Farah Merani has narrated 3 audiobooks on Listento.it by 4 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 17 ratings. The most-rated is This Is Not the End of Me.
This Is Not the End of Me
Summary
National best seller For fans of Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air and Will Schwalbe, the moving, inspiring story of a young husband and father who, when diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 33, sets out to build a legacy for his infant son. i can't make you feel what it's like to be a young, dumb, naïve 30-year-old sitting in the back of a walk-in clinic waiting to be handed what is essentially a death sentence any more than i can show you what it feels like to have a husband or father or child who's dying and knowing there is nothing you can do to stop it. i can only describe to you how i feel today. angry. at peace. scared. grateful. a giant, spiky, flowering heart-shaped bouquet of contradictions. Layton Reid was a globe-trotting, risk-taking, sunshine-addicted bachelor - then came a melanoma diagnosis. Cancer startled him out of his arrested development - he returned home to Halifax to work as a wedding photographer - and remission launched him into a new, passionate life as a husband and father-to-be. When the melanoma returned, now at Stage IV, Layton and his family put all their stock into a punishing alternative therapy, hoping for a cure. This Is Not the End of Me recounts Layton's three-year journey as he tried desperately to stay alive for his young son, Finn, and then found purpose in preparing Finn for a world without him. With incredible intimacy, grit, and empathy, reporter Dakshana Bascaramurty casts an unsentimental eye on who her good friend was: his effervescence, his twisted wit, his anger, his vulnerability. Interweaving Layton's own reflections - his diaries written for Finn, his letters to his wife, Candace, and his public journal - she paints a keenly observed portrait of Layton's remarkable evolution. In detailing the ugly, surprising, and occasionally funny ways in which Layton and his family faced his mortality, the book offers an unflinching look at how a person dies, and how we might build a legacy in our information-saturated age. Powerful and unvarnished, This Is Not the End of Me is about someone who didn't get a very happy ending, but learned to squeeze as much life as possible from his final days.
©2020 Dakshana Bascaramurty (P)2020 Penguin Random House Canada
Beeline
Summary
An anthropologist uses spelling bees as a lens to examine the unique and diverse traits of Generation Z - and why they are destined for success At first glance, Generation Z (youth born after 1997) seems to be made up of anxious overachievers, hounded by Tiger Moms and constantly tracked on social media. One would think that competitors in the National Spelling Bee - the most popular brain sport in America - would be the worst off. Counterintuitively, anthropologist Shalini Shankar argues that, far from being simply overstressed and overscheduled, Gen Z spelling bee competitors are learning crucial 21st-century skills from their high-powered lives, displaying a sophisticated understanding of self-promotion, self-direction, and social mobility. Drawing on original ethnographic research, including interviews with participants, judges, and parents, Shankar examines the outsize impact of immigrant parents and explains why Gen Z kids are on a path to success. "Fascinating. Shalini Shankar uses the spelling bee as a lens into the world of Gen Z, illuminating its contours and giving us all a chance to reflect on what it means to grow up." (Angela Duckworth, author of Grit)
©2019 Shalini Shankar (P)2019 Basic Books
The Best American Mystery Stories 2020
Summary
A collection of the year’s best mystery short fiction selected by New York Times best-selling and Edgar Award-winning author C. J. Box. C. J. Box , number one New York Times best-selling author of the hugely popular Joe Pickett series, selects the best short mystery and crime fiction of the year in this annual “treat for crime-fiction fans” (Library Journal).
©2020 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (P)2020 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company