Publisher: Forbes Books
In a world that equates success with happiness, many high-achievers still feel unfulfilled. In Love, Learn, Play, Akhil Gupta offers a transformative mindset that reframes how we think about purpose, peace, and flourishing.
This book contains the following titles: - A City Within One Building: The origins of this vision can be traced to the pressures of urbanization and the relentless march of technological innovation. As cities expanded horizontally, they encountered spatial limitations, environmental challenges, and infrastructural strain. The solution lay not outward, but upward. Vertical urbanism emerged as a response to these challenges, combining architectural ingenuity with a commitment to sustainability. The result is a new typology of buildings that integrate residential, commercial, recreational, and even cultural spaces into a cohesive, self-contained ecosystem. - Culinary Jailbreak: In the depths of confinement, where the walls are more than just bricks and mortar but a constant reminder of lost opportunities, an unexpected force emerged: food. This story is not just about escape in the traditional sense, but about breaking free from the psychological and emotional prisons that can often be more suffocating than physical ones. It is a testament to the unyielding human spirit, its capacity for creativity and resilience even in the most stifling of conditions. Incarceration is a test of endurance. Every day is marked by repetition, isolation, and the stripping away of autonomy. It’s easy to feel like hope is a distant dream, slipping further away with each passing hour. But in the midst of despair, something remarkable happened—a plan was forged in the most unlikely of places: the prison kitchen. It was here, in a space designed to merely nourish the body, that a group of individuals came to realize the power of food as a vehicle for something greater: freedom.Show book
The #MeToo movement inspired millions to testify to the widespread experience of sexual violence. More broadly, it shifted the deeply ingrained response to women's accounts of sexual violence from doubting all of them to believing some of them. What changed? Leigh Gilmore provides a new account of #MeToo that reveals how storytelling by survivors propelled the call for sexual justice beyond courts and high-profile cases. At a time when the cultural conversation was fixated on appeals to legal and bureaucratic systems, narrative activism—storytelling in the service of social change—elevated survivors as authorities. Their testimony fused credibility and accountability into the #MeToo effect: uniting millions of separate accounts into an existential demand for justice and the right to be heard. Gilmore reframes #MeToo as a breakthrough moment within a longer history of feminist thought and activism. She analyzes autobiographical storytelling in intersectional and antirape activism and traces how literary representations of sexual violence dating from antiquity intertwine with cultural notions of doubt, obligation, and agency. By focusing on the intersectional prehistory of #MeToo, Gilmore sheds light on how survivors have used narrative to frame sexual violence as an urgent problem requiring structural solutions in diverse contexts.Show book
A lively, engaging guide to music around the world, from prehistory to the present Human beings have always made music. Music can move us and tell stories of faith, struggle, or love. It is common to all cultures across the world. But how has it changed over the millennia? Robert Philip explores the extraordinary history of music in all its forms, from our earliest ancestors to today’s mass-produced songs. This is a truly global story. Looking to Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and beyond, Philip reveals how musicians have been brought together by trade and migration and examines the vast impact of colonialism. From Hildegard von Bingen and Clara Schumann to Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin, great performers and composers have profoundly shaped music as we know it. Covering a remarkable range of genres, including medieval chant, classical opera, jazz, and hip hop, this Little History shines a light on the wonder of music—and why it is treasured across the world.Show book
This book contains the following titles: 10 Ways the World Could End Examine the most plausible scenarios that could bring about humanity's extinction or civilization's collapse. From natural disasters like supervolcano eruptions and asteroid impacts to human-driven threats including climate change and nuclear warfare, this section provides a sobering yet scientifically grounded exploration of existential risks. Why We Haven't Found Aliens Yet Delve into the Fermi Paradox—the contradiction between the high probability of extraterrestrial life and our lack of contact. This section explores competing theories including the Great Filter, the Zoo Hypothesis, and technological limitations that might explain the cosmic silence. 7 Areas Without Laws Journey to the world's most lawless regions where traditional governance breaks down. From international waters and Antarctic territories to failed states and digital realms, explore these unique jurisdictional vacuums and their surprising social orders. This section reveals how humans organize themselves in the absence of conventional authority and the implications these zones hold for concepts of sovereignty. 7 Strange Religions That Exist Explore lesser-known belief systems that challenge conventional religious paradigms. From technological faiths centered on artificial intelligence to psychedelic spiritual movements and reconstructed ancient practices, this section examines alternative approaches to life's ultimate questions. The Dark Side of Introverts Investigate the lesser-discussed aspects of introverted personalities. While often celebrated for depth and creativity, introverts may also struggle with isolation, rumination, and avoidance.Show book
In this unusual, engaging, and intimate collection of personal essays, Lambda Literary Award finalist Tania De Rozario recalls growing up as a queer, brown, fat girl in Singapore, blending memoir with elements of history, pop culture, horror films, and current events to explore the nature of monsters and what it means to be different. Tania De Rozario was just twelve years old when she was gay-exorcised. Convinced that her boyish style and demeanor were a sign of something wicked, her mother and a pair of her church friends tried to “banish the evil” from Tania. That day, the young girl realized that monsters weren’t just found in horror tales. They could lurk anywhere—including your own family and community—and look just like you. Dinner on Monster Island is Tania’s memoir of her life and childhood in Singapore—where she discovered how difference is often perceived as deviant, damaged, disobedient, and sometimes, demonic. As she pulls back the veil on life on the small island, she reveals the sometimes kind, sometimes monstrous side of all of us. Intertwined with her experiences is an analysis of the role of women in horror. Tania looks at films and popular culture such as Carrie, The Witch, and The Ring to illuminate the ways in which women are often portrayed as monsters, and how in real life, monsters are not what we think. Moving and lyrical, written with earnest candor, and leavened with moments of humor and optimism, Dinner on Monster Island is a deeply personal examination of one woman’s experience grappling with her identity and a fantastic analysis of monsters, monstrous women and the worlds in which they live.Show book
Thursday, October 12, 1967. Marine Lance Corporal Kevin Cahill stepped onto a trail deep in the remote Hai Lang National Forest of South Vietnam. Following Cahill were the 166 Marines of Charlie Company, First Battalion, First Marines, First Marine Division. Confident, well armed and ready to fight, their mission was to locate and annihilate any North Vietnamese Army forces they could find. Cahill, a sharp and experienced point man, knew that taking the well-worn and ominous trail was a bad idea, but an order was an order and he led Charlie Company forward. It was a decision that would cost the 19-year-old his life. As he took a step to his left, toward a small knoll, Cahill walked right into the blast of a machine gun and the column of men he led suddenly faced decimating grenade and small- arms fire. Rather than Charlie Company finding the enemy, the NVA, over two thousand men strong, had found Charlie Company. Surrounded, outnumbered, out-gunned, and quickly running out of ammunition, the Marines now faced annihilation and hell on earth under the jungle canopy. Would the men of Charlie Company survive? How could they hope to beat back a vastly superior enemy force set on their complete destruction? Who would ever live to tell the tale of the “Lions of Medina”?Show book
