer's Afterlives tells the remarkable story of how one of the great masters of the Dutch Golden Age was lost to obscurity until the rise of art history as a new discipline introduced his work to modern audiences and asks why his art compels so many other artists to respond with works of their own. Ruth Bernard Yeazell traces the cultural ascendency of this extraordinary painter, whose enigmatic subjects and quiet, introspective interiors, transfigured by light and color, continue to captivate viewers far removed from his native Delft. We meet the critics who first welcomed Vermeer into the canon along with the painters who sought to imitate him, the forgers who tried to pass off their work as his own, and the contemporary artists who openly repurpose it. The enquiry concludes by looking at Vermeer's paintings through the eyes of the poets and novelists who have attempted to translate his silence into words and give voice to the stories he left untold. Along the way, Yeazell interrogates the changing assumptions that govern art history, while demonstrating how paintings live on not only in later paintings but in poetry, fiction, photography, and film. Marking the 350th anniversary of Vermeer's death, this beautifully illustrated book explores the variety of ways in which Vermeer's art has been interpreted through the centuries and shows how his paintings take on afterlives of their own in the imaginations of those who view them.

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2024 A WATERSTONES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR 2026 SHORTLISTED FOR FOYLES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025 AN OBSERVER BEST BOOK OF THE CENTURY SO FAR Like a long winter's dream, this haunting and visionary new novel from 2024 Nobel Prize winner Han Kang takes us on a journey from contemporary South Korea into its painful history 'One of the most profound and skilled writers working on the contemporary world stage' Deborah Levy Beginning one morning in December, We Do Not Part traces the path of Kyungha as she travels from the city of Seoul into the forests of Jeju Island, to the home of her old friend Inseon. Hospitalized following an accident, Inseon has begged Kyungha to hasten there to feed her beloved pet bird, who will otherwise die. Kyungha takes the first plane to Jeju, but a snowstorm hits the island the moment she arrives, plunging her into a world of white. Beset by icy wind and snow squalls, she wonders if she will arrive in time to save the bird - or even survive the terrible cold which envelops her with every step. As night falls, she struggles her way to Inseon's house, unaware as yet of the descent into darkness which awaits her. There, the long-buried story of Inseon's family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter, and in a painstakingly assembled archive documenting a terrible massacre on the island seventy years before. We Do Not Part is a hymn to friendship, a eulogy to the imagination and above all an indictment against forgetting. Translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris 'A vital voice and a writer of extraordinary humanity. Her work is a gift to us all' Max Porter 'A remarkable novelist who reflects our modern condition with courage, imagination, and keen intelligence' Min Jin Lee SHORTLISTED FOR THE WARWICK PRIZE FOR WOMEN IN TRANSLATION

With odes to The Saturday Night Ghost Club and the tongue-in-cheek voice of Benjamin Stevenson comes a cozy mystery set in a world where all houses are haunted, so picking the right ghost is just as important as picking the right floorplan. Especially if that house is haunted not only by a spirit but also a flesh-and-blood killer. . . Welcome to the town of Harmony Falls! Where your dream house awaits...if you can survive living in it. After years spent cramped in a NYC apartment, Spencer Owens and Eddie Ludovico yearn for a house of their own. Unfortunately for them, every house in this world is openly haunted and the most important real estate feature isn't square footage or curb appeal-it's the desirability of the ghost. (Because what could be more American than commodifying a literal spirit?) When the husbands bring on an impassioned new realtor after being outbid on their first choice, they impulsively purchase an idyllic lakefront home in upstate New York at a price that feels entirely too good to be true. Because as it turns out, the house has a bit of a murder problem. All of its past owners have vanished without a trace, and the husbands can't tell if their new ghost is oblivious or lying to them about why. As Spencer and Eddie navigate crazy locals, sketchy realtors, and strange noises waking them at night, they soon realize the house may be haunted not only by a spirit but also a flesh-and-blood killer-forcing them to fight for the lifestyle they've always wanted or dig deep to decide whether the American Dream is really worth dying for.

PREPARE TO BE HOOKED BY THIS BRAND-NEW THRILLER FULL OF CHILLING TWISTS, OBSESSION AND BETRAYAL!Must-read for fans of Lisa Jewell, Claire Douglas, and Andrea Mara He said he loved her.He said he'd never leave.He lied.When Olivia Reed comes home to find her boyfriend Callum gone - not just missing, but vanished without a trace - her life begins to unravel. His clothes, his photos, every sign he ever existed... wiped clean. It's as if Callum was never real at all.But Olivia remembers. She remembers his touch, his voice, the way he made her feel safe. So why can't anyone else remember him the same way? And why do the fragments of his past seem to crumble under scrutiny?As Olivia digs deeper, determined to uncover the truth, the lines between memory and her own past begin to blur. And what she finds isn't just about Callum - it's about her. About the secrets she's buried. The things she's tried to forget.Because the most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves. And some love stories were never meant to have a happy ending... 🩸Twisty, unsettling, and impossible to forget! This psychological thriller will keep you up all night questioning everything...Praise for bestselling author Alex Stone:'Clever, bold and original, The Quiet Sister had me gripped until I'd devoured every last page. Stone is a masterclass in thriller writing!' Bestselling author Awais Khan'Dark, emotional and deeply unsettling; the suspense and unexpected twists and turns kept me reading late into the night!' Bestselling author Jackie Kabler'A brilliant book. I loved it' Bestselling author B.A Paris'A complex novel, with emotional layers and turns that I was not expecting' Bestselling Author Alison Stockham'Chillingly Compelling' Bestselling author Diane Saxon'I had such an ominous feeling of uncertainty as I turned the pages. It was tense, engrossing and twisty! Loved it.' Noelle Holton

This luminous chronicle of lives in an English landscape over time is a feat of time travel from the prize-winning author of Romantic Moderns and Weatherland.An ancient church sheltering a medieval anchorite who chose to be buried alive.The country estate parading a menagerie of exotic animals.The cottage where William Blake received the poetic spirit of Milton.A safe house harbouring secret agents from wartime French resistance networks.When the celebrated critic and cultural historian Alexandra Harris returned to her childhood home of West Sussex, she realised that she barely knew the place at all.As she probed beneath the surface, excavating layers of archival records and everyday objects, bringing a lifetime's reading to bear on the place where she started, hundreds of unexpected stories and hypnotic voices emerged from the area's past. Who has stood here, she asks; what did they see?From the painter John Constable and the modernist writer Ford Madox Ford to the lost local women who left little trace, these electrifying encounters - spanning the Downs, Poland, Australia, Canada - inspired her to imagine lives that seemed distant, yet were deeply connected through their shared landscape.By focusing on one small patch of England, Harris finds 'a World in a Grain of Sand' by opening vast new horizons, becoming our intimate companion as we travel on visionary journeys through space and time. The result is a masterpiece of 'scholarship at its life-enhancing best' (Independent) which reveals that nowhere is simply one place :and gives us all new bearings.

A lost river, a lost aunt, a found literary life: from the cult-favourite poet and author of The Baudelaire Fractal comes a glittering and erudite new novel of Paris. Some ruins are invisible. Under the pavements of Paris there lies buried an ancient river, the Bièvre. For years, Lucy Frost has walked along these streets, unaware of the water and history under her feet, on her way to clean the apartments of Paris’s academic class. As she begins to study and transcribe the inherited notebooks and papers of her great-aunt, a teacher and researcher who disappeared years earlier, she commits to continuing her aunt’s youthful research on the Bièvre, mining the river’s documentary traces in the works of Rousseau, Rabelais, Hugo, Chateaubriand, and the like. She uncovers a history of industry: paper mills, dyeing workshops, tanneries, and textile manufacturers – and laundries. She finds resonances of her own labour in the history of the river’s laundresses. On stolen time at work, and in her insomniac hours of nightwriting, she fills notebooks with these woven stories and descriptions of obsolete sites, textiles, cosmologies, and voices, constructing her own forms of relation with the lost. Riverwork unearths not just an urban river but also a philosophy of research and the archive, a politics of hydrology, an ontology of ageing and belatedness, and a consideration of the unrepresented labour of women, past and present. Along the way it brings to life, in pyrotechnic prose, a long-gone Paris and both its domestic workers and its writers.

Already a major international bestseller, Zeinab Badawi's sweeping and much-needed survey of African history traces the continent's extraordinary legacy from prehistory to the present from the African perspective. "Equal parts gripping and galvanizing. . . . Researched across more than 30 countries, it brings the dazzling civilizations of pre-colonial Africa vividly to life. A book that feels both long-overdue-and wholly worth the wait." -British Vogue Everyone is originally from Africa, and this book is therefore for everyone. For too long, Africa's history has been dominated by western narratives of slavery and colonialism, or simply ignored. Now, in this work of decolonized history, Zeinab Badawi sets the record straight. In this fascinating nonfiction history book, Badawi guides us through Africa's spectacular history-from the very origins of our species, through ancient civilizations and medieval empires with remarkable queens and kings, to the miseries of conquest and the elation of independence. Visiting more than thirty African countries to interview countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, she unearths buried histories from across the continent and gives Africa its rightful place in our shared world history. The result is a gripping new account of Africa: an epic, sweeping history of the oldest inhabited continent on the planet, told through the voices of Africans themselves. What happens when Africa's history is finally told from an African perspective? Pre-Colonial Africa: Journey through the dazzling civilizations and remarkable medieval empires of a continent, based on research across more than thirty countries. Ancient Civilizations: Go beyond the Nile to discover the magnificent and often overlooked histories of the Kingdom of Kush, Aksum, and more. The Origins of Humankind: Explore our shared beginnings on the African continent and understand why this story is for everyone. An African Perspective: Experience the continent's epic, sweeping history not as a Western narrative, but as a story told by African historians, archaeologists, and storytellers.

Enola Holmes--younger sister to Sherlock Holmes--is back on another case! Enola Holmes is being hunted by the world's most famous detective--her own brother, Sherlock Holmes. But while she is on the run in the world's biggest, darkest, dirtiest city, she discovers a hidden cache of charcoal drawings and feels as if she is a soul mate to the girl who drew them. But that girl, Lady Cecily, has disappeared without a trace. Braving the midnight streets, Enola must unravel the clues to find this left-handed lady, but in order to save her, Enola risks revealing more than she should. Will she be able to keep her identity a secret and find Lady Cecily, or will the one thing she is trying to save--her freedom--be lost forever? Don't miss Enola Holmes: The Case of the Missing Marquess! Now a Netflix original movie starring Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, and Helena Bonham Carter! Praise for Enola Holmes: The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Edgar Award Nominee! "Empowered, capable, and smart . . . [with] an impactful message that you can do anything if you set your mind to it."--Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things * "Enola shows herself to be an intelligent, rational, resourceful, and brave protagonist. Readers will look forward to hearing this heroine's unique voice again." --Publishers Weekly, starred review * "This is a terrific package. Springer not only provides two fine mysteries, breathtaking adventure, and key-eyed description, but she also offers a worthy heroine." --Booklist, starred review

Journalist Kylie Cheung delivers an urgent, incisive look at how abusers—from empires to intimate partners—use the same gaslighting playbook to oppress victims, silence their voice, and stay in power Who has the right to their own body? Who has the right to self-defense? Who gets to walk away? From the genocide in Gaza to the state-sanctioned control of women’s bodies, Kylie Cheung confronts the most urgent moral and political crises of our time through an incisive, illuminating lens: DARVO—Deny; Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. While DARVO originated in the psychology of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence, Cheung shows how it’s deployed en masse, at every level—and how it can become the blueprint for empire itself. From the spectacle of Depp v. Heard to horrors perpetrated by Israeli prison guards, Cheung exposes how abusers both individual and institutional flip the script and perform victimhood to justify domination. With unflinching clarity, Playing the Victim traces how these tactics shape everything from media propaganda and imperial warfare to anti-feminist backlash, transphobic legislation, and racialized state violence. Each chapter peels back another layer of the mirror-world machine that distorts oppressors into victims and twists resistance into crime. Essential for anyone seeking to understand how power works in the 21st century—and at whose cost—this book is piercing, clear-eyed, and rigorously researched. Unpacking how domestic abuse, intimate partner violence, colonial violence, and capitalist cruelty function as interlocking systems of control, Cheung helps readers understand how power hides behind ersatz victimhood—and how this plays us all.

Dark northern English post-punk and synthpop studio albums trace influence, reinvention, and enduring legacy through interviews, collaborators, and sleeve art. Coming out of northern England in the late 1970s, few bands have had the impact and influence of Joy Division and New Order. Joy Division were formed in the slipstream of punk but, thanks to frontman Ian Curtis's singular voice and Martin Hannett's ambitious production, soon stretched beyond the genre's sonic limits to create something dark and new. After Curtis's heartbreaking suicide, the surviving members picked themselves up and created the future as New Order. Written by music critic and journalist Mayer Nissim (Digital Spy, Gold Radio, NME), Joy Division and New Order: Album by Album deep dives into both groups' studio albums, pulling together a comprehensive narrative of two of the most vital bands in pop history. From their rehearsals at TJ Davidson's in Manchester to their number one records, it takes you through their fallouts, reunions and fragmentations to their lasting legacy. This book includes extensive interviews with singer and guitarist Bernard Sumner and estranged bass player Peter Hook, alongside conversations with six key band collaborators: graphic designer Peter Saville, Scissor Sisters frontwoman Ana Matronic, producer Stephen Street, recording engineer Michael Johnson and filmmakers Charles Sturridge and Grant Gee. It also features photographs by Anton Corbijn and official group snapper Warren Jackson, as well as full colour reproductions of all Peter Saville's groundbreaking album sleeves and a complete discography of both bands.

THE VOICE OF THE AMERICAN WEST Don't miss CJ Box's latest thriller, The Crossroads, where Joe's daughters investigate the attempted murder of their father... Available to order now. No motive, no suspect, no trace. Who doesn't want her found? Joe Pickett is 300 miles from home, enduring the worst weather January in Wyoming can throw at you. He's in the small mountain town of Saratoga, on the trail of a British woman who checked out of the remote ranch she was holidaying at and disappeared. But the missing woman is only the beginning. Something is not right in Saratoga. Why has the local game warden also disappeared? Why is local law enforcement spooked? Why is the new state governor taking such an interest in the case? Joe will have to find the answers before he too joins the disappeared. A thrilling read set in the American West from New York Times bestseller C.J. Box, award-winning author of the Joe Pickett and Cassie Dewell series, now adapted into the hit TV shows Joe Pickett and Big Sky. Why readers love the Joe Pickett series... 'A great crime novel.' Lee Child 'A muscular first novel.' New York Times 'Nearly word-perfect debut.' Booklist 'Action all the way in this latest Joe Pickett outing.' 5* Reader review 'As soon as you start to read you don't want to stop.' 5* Reader review 'Just wish they were a bit longer as I hate getting to the end.' 5* Reader review 'Brilliant... Atmosphere, tension and great cast of characters.' 5* Reader review 'The Joe Pickett books never disappoint me. I have read every one of them.' 5* Reader review Looking for more Joe Pickett adventures? Browse the complete 26-book series to follow Joe's journey from the very beginning to his latest case. Each book can be enjoyed as a standalone thriller or as part of the complete series.

"Traces the intergenerational legacies of the Spanish civil war through two groups of families . . . an enthralling novel with real historical heft." —Judith Keene, author of Treason on the AirwavesThis audiobook is narrated using advanced digital voice technology for clear, natural-sounding storytelling.When Rose, a young English nurse with humanitarian ideals, decides to volunteer in the Spanish Civil War, she is little prepared for the experiences that await her.Working on the front line and witness to the horrors of war, she falls in love with a Republican fighter. As defeat becomes inevitable, Rose is faced with a decision that will change her life and leave her with lasting scars.Meanwhile we meet Consuelo, a girl growing up in a staunchly Catholic family on the other side of the ideological divide. When she discovers that she was adopted, her attempts to learn more about her origins come to a dead end.But years later Consuelo's daughter, Marisol, growing up in a rapidly changing Spain, decides to investigate the dark secrets of her family and find the answers that have until now eluded her mother . . .What links Rose and Consuelo? Will Marisol uncover the truth?Sometimes the truth lies in the darkest places."A wonderful book. It is so evocative of 1930s Britain and the generation for whom Spain was a huge issue . . . I really enjoyed reading it, with so many of the characters so brilliantly realised." —Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the Labour Party"The big themes of history are brought alive through the stories of a diverse cast of characters." —John Simmons, author of Spanish Crossing

Read by Hattie Morahan, with an author's note read by Kate Mosse.'Mosse is a master storyteller' – Madeleine Miller, bestselling author of CirceA sweeping story of love, adventure and adversity, The Map of Bones by Kate Mosse is an epic tale of courageous women battling to survive in a hostile land.Olifantshoek, Southern Africa, 1688. When the violent Cape wind blows from the south-east, they say the voices of the unquiet dead can be heard whispering through the deserted valley. Suzanne Joubert, a Huguenot refugee from war-torn France, arrives in search of her cousin — the notorious she-captain and pirate commander Louise Reydon-Joubert — who landed at the Cape of Good Hope more than sixty years before, then disappeared without a trace . . .Franschhoek, Southern Africa, 1862. Nearly one hundred and eighty years after Suzanne's perilous journey, another intrepid and courageous woman of the Joubert family — Isabelle Lepard — has journeyed to the small frontier town once known as Oliftantshoek in search of her long-lost relations. Intent on putting the women of her family back into the history books, she quickly discovers that the crimes and tragedies still shadow the present. And now, Isabelle faces a race against time if she is to discover the truth, and escape with her life . . .Painstakingly researched and beautifully told, The Map of Bones is the fourth – and final – novel of The Joubert Family Chronicles, following the bestselling The Burning Chambers, The City of Tears and The Ghost Ship.Praise for The Joubert Family Chronicles:'Gripping, complex and intensely atmospheric' – The Mail on Sunday on The Burning Chambers'A historical epic' – The Observer on The City of Tears'Meticulously researched and stunningly written' – Santa Montefiore, bestselling author of Wait for Me, on The Ghost ShipThe Ghost Ship by Kate Mosse was a #1 Sunday Times bestseller w/c 09-07-23

This audiobook narrated by Landon Woodson shares how the new Black politics can forge a future centered on collective action, community, and care When #BlackLivesMatter emerged in 2013, it animated the most consequential Black-led mobilization since the civil rights and Black power era. Today, the hashtag turned rallying cry is but one expression of a radical reorientation toward Black politics, protest, and political thought. To Build a Black Future examines the spirit and significance of this insurgency, offering a revelatory account of a new political culture—responsive to pain, suffused with joy, and premised on care—emergent from the centuries-long arc of Black rebellion, a tradition that traces back to the Black slave. Drawing on his own experiences as an activist and organizer, Christopher Paul Harris takes readers inside the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) to chart the propulsive trajectory of Black politics and thought from the Middle Passage to the present historical moment. Carefully attending to the social forces that produce Black struggle and the contradictions that arise within it, Harris illustrates how M4BL gives voice to an abolitionist praxis that bridges the past, present, and future, outlining a political project at once directed inward to the Black community while issuing an outward challenge to the world. Essential reading for the age of #BlackLivesMatter, this visionary and provocative book reveals how the radical politics of joy, pain, and care, in sharp contrast to liberal political thought, can build a Black future that transcends ideology and pushes the boundaries of our political imagination.