Showing results by narrator "Brian Nishii" in All Categories

To marry into the most powerful family in Varin is to step into a trap. Della has spent thirteen years under the scrutiny of Pelismara's political elites, supporting Tagaret in a dangerous pretense as his brother Nekantor's closest ally. In secret, however, they've planned to escape, and to break down the restrictions of Varin's caste society. When Nekantor offers to send them to Selimna, the city where their caste experiments can be carried out, how can they not accept the opportunity?

This classic and integral memoir recounts the events in the life of the first Chinese student to graduate from a major American university, Yale College. An avid advocate for education, Yung Wing convinced the Qing Dynasty government to create a program that would send Chinese students to American schools in order to study science and engineering, giving them opportunities that would never be open to them if they stayed in China. Both enthralling and educational, this historic memoir from an important voice in history will take listeners back in time to the late nineteenth century.

Award-winning poet Brandon Shimoda has crafted a lyrical portrait of his paternal grandfather, Midori Shimoda, whose life - child migrant, talented photographer, suspected enemy alien and spy, desert wanderer, American citizen - mirrors the arc of Japanese America in the 20th century. In a series of pilgrimages, Shimoda records the search to find his grandfather and unfolds, in the process, a moving elegy on memory and forgetting.

The island city-state of Singapore harbors unique customs and traditions largely unknown to the West. A booming economy and embrace of conformity overshadow its gambling dens, red-light districts, and a collective passion for ghostly and gory tales. Now, in Singapore Noir, some of its best contemporary authors delve into its seedy side.

Andy Knight is working a dead-end job in a convenience store when he's transported to a fantasy world. He is taken in by a master shinobi and soon discovers his magical abilities: He can communicate and harness the strengths of beasts. This power is forbidden in the world of Nobu-Teng, and to make matters worse, Andy is an outsider. Using this power will make for him no end of enemies, but it might be the one thing that helps him become something he's always dreamt of: a shinobi.

How does witnessing a crime change a person? This powerful collection of stories by a star-studded roster of contributors examines this very question.

Saving the climate is our common duty. With each passing day, climate change is causing Pacific islands to disappear into the sea, accelerating the extinction of species at alarming proportions, and aggravating a water shortage that has affected the entire world. In short, climate change can no longer be denied - it threatens our existence on earth.

The world of shinobi and samurai is his new home, but there is something that threatens the new life he hopes to build. An assassin. And Andy knows her identity, but he needs proof. In order to stop the assassin, he'll need to progress further than ever before in the art of the shinobi and in the magic of the beast shamans.

Detective Masuto reopens an investigation into a murderous film star - with deadly consequences… On the day that Eve Mackenzie murders her husband, Masao Masuto is on a plane to Japan. For years he and his wife, both American-born Japanese, have dreamed of visiting their homeland, and though the trip is a delight, the Zen Buddhist detective cannot help but check the international papers for news of murder on his home turf of Beverly Hills. Part of him regrets missing the sensational Mackenzie killing.

Fiona Barnes has a secret—one so big she's afraid it will destroy everything she holds dear. Not even her beloved music can save her. Li Wu has fought prejudice his entire life. But he's always felt safe and protected within the fierce love of the Barnes family. If only the object of his desire were free to be his, all would be well. Will he risk everything to be with the one he loves, or will societal pressures keep them apart?

As a boy, Kenichi “Zeni” Zenimura dreams of playing professional baseball, but everyone tells him he is too small. Yet he grows up to be a successful player, playing with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig! When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, Zeni and his family are sent to one of ten internment camps where more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry are imprisoned without trials. Zeni brings the game of baseball to the camp, along with a sense of hope. This true story, set in a Japanese internment camp, introduces children to a little-discussed part of American history.

In a world stripped bare of digital images and promotainment, unveiled with the audiovisual overlay of the ImmaNet, in an exposed world, a naked world, Amon Kenzaki awakens, lost and alone. He must now travel deep into the District of Dreams in search of Rashana Birla, the one person that might help him unravel the mystery of jubilee. But deprived of the apps and informational tools he's depended on his entire life, traversing the largest bankdeath camp on Earth is no easy task.

A stray kitty gets a job in a sumo stable, chasing mice in exchange for food. But when eating like a sumo wrestler slows our feline hero down, he realizes he must train like a wrestler, too. Through hard work and perseverance - and with a little help from a big buddy - SumoKitty is born! A funny and heartwarming story inspired by the Japanese saying, "Fall down seven times, stand up eight."

Dr Cliff Miyashiro arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue his recently deceased daughter’s research, only to discover a virus, newly unearthed from melting permafrost. The plague unleashed reshapes life on earth for generations. Yet even while struggling to counter this destructive force, humanity stubbornly persists in myriad moving and ever inventive ways. From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead, this story follows a cast of intricately linked characters spanning hundreds of years as humanity endeavours to restore the delicate balance of the world.

Two detectives. Two identical women. One dead body—rapidly becoming two, then three, then four. All knotted up in Japan’s underground BDSM scene and kinbaku, a form of rope bondage which bears a complex cultural history of spirituality, torture, cleansing, and sacrifice. As Togashi, a junior member of the police force, investigates the murder of a kinbaku instructor, he finds himself unable to resist his own private transgressive desires. In contrast, Togashi’s colleague Hayama is morally upright to a fault, with a stalwart commitment to the truth.

The four stories narrate the struggles of the tiny island nation of Buron to resist the onslaught of its much bigger neighbor, Garsia, via any means necessary. “Green Monkey Syndrome” describes the disaster of a pathogenic weapon leaked among indigenous tribespeople; “The Gaoka Case” tracks through case files a pharmaceutical offensive designed to take advantage of the enemy’s patriarchal culture; “I Love Thee Winona” and “The Lost Bird” describe campaigns to manipulate disastrous weather patterns and deliver bioweapons through migrating birds.

The cavern city of Pelismara has stood for a thousand years. The Great Families of the nobility cling to the myths of their golden age while the city's technology wanes. When a fever strikes, and the Eminence dies, seventeen-year-old Tagaret is pushed to represent his Family in the competition for Heir to the Throne. To win would give him the power to rescue his mother from his abusive father, and marry the girl he loves.

From the moment university student Nishikawa spots the gun next to the dead man he's stumbled across on a nighttime walk, the world around him blurs. The gun - loaded with four bullets - brings an intoxicating sense of excitement to his life. But soon merely possessing the gun is not enough. He must shoot it.

DR. JESSICA CORAN A brilliant and determined FBI medical examiner, she was an expert student of the criminal mind who thought she could face anything. That was before Wisconsin. Before she saw one of his victims... THE VAMPIRE KILLER The FBI agent had a special code name for his unusual method of torture: Tort 9, the draining of the victims blood. The newspapers called him the Vampire-Killer. But his own twisted love letters were signed "Teach"... and were addressed to the one woman he wanted most of all: His hunter, his prey, Dr. Jessica Coran.

Fuminori Nakamura's Akutagawa Prize-winner plunges us into the depths of a young man's winding, troubled psyche. An unnamed taxi driver in Tokyo has experienced a rupture in his everyday life. He cannot stop daydreaming of suicide, envisioning himself returning to the earth in what soon become terrifying blackout episodes. His live-in girlfriend, Sayuko, is in a similarly bad phase, surrendering to alcoholism to escape the memory of her miscarriage.