BOOK OF THE DAY

*The Wind Knows My Name*

*Isabel Allende*

*From BookBub*

From an “icon of world literature” (Khaled Hosseini): In this NPR Best Book of 2023, the lives of two refugees — a five-year-old Jewish boy fleeing war-torn Austria aboard a Kindertransport train and a young Salvadoran girl separated from her mother while crossing the US border — intersect across a century…

Previously featured on BookBub for $1.99. Save it to Wishlist to get notified next time.

*Publisher Description*

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • 

“The lives of a Jewish boy escaping Nazi-occupied Europe and a mother and daughter fleeing twenty-first-century El Salvador intersect in this ambitious, intricate novel about war and immigration” (People), from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea and Violeta

“Timely, provocative . . . emotionally satisfying . . . [a story about] the kindness of strangers who become family.”—The New York Times Book Review

*AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR*

*Vienna, 1938.* Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht—the night his family loses everything. As her child’s safety becomes ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on a Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

*Arizona, 2019* Eight decades later, Anita Díaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Durán, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother.

Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming

BOOK OF THE DAY

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND SUNDAY TIMES, OBSERVER AND BBC HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR

FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING 2022

'Pacey and potentially revolutionary' Sunday Times

'Iconoclastic and irreverent ... an exhilarating read' The Guardian

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike - either free and equal, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a reaction to indigenous critiques of European society, and why they are wrong. In doing so, they overturn our view of human history, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery and civilization itself.

Drawing on path-breaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we begin to see what's really there. If humans did not spend 95 per cent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful possibilities than we tend to assume.

The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision and faith in the power of direct action.

'This is not a book. This is an intellectual feast' Nassim Nicholas Taleb

'The most profound and exciting book I've read in thirty years' Robin D. G. Kelley

BOOK OF THE DAY

A GUARDIAN 2025 BOOK TO LOOK FORWARD TO

'Bold, pacy, bursting with optimism and filled with vivid descriptions, this is the work of an indomitable soul' - Guy Shrubsole

'A defiant triumph of a book' - Gaia Vince

'An important book which we should all read' - Andrea Wulf

An urgent work of reportage which takes the reader deep inside the Amazon rainforest, and shows that even if you kill a journalist, you cannot silence a story.

RECIPIENT OF A WHITING FOUNDATION AWARD

On 5 June 2022, award-winning journalist Dom Phillips was working on this book, alongside the indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, when they were both shot. They are believed to have been assassinated by one of the criminal networks whose ecological exploitation they were working to expose.

As the world becomes more aware of the significance of the Amazon, home to nearly 400 billion trees, working in this vast region has become ever more dangerous for activists and journalists. Fires, land grabs, and the invasion of reserves have all spiked over recent decades, pushing the world's biggest forest ever closer to a point of no return. The last few years have seen efforts to reduce deforestation, but the question remains; can we save this globally essential ecosystem before it is too late?

Dom's important and ultimately hopeful book argues the answer is yes. A group of expert writers took up his partially completed manuscript, committed to his mission of uncovering the truth about deforestation and searching for solutions. Blending in-depth reporting and encounters with indigenous activists, ecologists, farmers, and political figures, How to Save The Amazon is a dazzling account of how we can fight ecological destruction and stand in solidarity with the Earth's environmental defenders.

BOOK OF THE DAY

WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2025

In Heart Lamp In Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression. Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating, it’s in her characters – the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost – that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. Her opus has garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well India’s most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come.

BOOK OF THE DAY

This is the ultimate manual for longevity.

For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of ageing that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late, prolonging lifespan at the expense of quality of life. Dr Peter Attia, the world's top longevity expert, believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalised, proactive strategy for longevity.

This isn't 'biohacking,' it's science: a well-founded strategic approach to extending lifespan while improving our physical, cognitive and emotional health, making each decade better than the one before. With Outlive's practical advice and roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.

ON READING

BOOK OF THE DAY

BOOK OF THE DAY

Goodreads Editor's Pick • Publishers Weekly Author to Watch

"Packed with pop culture.... A beautifully tender and funny examination of love, of identity, of making your way in a world that is getting bigger and smaller at the same time.” —Kevin Wilson, bestselling author of Nothing to See Here

Love is a numbers game...

Young Wang has received plenty of wisdom from his beloved uncle: don’t take life too seriously, get out on the road when you can, and everyone gets just seven great loves in their life—so don’t blow it. This last one sticks with Young as he is an obsessive cataloger of his life: movies watched, favorite albums . . . all filtered through Chinese numerology and superstition. He finds meaning in almost everything, for which his two best friends endlessly tease him. But then, at the end of 1995, when Young is at New York University, he meets Erena. She’s brilliant, charismatic, quick-witted, and crassly funny. They fall in love and, for Young, it feels so real that he’s thrilled and terrified. As Young and Erena’s relationship blossoms, we get flashbacks to Young’s first five loves. That means Erena is “number six.” Was his uncle wrong—is she the one and only? Or are they fated for failure to make room for Young’s final, seventh love?

A love letter to Western pop culture, Eastern traditions, and being a first-generation New Yorker, Abraham Chang’s dazzling debut reminds us that luck only gets us so far when it comes to matters of the heart.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Book overview

Delve into the profound realm of human potential with The Science of Human Possibilities, a transformative journey that unveils the inherent talents and divinity within every individual.

Kumar Murty, a distinguished mathematician and scholar deeply rooted in the Indian teachings of Vedanta, brings over four decades of expertise in mathematics as a revered professor at the University of Toronto and Director of the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. Surrounded by brilliant minds in the realms of math and science, Murty has witnessed the untapped talents within each student who crossed his classroom threshold. Embark on a quest to unlock the boundless capabilities of the mind with insights that seamlessly blend scientific rigor with spiritual wisdom. Drawing from his dual expertise in science and philosophy, Murty illuminates the interconnectedness of mental acuity and spiritual enlightenment. The Science of Human Possibilities is a beacon of inspiration tailored for anyone yearning to unearth their latent gifts.

This compelling narrative transcends boundaries, exploring themes such as the art of learning, navigating uncertainty, fostering discipline, shaping identity, honoring tradition, and embracing enlightenment. Through Murty’s reflections as a Mathematics Professor intertwined with profound Vedanta teachings, readers are guided to realize the infinite potential inherent in the human experience, empowering individuals from all walks of life to evolve and flourish.

BOOK OF THE DAY

Book overview

Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate, Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -- no mean feat for a Black woman in the ‘30s. Zora Neale Hurston's classic 1937 novel follows Janie's quest for identity -- a journey during which she learns what love is, experiences life's joys and sorrows, and comes home to herself in peace.

“There is no book more important to me than this one.” --Alice Walker

“Their Eyes belongs in the same category with [the works of] William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway, that of enduring American literature.” --Saturday Review

BOOK OF THE DAY

Journalist and applied behavioral scientist Elizabeth Weingarten charts a new path to embrace the questions of our lives instead of seeking fast, easy answers.

What do you do when faced with a big, important question that keeps you up at night? Many people, understandably, seize answers dispensed by “experts,” influencers, gurus, and more. But these fast, easy, one-size-fits-all solutions often fail to satisfy, and can even cause more pain.

What if our questions—the ones we ask about relationships, work, meaning, identity, and purpose—are not our tormentors, but our teachers? Inspired by 150-year-old advice from Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and backed by contemporary science, Elizabeth Weingarten offers a fresh approach for dealing with these seemingly unsolvable questions. In her quest, Weingarten shares her own journey and the stories of many others, whose lives have transformed through a different, and better, relationship with uncertainty.

Designed to inspire anyone who feels stuck, powerless, and drained, How to Fall in Love with Questions challenges us to unlock our minds and embark on the kind of self-discovery that’s only possible when we feel most alive—that is, when we don’t know what will happen next.

BOOK OF THE DAY

With more than 100,000 copies sold of his self-published book, The Biology of Belief, Bruce Lipton teams up with Hay House to bring his message to an even wider audience. This book is a groundbreaking work in the field of new biology, and it will forever change how you think about thinking. Through the research of Dr. Lipton and other leading-edge scientists, stunning new discoveries have been made about the interaction between your mind and body and the processes by which cells receive information. It shows that genes and DNA do not control our biology, that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our thoughts. Using simple language, illustrations, humor, and everyday examples, he demonstrates how the new science of Epigenetics is revolutionizing our understanding of the link between mind and matter and the profound effects it has on our personal lives and the collective life of our species.

BOOK OF THE DAY

2,500 years of India’s dazzling literary tradition, translated from a wide range of classical languages, and introduced by an award-winning poet.

Romantic ghazals and devotional quatrains, medieval battles and separated lovers,Buddhist women on their journeys toward nirvana and Ram’s battle against a demon army to rescue Sita—all this and more can be found in the Murty Classical Library of India’s Ten Indian Classics.

Beginning in the sixth century BCE and coming up to the eighteenth century, spanning the Indian subcontinent, the selections in this anthology include some of the oldest women’s writing in the world, exquisite Sanskrit court poems, verses from the Sikh sacred tradition recited by millions around the world, the renowned chronicle of the Mughal emperor Akbar, and Tulsidas’s retelling of the epic Ramayana that is cherished in North India to this day. Here, too, are the poems of Surdas, Mir Taqi Mir, and Bullhe Shah, which continue to inspire artists today and live on in contemporary music.

The anthology showcases original translations by leading experts from a vast array of India’s literary traditions: Hindi, Kannada, Pali, Panjabi, Persian, Sanskrit, Telugu, and Urdu. With a foreword by the award-winning poet and translator Ranjit Hoskote, Ten Indian Classics is an invitation to readers worldwide to immerse themselves in a literary tradition that continues to shape modern South Asian culture and aesthetics in all its stunning diversity.

BOOK OF THE DAY

There just isn't enough time for everything on our to-do list?and there never will be. Successful people don't try to do everything. They learn to focus on the most important tasks and make sure those get done. They eat their frogs.

There's an old saying that if the first thing you do each morning is eat a live frog, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing you're done with the worst thing you'll have to do all day. For Tracy, eating a frog is a metaphor for tackling your most challenging task?but also the one that can have the greatest positive impact on your life. Eat That Frog! shows you how to organize each day so you can zero in on these critical tasks and accomplish them efficiently and effectively.

In this fully revised and updated edition, Tracy adds two new chapters. The first explains how you can use technology to remind yourself of what is most important and protect yourself from what is least important. The second offers advice for maintaining focus in our era of constant distractions, electronic and otherwise.

But one thing remains unchanged: Brian Tracy cuts to the core of what is vital to effective time management: decision, discipline and determination. This life-changing book will ensure that you get more of your important tasks done?today!

BOOK OF THE DAY

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A REAL SIMPLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the author of Norwegian Wood and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World comes a love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, and a parable for our peculiar times.

"Haruki Murakami invented 21st-century fiction." —The New York Times • "More than any author since Kafka, Murakami appreciates the genuine strangeness of our real world." —San Francisco Chronicle • "Murakami is masterful." —Los Angeles Times

We begin with a nameless young couple: a boy and a girl, teenagers in love. One day, she disappears . . . and her absence haunts him for the rest of his life.

Thus begins a search for this lost love that takes the man into middle age and on a journey between the real world and an other world – a mysterious, perhaps imaginary, walled town where unicorns roam, where a Gatekeeper determines who can enter and who must remain behind, and where shadows become untethered from their selves. Listening to his own dreams and premonitions, the man leaves his life in Tokyo behind and ventures to a small mountain town, where he becomes the head librarian, only to learn the mysterious circumstances surrounding the gentleman who had the job before him. As the seasons pass and the man grows more uncertain about the porous boundaries between these two worlds, he meets a strange young boy who helps him to see what he’s been missing all along.

The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a singular and towering achievement by one of modern literature’s most important writers.

"Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change/movement. Isn't this the quintessential core of what stories are all about?” —Haruki Murakami, from the afterword