Showing results by narrator "Thom Rivera" in All Categories

His father bent on making him a true Spanish nobleman, romantic young Eduardo crosses the seas to join his bumbling, megalomaniacal uncle, Cortés. Once he arrives in the new world, Eduardo falls passionately in love with an Aztec princess yet still assumes his place as a reluctant conquistador.

It wasn’t surprising when the first abandoned bicycles were found along the dirt roads and farmland just across the border from Tijuana, but before long they were arriving in droves. The bikes went from curiosity, to nuisance, to phenomenon. But until they caught the eye of journalist Kimball Taylor, only a small cadre of human smugglers - coyotes - and migrants could say how or why they’d gotten there. This is the story of 7,000 bikes that made an incredible journey and one young man from Oaxaca who arrived at the border with nothing, built a small empire, and then vanished.

Antique salvager, counterfeiter, and former art forger Jota knows his newest commission pays suspiciously well, but it’s too easy to turn down. All he has to do is find an old clock that apparently has disappeared after being sold in the auction of a bankrupt estate. In Madrid’s El Rastro market, where whisper networks of shady and ambitious hustlers promise generous rewards for minimal favors, what sounds too good to be true usually is, but the last thing Jota is expecting to uncover is his own past.

Havana, Cuba, 1947. Young Patricio flees impoverished Spain and steps into the sultry island paradise of Havana with only the clothes on his back and half-baked dreams of a better life. Blessed with good looks and natural charm, he lands a job as a runner at El Encanto - one of the most luxurious department stores in the world. Famous for its exquisite offerings from French haute couture to Arabian silks, El Encanto indulges the senses in opulent extravagance. It caters to visiting Hollywood stars, rising politicos, and prerevolutionary Cuba’s wealthiest power players.

It is time for bed, and Mr. Panda reminds his friends Hippopotamus, Skunk, Sheep, and Sloth that they each have forgotten to do something. Skunk has forgotten to take a bath; Hippopotamus needs to brush his teeth; Sloth is too tired to move; and much more. Mr. Panda is there to remind them of the steps they've missed. As Lemur eventually finds out, however, even Mr. Panda can make a bedtime mistake!

For decades now wealth and power have been shifting from states to markets. This experiment has been a failure for all but a privileged few. But this trend is beginning to reverse, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen the state play the most direct and positive role in citizens’ everyday lives in living memory. Graeme Garrard makes a powerful case for the state as our only realistic hope of countering the rising power of multinational corporations, organized crime, and international organizations that will always put their own interests first.

When he first meets Najwa at a lecture by Siri Hustvedt—whom he’s never read—our hero discovers a whole new world of feminist thought. Determined to impress her, he sets out sincerely on his journey to allyship. His mother confides in him about the dreams she had to sacrifice because of the patriarchy, and he laments the violence and oppression women face. But he can’t help but notice that they’re going about their activism the wrong way.

Welcome to the Junkyard, a toxic wasteland where humans, machines, and everything in between fight for survival among the ruins of a long-forgotten war. This is where Diane Three-One-Seven finds herself after the arkship Cradle—the only home she’s ever known—falls out of the sky. When a mysterious scavenger named Virgil stumbles upon Diane’s escape pod, the two strike a deal (if it can be called that). Virgil’s spare mechanical battle suit, nicknamed the “Grave Walker,” can help Diane survive the ruined atmosphere—but it could kill her if it runs out of power.

Una nueva adaptación del cuento clásico, desde la perspectiva de un joven inmigrante mexicano; un niño de madera que emprende un viaje para encontrarse a sí mismo, mientras lucha por no perder sus raíces latinas en una tierra nueva y diferente.

One summer evening in 1916 in Blanchester, Ohio, a sixteen-year-old farm boy was riding his horse past the town cemetery. The horse reared back and whinnied, and Eugene Exman saw God. For the rest of his life, he struggled to recreate that moment. Through a treasure of personal letters and papers, God, the Bestseller explores Exman’s personal quest. A journey that would lead him in the late 1920s to the Harper religious books department, which he turned during the Great Depression into a money-making juggernaut and the country’s top religion publisher.

The first story collection from prize-winning author Fabio Morábito available in English, Mothers and Dogs features fifteen tales that show the emotional extremes in seemingly trivial details and quotidian situations: two brothers worry more about a dog locked in an apartment who hasn’t been fed than they do about their dying mother; when the lights go out on a racetrack, a man’s evening jog turns into a savage battle between runners; a daughter learns to draft business letters as an homage to her mother.