Audiobooks narrated by Julia Farhat

All Strangers Are Kin: Adventures in Arabic and the Arab World

*Winner of the Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book of 2016* If you’ve ever studied a foreign language, you know what happens when you first truly and clearly communicate. As Zora O’Neill recalls, you feel like a magician. If that foreign language is Arabic, you just might feel like a wizard. Join O’Neill for a grand tour through the Middle East, to laugh with her in Egypt, delight in the stories she passes on from the Gulf region, and find yourself transformed by her experiences in Lebanon and Morocco. She’s packed her dictionaries, her unsinkable sense of humor, and her talent for making fast friends of strangers. From quiet, bougainvillea-lined streets to the lively buzz of crowded medinas, from families’ homes to local hot spots, she brings a part of the world that is often flattened by news headlines into real and colorful relief. A natural storyteller with an eye for the deeply absurd and the deeply human, O’Neill explores the indelible links between culture and communication. A powerful testament to the dynamism of language, All Strangers Are Kin reminds us that learning another tongue leaves you rich with so much more than words. “Zora O’Neill is a wonderful writer, a hakawati who can spin a tale with the best of them.” —Rabih Alameddine, author of The Hakawati and An Unnecessary Woman “Wry, witty, and charmingly erudite, this lovely book goes through the looking glass of the Arabic language and emerges with a radiant image of the Arab world.” —Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Life Without a Recipe, Crescent, The Language of Baklava, and others

Zora O'Neill (Author), Julia Farhat, Zora O'Neill (Narrator)

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Nakam: The Holocaust Survivors Who Sought Full-Scale Revenge

The true story of a vigilante group of Holocaust survivors who conspired to kill six million Germans Nakam (Hebrew for “vengeance”) tells the story of “the Avengers” (Nokmim), a group of young Holocaust survivors led by poet and resistance fighter Abba Kovner, who undertook a mission of revenge against Germany following the crimes of the Holocaust. Motivated by both the atrocities they had endured and the realization that murderous antisemitic attacks on survivors continued long after the Nazi surrender, these fifty young men and women sought retaliation at a level commensurate with the devastation caused by the Holocaust, making clear to the world that Jewish blood would no longer be shed with impunity. Had they been successful, they would have poisoned city water supplies and loaves of bread distributed to German POWs, with the aim of killing six million Germans. Kovner and his followers went to great lengths to carry out their plans, going so far as to obtain the schematics for Nuremberg’s municipal water system, secure large quantities of poison, infiltrate a POW camp and the bakery that supplied it, and distribute poisoned bread to prisoners―but their plots were ultimately stymied. Most of the members of Nakam eventually returned to Israel, where for decades many of them refused to speak publicly about their roles in the group. While the Avengers’ story began to come to light in the 1980s, details of the relations between the group and Zionist leadership and the motivations of its members have remained unknown. Drawing on rich archival sources and in-depth interviews with the Avengers in their later years, historian Dina Porat examines the formation of the group and the clash between the formative humanistic values held by its members and their unrealized plans for violent retribution.

Dina Porat (Author), Julia Farhat (Narrator)

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Boys, Beasts & Men

In Nebula Award–winning author Sam J. Miller’s devastating debut short-fiction collection—featuring an introduction by Amal El-Mohtar—queer infatuation, inevitable heartbreak, and brutal revenge seamlessly intertwine. Whether innocent, guilty, or not even human, the boys, beasts, and men roaming through Miller’s gorgeously crafted worlds can destroy listeners, yet leave them wanting more. Despite his ability to control the ambient digital cloud, a foster teen falls for a clever con-man. Luring bullies to a quarry, a boy takes clearly enumerated revenge through unnatural powers of suggestion. In the aftermath of a shapeshifting alien invasion, a survivor fears that he brought something out of the Arctic to infect the rest of the world. A rebellious group of queer artists create a new identity that transcends even the anonymity of death. Sam J. Miller shows his savage wit, unrelenting candor, and lush imagery in this essential career retrospective collection, taking his place alongside legends of the short-fiction form such as Carmen Maria Machado, Carson McCullers, and Jeff VanderMeer.

Sam J. Miller (Author), Alex Boyles, Andrew Gibson, Graham Halstead, Julia Farhat, Kelsey Navarro, Kevin Kenerly, Krystal Hammond, Lisa Flanagan, Mark Sanderlin, Thom Rivera, Traber Burns, Vikas Adam (Narrator)

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Voice of Rebellion: How Mozhdah Jamalzadah Brought Hope to Afghanistan

The first-ever biography of Mozhdah Jamalzadah: refugee, pop singer, and champion of women's rights Many have tried to silence her, but Mozhdah Jamalzadah remains the most powerful female voice of her generation in Afghanistan, boldly speaking out about women's rights. Voice of Rebellion charts her incredible journey, including arriving in Canada as a child refugee, setting her father's protest poem to music (and making it a #1 hit), performing that song for Michelle and Barack Obama, and, finally, being invited to host her own show in Afghanistan. The Mozhdah Show earned her the nickname "The Oprah of Afghanistan" and tackled taboo subjects like divorce and domestic violence for the first time in the country's history. But even as her words resonated with women and families, Mozhdah received angry death threats-some of them serious-and was eventually advised to return to Canada. Traversing Central Asia and North America, Voice of Rebellion profiles a devoted singer and activist who continues to fight for change, even from afar.

Roberta Staley (Author), Julia Farhat (Narrator)

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Defying Jihad: The Dramatic True Story of a Woman Who Volunteered to Kill Infidels-and Then Faced De

If you truly love Allah, you will die for him.Your death will mean much reward for you and your family in heaven.Only death will prove your love. It was the final test. A chance to win not only the love of Allah, but the love of her father-something she had never been able to earn. Esther took a deep breath and raised her hand in the air. At the age of eighteen, she had just volunteered to become a suicide bomber. Defying Jihad is the true story of a girl growing up under radical Islamic rule, trained to believe her ultimate purpose was to serve Allah by dying as a jihadist. But two nights before she was to leave forever, she had a dream ... one that would change the course of her destiny. Against all odds, Esther became a follower of Jesus-even though leaving Islam meant her death sentence. But rather than kill her immediately, Esther's furious father challenged her to a series of public debates with Muslim scholars: the Bible versus the Quran. If Esther won, she might yet survive. But if the Muslim clerics won, Esther must renounce her Christian faith. For an entire month-if she lived that long-Esther would be brought before the mob daily to defend her newfound faith. Would God give her the words to argue against Muslim leaders, former friends, and even her own family? Defying Jihad is an amazing story of a woman prepared to surrender all for Jesus-and whose life transformed from terror to overwhelming love.

Esther Ahmad (Author), Julia Farhat (Narrator)

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Women in Clothes

Women in Clothes is a book unlike any other. It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities-famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old-on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives.It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than fifty questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style. Writers, activists, and artists including Cindy Sherman, Kim Gordon, Kalpona Akter, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Tavi Gevinson, Miranda July, Sasha Grey, Lena Dunham, and Molly Ringwald answered these questions with photographs, interviews, personal testimonies, and illustrations.Even our most basic clothing choices can give us confidence, show the connection between our appearance and our habits of mind, express our values and our politics, bond us with our friends, and function as armor or disguise. They are the tools we use to reinvent ourselves and to transform how others see us. Women in Clothes embraces the complexity of women's style decisions, revealing the sometimes funny, sometimes strange, always telling impulses that influence our daily ritual of getting dressed.

Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton, Others, Sheila Heti (Author), Dara Rosenberg, Emily Woo Zeller, Erin Moon, Fred Berman, Gabra Zackman, Julia Farhat, Karen Sepulveda, Keisha Zollar, Nancy Wu, Piper Goodeve, Saskia Maarleveld, Soneela Nankani, Various Narrators (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Julia Farhat