Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/573398 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: In Search of Amrit Kaur: An Indian Princess in Wartime Paris

Author: Livia Manera Sambuy

Narrator: Christina Cole

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 35 minutes

Release date: January 12, 2023

Genres: Asia

Publisher's Summary:

Brought to you by Penguin. As she builds her own life anew, an Italian writer embarks on an all-consuming search for the true story of the mysterious princess H. H. Amrit Kaur of Mandi. On a sweltering summer day in 2007, having just lost her brother to illness, Livia Manera Sambuy finds herself standing before a 1924 photograph of a stunningly elegant Indian princess at a museum in Mumbai. What's written in the caption will change her life forever. This gorgeous Punjabi princess, it's said, sold her jewels in occupied Paris to save Jewish lives, only to be arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp, where she died within a year. Could it be true? And if so, how could such a sensational story have gone unnoticed? Instinctively, almost viscerally, Manera becomes entangled in the mystery, losing herself in the history of the British Raj, in the diamonds and sapphires of the twentieth-century aristocracy, in the Circus Balls and Jubilees, and in the lives of extraordinary figures such as the Maharaja Jagatjit Singh of Kapurthala, the Jewish banker Albert Kahn, and the Russian explorer Nicholas Roerich-all in a decades-long pursuit of the elusive Amrit Kaur. When she rendezvouses with the princess's eighty-year-old daughter, Manera's search takes on a new dimension as she strives to reconnect an orphan with the mother who abandoned her in 1933, leaving behind her two children, her raja husband, and a legacy of activism in India's women's civil rights movement. In Search of Amrit Kaur is an engrossing detective story, a kaleidoscopic history lesson, and a moving portrait of women, across the century, seeking personal freedom. © Livia Manera Sambuy 2023 (P) Penguin Audio 2023

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/576602 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Year of the Hawk: America's Descent into Vietnam, 1965

Author: James A. Warren

Narrator: Fred Sanders

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 44 minutes

Release date: November 29, 2022

Genres: Asia

Publisher's Summary:

From a celebrated military historian, a powerful, “highly recommended” (Library Journal, starred review) account of the most pivotal year of the Vietnam War—the cataclysm that “continues to haunt American politics and culture” (Publishers Weekly). The Vietnam War was the greatest disaster in the history of American foreign policy. The conflict shook the nation to its foundations, exacerbating already deep cleavages in American society, and left the country baffled and ambivalent about its role in the world. Year of the Hawk is a military and political history of the war in Vietnam during 1965—the pivotal first year of the American conflict, when the United States decided to intervene directly with combat units in a struggle between communist and pro-Western forces in South Vietnam that had raged on and off for twenty years. By December 1965, a powerful communist offensive had been turned back, and the US Army had prevailed in one of the most dramatic battles in American military history, but nonetheless there were many signs and portents that US involvement would soon slide toward the tipping point of tragedy. Vividly interweaving events in the US capital with action in Southeast Asia, historian James A. Warren explores the mindsets and strategies of the adversaries and concludes that, in the end, Washington was not so much outfought in Vietnam as outthought by revolutionaries pursuing a brilliant, protracted war strategy. Based on new research, Year of the Hawk offers fresh insight into how a nationalist movement led by communists in a small country defeated the most powerful nation on earth and is “a well-researched overview of how America got into Vietnam—and why it shouldn’t have” (Kirkus Reviews).

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/575422 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor

Author: Steve Kemper

Narrator: Dan Woren

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 14 hours 27 minutes

Release date: November 8, 2022

Genres: Asia

Publisher's Summary:

A gripping, behind-the-scenes account of the personalities and contending forces in Tokyo during the volatile decade that led to World War II, as seen through the eyes of the American ambassador who attempted to stop the slide to war. In 1932, Japan was in crisis. Naval officers had assassinated the prime minister and conspiracies flourished. The military had a stranglehold on the government. War with Russia loomed, and propaganda campaigns swept the country, urging schoolchildren to give money to procure planes and tanks.  Into this maelstrom stepped Joseph C. Grew, America’s most experienced and talented diplomat. When Grew was appointed ambassador to Japan, not only was the country in turmoil, its relationship with America was rapidly deteriorating. For the next decade, Grew attempted to warn American leaders about the risks of Japan’s raging nationalism and rising militarism, while also trying to stabilize Tokyo’s increasingly erratic and volatile foreign policy. From domestic terrorism by Japanese extremists to the global rise of Hitler and the fateful attack on Pearl Harbor, the events that unfolded during Grew’s tenure proved to be pivotal for Japan, and for the world. His dispatches from the darkening heart of the Japanese empire would prove prescient—for his time, and for our own.   Drawing on Grew’s diary of his time in Tokyo as well as U.S. embassy correspondence, diplomatic dispatches, and firsthand Japanese accounts, Our Man in Tokyo brings to life a man who risked everything to avert another world war, the country where he staked it all—and the abyss that swallowed it.  Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/569499 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Rebel and the Kingdom: The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime

Author: Bradley Hope

Narrator: Lee Osorio

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 46 minutes

Release date: November 1, 2022

Genres: Asia

Publisher's Summary:

How did an Ivy League activist become a global fugitive? The New York Times bestselling co-author of Billion Dollar Whale and Blood and Oil chronicles the heart-pounding tale of a self-taught operative his high-stakes attempt subvert the North Korean regime. “Propulsive . . . Hope’s account is both deeply reported and novelistic.”—Ed Caesar, contributing staff writer for The New Yorker, author of The Moth and the Mountain In the early 2000s, Adrian Hong was a soft-spoken Yale undergraduate looking for his place in the world. After reading a harrowing account of life inside North Korea, he realized he had found a cause so pressing that he was ready to devote his life to it.   What began as a trip down the safe and well-worn path of organizing soon morphed into something more dangerous. Hong journeyed to China, outwitting Chinese security services as he helped asylum-seeking North Koreans escape across the border. Meanwhile, Hong’s secret organization, Cheollima Civil Defense (later renamed Free Joseon), began tracking the North Korean government’s activities, and its volatile third-generation ruler, Kim Jong-un. Free Joseon targeted North Korean diplomats who might be persuaded to defect, while drawing up plans for a government-in-exile. After the shocking broad-daylight assassination in 2017 of Kim Jong-nam, the dictator’s older brother, Hong, along with U.S. Marine veteran Christopher Ahn, helped ferry Kim Jong-nam’s family to safety. Then Hong took the group a step further. He initiated a series of high-stakes direct actions, culminating in an armed raid at the North Korean embassy in Madrid—an act that would put Ahn behind bars and turn Hong into one of the world’s most unlikely fugitives.   In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, The Rebel and the Kingdom is an exhilarating account of a man who turns his back on the status quo—to instead live boldly by his principles. Acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Bradley Hope—who broke numerous details of Hong’s operations in The Wall Street Journal—now reveals the full contours of this remarkable story of idealism and insanity, hubris and heroism, all set within the secret battle for the future of the world’s most mysterious and unsettling nation.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/573554 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: To Love and Be Loved: A Personal Portrait of Mother Teresa

Author: Jim Towey

Narrator: Jim Towey

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 7 hours 5 minutes

Release date: September 6, 2022

Genres: Asia

Publisher's Summary:

From a trusted advisor and devoted friend of Mother Teresa comes a “powerful” (The Washington Free Beacon) firsthand account of the miraculous woman behind the saint and a book that is “rich in reflection on contemporary sanctity” (George Weigel). Mother Teresa was one of the most admired women of the 20th century, and her memory continues to inspire charitable work around the world. She believed the greatest need of a human being is to love and be loved. In 1948, she founded the Missionaries of Charity to work directly with the very poorest of Calcutta. From the efforts of one woman entering the slums of Entally, the Missionaries of Charity grew into an organization operating soup kitchens, health clinics, hospices, and shelters in 139 countries, at no cost to any government or to those who served. In 2016, she became Saint Teresa of Calcutta. Author Jim Towey had been a high-flying Congressional staffer and lawyer in the 1980s until a brief meeting with Mother Teresa illuminated the emptiness of his life. He began volunteering at one of her soup kitchens and using his legal skills and political connections to help the Missionaries of Charity. When Mother Teresa suggested he take up shifts at her AIDS hospice, Towey realized he was all in. Soon, he gave up his job and possessions and became a full-time volunteer for Mother Teresa. He traveled with her frequently, arranged her meetings with politicians, and handled many of her legal affairs. To Love and Be Loved is an “inspiring and joyful” (Kirkus Reviews) firsthand account of Mother Teresa’s last years, and the first book ever to detail her dealings with worldly matters. We see her gracefully navigate the opportunities and challenges to leadership, the perils of celebrity, and the humiliations and triumphs of aging. We also catch her indulging in chocolate ice cream, making jokes about mini-skirts, and telling the President of the United States he’s wrong. Above all, we see her extraordinary devotion to God and to the very poorest of His children. Mother Teresa taught Towey to be more prayerful, less selfish, more humble, less worldly, move in love with God, and less in love with himself. Her lessons are here for all to share.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/574480 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Fragile Cargo: China’s Wartime Race to Save the Treasures of the Forbidden City

Author: Adam Brookes

Narrator: Adam Brookes

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 12 hours 23 minutes

Release date: September 1, 2022

Genres: Asia

Publisher's Summary:

Brought to you by Penguin. The gripping true story of the intrepid curators who saved China's art from the ravages of the Sino-Japanese War and WW2 Fragile Cargo will share the as-yet-untold story of the brave people who saved China's art from the ravages of the Second World War, undertaking a perilous journey across the vast country in order to protect these fragile treasures. After the end of the war, and the beginning of the Communist regime, the Forbidden City curators were each faced with a stark choice: remain with their rescued artefacts in China, or flee with them to Taiwan. Depending on their choice, the curators' fates took startlingly different, sometimes heart-breaking turns. Author and former BBC Beijing correspondent Adam Brookes draws on first-hand diary accounts and his own interviews with eyewitnesses to offer a new perspective on China's twentieth-century history, exploring the cultural, social and political impact of the war and the Revolution on the country's people and its art heritage. © Adam Brookes 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/564708 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Newlyweds: Rearranging Marriage in Modern India

Author: Mansi Choksi

Narrator: Deepti Gupta

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 6 hours 57 minutes

Release date: August 30, 2022

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 1 of Total 1

Genres: Asia

Publisher's Summary:

A thought-provoking and moving investigation into India as a society in transition through the lens of forbidden love, as three young couples reject arranged marriages and risk everything for true love amid social and political upheaval. In India, two out of every three people are under the age of thirty-five. These are men and women who grew up with the internet and the advent of smartphones and social media. But when it comes to love and marriage, they’re expected to adhere to thousands of years of tradition. It’s that conflict between obeying convention and embracing modernity that drives journalist Mansi Choksi’s The Newlyweds. In this “heart-wrenching and inspiring portrait of love under pressure” (Publishers Weekly), Choksi shines a light on three young couples who buck against arranged marriages in the pursuit of true love, illustrating the challenges, shame, anger, triumph, and loss their actions set in play. Against the backdrop of India’s beautiful villages and cities, Choksi introduces our newlyweds. First, there’s the lesbian couple forced to flee for a chance at a life together. Then there’s the Hindu woman and Muslim man who escaped their families under the cover of night after being harassed by a violent militia group. Finally, there’s the inter-caste couple who are doing everything to avoid the same fate as a similar couple who were burned alive. “The most nuanced, lyrical, and moving book about love and marriage in modern India yet written” (Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City), The Newlyweds raises universal questions, such as: What are we really willing to risk for love? If we’re lucky enough to find it, does it change us? If so, for the better? Or for the worse?

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/577143 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Japan: A BBC documentary collection

Author: Philip Dodd, Alex Bellos, Natasha Pulley, Christopher Harding, Matthew Sweet, Rana Mitter, Richard Lloyd Parry, SF Said, David Peace, Roy Jenkins

Narrator: Various

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 37 minutes

Release date: August 11, 2022

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.5 of Total 2

Genres: Asia

Publisher's Summary:

A captivating anthology of programmes, painting a multi-faceted portrait of a unique country Japan is a land of complexity, contrast and contradictions. The world's third-largest economy, it is a powerhouse of innovation and a pioneer in technology, fashion and pop culture. But it also has a rich, ancient heritage and a deep reverence for custom, ritual and tradition. This illuminating 2-part radio collection traverses the different aspects of this fascinating country, from its famous historical figures to its diverse cultural landscape. Part 1: History opens with Japan in Five Lives, in which cultural historian Christopher Harding portrays the lives of five colourful characters from the country's past to answer the question 'Who are the Japanese'? In Killing Time in Imperial Japan, he explores early 20th Century Tokyo, a bustling, cosmopolitan capital where the meaning of 'time' was hotly contested. Dark Blossoms sees him examining the doubts and misgivings accompanying Japan's rapid embrace of modernity, while in Japanese Tsunami, broadcasters Richard Lloyd Parry and Matthew Sweet discuss the devastating natural disaster that rocked the country in 2011. In Land of the Rising Sums, Alex Bellos visits Kyoto to ask why Asian cultures seem so much better at maths; in Japan and Religion, Roy Jenkins discusses the place of religious traditions in modern Japan; and in Supernatural Japan, Christopher Harding looks at how the Japanese have used ghosts and ghost stories to make sense of their world. Part 2: Culture celebrates Japan's art, literature and film. In Japan Now 2020, Philip Dodd talks to writers Hiromi Ito and Yukiko Motoya and photographer Tomoko Sawada about women's roles in Japanese culture today. Meanwhile, in Images of Japan, illustrator Fumio Obata and manga translator Jocelyne Allen discuss Japanese comic book imagery, and we join novelists Kyoko Nakajima and Yuya Sato in conversation with Christopher Harding. Landmark: Seven Samurai and Landmark: Rashomon see Matthew Sweet and Rana Mitter investigating the stories behind Akira Kurosawa's two most influential films, in the company of guests including film scholar Ian Christie and authors SF Said, David Peace and Natasha Pulley. The Tale of Genji takes us into the shimmering world of mediaeval Japan, as Rana Mitter explores Murasaki Shikibu's masterpiece, widely considered to be the world's first novel. Finally, in Godzilla and Hayao Miyazaki, Christopher Harding considers cinematic depictions of Japanese fear, as exemplified by the legendary monster king and the 2013 animated film The Wind Rises. Contents Japan in Five Lives Killing Time in Imperial Japan Dark Blossoms Japanese Tsunami Land of the Rising Sums Japan and Religion Supernatural Japan Japan Now 2020 Images of Japan Landmark: Seven Samurai Landmark: Rashomon The Tale of Genji Godzilla and The Wind Rises © 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/573377 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Incarnations: India in 50 Lives

Author: Sunil Khilnani

Narrator: Sunil Khilnani

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 18 minutes

Release date: August 11, 2022

Genres: Asia

Publisher's Summary:

The lives and afterlives of 50 incredible Indian people from ancient India to the 21st century 'Essential... whoppingly aurally intense' New Statesman '... makes the mind fly across time, place and history. You may smile as, mentally, you walk alongside Khilnani up some flinty slope. You will keep thinking about what he said long after.' The Telegraph Historian Sunil Khilnani, Professor of History and Politics at Ashoka University, takes listeners on an immersive, whirlwind journey from ancient India to the 21st century through the life stories of 50 remarkable individuals, exploring their surprising legacies and illuminating both the wonders and the urgent conflicts of India today. From the 5th century grammarian Panini, a pioneer in algorithmic thinking, to the wandering poetess Mirabai, challenger of the gender and caste order; from Malik Ambar, a 16th century north African who became a Deccan kingmaker, to Dhirubhai Ambani, the 20th century entrepreneur whose son now ranks among the world's richest billionaires; from Lakshmibai, the 19th century queen who enjoyed weightlifting, wrestling and steeplechasing, and who became a lightning rod for India's attitudes to women, to the contemporary painter M.F. Husain, who shaped a distinctive Indian modernism; Khilnani brings to life an extraordinary panorama of India's most revealing and resonant lives. Guests featured include Javed Akhtar, one of the great songwriters of Indian cinema, renowned actress Sharmila Tagore, historian Romila Thapar, poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, artists Howard Hodgkin and Bharti Kher, Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, author and political activist Arundhati Roy, and Sanskrit scholar Sheldon Pollock. With the help of these experts, Khilnani investigates the lives of political strategists and social reformers, filmmakers and farmers, mathematicians and religious gurus, warriors and saints, artists and slaves, industry titans and freedom fighters, who have co-existed in a country bound together by its people, in all their differences and commonalities. The chosen lives conjure up an India full of relevance and infinite range, celebrating the variety of the country in all its diversity of thought, religion, politics and art. Production credits Presented by Sunil Khilnani Produced by Mark Savage, Jeremy Grange and Martin Williams Editor: Hugh Levinson Music composed by: Talvin Singh Researcher: Manu Pillai Executive Producer: Martin Smith First broadcast BBC Radio 4 on the following dates: The Buddha: 11 May 2015 Mahavira: 12 May 2015 Panini: 13 May 2015 Kautilya: 14 May 2015 Ashoka: 15 May 2015 Charaka: 18 May 2015 Aryabhata: 19 May 2015 Shankaracharya: 20 May 2015 Rajaraja Chola: 21 May 2015 Basavana: 22 May 2015 Amir Khusro: 25 May 2015 Kabir: 26 May 2015 Guru Nanak: 27 May 2015 Krishnadevaraya: 28 May 2015 Mirabai: 29 May 2015 Akbar: 1 June 2015 Malik Ambar: 2 June 2015 Dara Shikoh: 3 June 2015 Shivaji: 4 June 2015 Nainsukh: 5 June 2015 William Jones: 8 June 2015 Rammohan Roy: 9 June 2015 Lakshmibai, Rani of Jhansi: 10 June 2015 Jyotirao Phule: 11 June 2015 Birsa Munda: 12 June 2015 Deen Dayal: 26 July 2021 Jamsetji Tata: 27 July 2021 Vivekananda: 28 July 2021 Annie Besant: 29 July 2021 Chidambaram Pillai: 30 July 2021 Ramanujan: 2 August 2021 Tagore: 3 August 2021 Visvesvaraya: 4 August 2021 Periyar: 5 August 2021 Iqbal: 6 August 2021 Amrita Sher-Gil: 9 August 2021 Subhas Chandra Bose: 10 August 2021 Gandhi: 11 August 2021 Jinnah: 12 August 2021 Manto: 13 August 2021 Bhimrao Ambedkar: 16 August 2021 Raj Kapoor: 17 August 2021 Sheikh Abdullah: 18 August 2021 Krishna Menon: 19 August 2021 Subbulakshmi: 20 August 2021 Indira Gandhi: 23 August 2021 Satyajit Ray: 24 August 2021 Charan Singh: 25 August 2021 MF Husain: 26 August 2021 Dhirubhai Ambani: 27 August 2021 © 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/575838 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Hong Kong Diaries

Author: Chris Patten

Narrator: Chris Patten

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 25 hours 41 minutes

Release date: June 21, 2022

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 4.25 of Total 4

Ratings of Narrator: 3.5 of Total 2

Genres: Asia

Publisher's Summary:

Brought to you by Penguin. In June 1992 Chris Patten went to Hong Kong as the last British governor, to try to prepare it not - as other British colonies over the decades - for independence, but for handing back in 1997 to the Chinese, from whom most of its territory had been leased 99 years previously. Over the next five years he kept this diary, which describes in detail how Hong Kong was run as a British colony and what happened as the handover approached. The book gives unprecedented insights into negotiating with the Chinese, about how the institutions of democracy in Hong Kong were (belatedly) strengthened and how Patten sought to ensure that a strong degree of self-government would continue after 1997. Unexpectedly, his opponents included not only the Chinese themselves, but some British businessmen and civil service mandarins upset by Patten's efforts, for whom political freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong seemed less important than keeping on the right side of Beijing. The book concludes with an account of what has happened in Hong Kong since the handover, a powerful assessment of recent events and Patten's reflections on how to deal with China - then and now. © Chris Patten 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022