Showing results by narrator "Vikas Adam" in All Categories

Remy Wadia left India for the United States long ago, carrying his resentment of his mother with him. He has now returned to Bombay to adopt a baby—and to see his elderly mother for the first time in several years. Discovering that his mother is in the hospital, has stopped talking, and seems to have given up on life, he is struck with guilt for not realizing just how sick she has become. His unexpected appearance and assiduous attention revives her and enables her to return to her home. But when Remy stumbles on an old photograph, shocking long-held family secrets surface.

Kareena dreams of having a perfect love story like her parents did. That’s why on the morning of her thirtieth birthday, she’s decided to suit up and enter the dating arena. When her widowed father announces he’s retiring and selling their home after her sister’s engagement party, Kareena makes a deal with him. If she can find her soulmate by the date of the party, he’ll gift her the house, and she’ll be able to keep her mother’s legacy alive.

Bobbi Kaur is determined to plan a celebration to remember for her best friend’s wedding. But she has two problems that are getting in her way: 1. The egotistical, and irritatingly sexy, chef Benjamin “Bunty” Padda is supposed to help her with the menu since he’s the groom’s best friend, and 2. Someone is trying to sabotage the wedding. With aspirations of taking over her family’s event planning business, Bobbi knows that one misstep in managing the Kareena Mann and Prem Verma party, along with the other weddings on her plate, will only give her uncle another reason not to promote her.

Twenty-two-year-old Sullivan Meadows knew dating Akara and Banks would be complicated, but now that her relationship is public, everything has been put on blast.

With practical teachings and detailed instructions, Ken Wilber introduces Integral Mindfulness, a new way of practicing the widely popular meditation. Integral Mindfulness applies many of the leading-edge insights of Ken Wilber's Integral Theory - the first system to combine Eastern teachings on the five stages of awakening with the eight major Western models of human development, thus portraying the complete path of human evolution.

From legendary science-fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson comes a vision of climate change unlike any ever imagined. Told entirely through fictional eye-witness accounts, The Ministry for the Future is a masterpiece of the imagination, the story of how climate change will affect us all over the decades to come. Its setting is not a desolate, post-apocalyptic world, but a future that is almost upon us - and in which we might just overcome the extraordinary challenges we face.

Exiled to live as a Low, sixteen-year-old Conrad refuses to become heir to his murderous uncle. But Meritocracy is a harsh and unforgiving rule on the floating island of Holmstead, and when his ailing mother is killed by monstrous gorgantauns, Conrad cuts a deal to save the only family he has left. To rescue his sister from his uncle's clutches, Conrad must enter the Selection of the Twelve Trades.

In the aftermath of the Ritual of Night, everything has changed. The Eight Immortals have catastrophically failed to stop Kihrin’s enemies, who are moving forward with their plans to free Vol Karoth, the King of Demons. Kihrin has his own ideas about how to fight back, but even if he’s willing to sacrifice everything for victory, the cost may prove too high for his allies. Now they face a choice: can they save the world while saving Kihrin, too? Or will they be forced to watch as he becomes the very evil they had all sworn to destroy?

For Elena Aadya Ravence, fire is yearning. She longs to feel worthy of her Phoenix god, of her ancestors who transformed the barren dunes of Sayon into a thriving kingdom. But though she knows the ways and wiles of the desert better than she knows her own skin, the secrets of the Eternal Flame elude her. And without them, she'll never be accepted as queen. For Leo Malhari Ravence, fire is control. He is not ready to give up his crown - there's still too much work to be done to ensure his legacy remains untarnished, his family protected. But power comes with a price.

With the plot against them foiled and the city of Qi-Katai in safe hands, newlywed and tentative lovers Velasin and Caethari have just begun to test the waters of their relationship. But the wider political ramifications of their marriage are still playing out across two nations, and all too soon, they're summoned north to Tithena's capital city, Qi-Xihan, to present themselves to its monarch.

With Celadon fighting on the political front against the ruthless High Queen Riadne—now armed with the cataclysmic power of her Crown, the Sins, and Ruin—Vehan and Aurelian are scrambling in secret to build an army to rival the Riadne’s infernal forces. Meanwhile, Nausicaä will do whatever it takes to save her girlfriend from obliteration, despite knowing the odds of survival are nearly nonexistent. When the line between hero and villain becomes blurred, and bonds are put to the ultimate test, it has never been more imperative—or more difficult—to stand united.

In 1892, Bombay is the center of British India. Nearby, Captain Jim Agnihotri lays in Poona military hospital recovering from a skirmish on the wild Northern frontier, with little to read but newspapers. The case that catches Jim's attention is being called the crime of the century: Two women fell from the busy university’s clock tower in broad daylight. Moved by the widower of one of the victims - his certainty that his wife and sister did not commit suicide - Jim approaches the Framjis and is hired by the Parsee family to investigate what happened that terrible afternoon.

Dakota Krout presents the second book in The Completionist Chronicles series.

Based on cutting-edge research from Dr Satchin Panda's and others' labs, The Circadian Diabetes Code takes circadian rhythm science to the next level showing how we can use intermittent fasting to treat, manage and, in some cases, reverse diabetes and prediabetes.

“There have never been as many exquisitely built stories in existence than there are now,” proclaims guest editor Lauren Groff in her introduction. This abundance led to a volume of robust stories with the nerve to push against narrative expectations. The Best American Short Stories 2024 boasts a collection of twenty stories that “buzz with their own strange logic.” Daring and resonant, the stories in this volume invite in Groff “a feeling that both the author and I were simultaneously discovering something together.”

Velasin vin Aaro never planned to marry at all, let alone a girl from neighboring Tithena. When an ugly confrontation reveals his preference for men, Vel fears he’s ruined the diplomatic union before it can even begin. But while his family is ready to disown him, the Tithenai envoy has a different solution: for Vel to marry his former intended’s brother instead.

Eighteen-year-old Amir Azadi always knew that coming out to his Muslim family would be messy, but he wasn't expecting it to end in an airport interrogation room. Now, he's telling his side of the story to the stern-faced officer. Amir has to explain why he ran away to Rome (boys, bullies, blackmail) and what he was doing there for a month (dates in the Sistine Chapel, friends who helped him accept who he is and, of course, drama) all while his mum, dad and little sister are being interrogated in the room next door.

Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, a courtly, addled salesman obsessed with television, who falls in impossible love with a TV star. Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand, gallantly braving the tragicomic perils of an age where 'Anything-Can-Happen'. Meanwhile his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own.

The fruit of the long history of John Brockman's profound engagement with the most important scientific minds who have been thinking about AI - from Alison Gopnik and David Deutsch to Frank Wilczek and Stephen Wolfram - Possible Minds is an ideal introduction to the landscape of crucial issues AI presents. The collision between opposing perspectives is salutary and exhilarating; some of these figures are deeply concerned with the threat of AI, including the existential one, while others have a very different view.

Life on the Waves isn't easy. Especially if you're a pickpocket with no education, no prospects, and no future. For Chase and his crew of low-lives, there is one real option. If they want a path out of poverty, they will have to unlock access to the magical card system that will change their lives for the better. Of course, nothing's free in life. And nobody higher up the chain is going to give them a hand up. But what they might lack in education, riches, and, let's face it, hygiene, they have in determination.