Human Biography

As Australia sank into the darkest days of the Great Depression, a succession of bloody mysteries grabbed headlines and gripped the country. The Hammer Horror, The Bungendore Bones, The Park Demon, The Human Glove and The Pyjama Girl—these were just some of the grisly cases that had to be solved by the Sydney detectives of The Murder Squad. The Murder Squad reopens the files on Australia's most chilling forgotten crimes to ask who was guilty, who was innocent, and whether some cops were as dangerous as the monsters they were hunting.

Dr. Sima Samar has been fighting for equality and justice for most of her life. Born into a polygamous family, she learned early that girls had inferior status, and she had to agree to an arranged marriage if she wanted to go to university. By the time she was in medical school, she had a son, Ali, and had become a revolutionary. After her husband was disappeared by the pro-Russian regime, she escaped. With her son and medical degree, she took off into the rural areas—by horseback, by donkey, even on foot—to treat people who had never had medical help before.

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Exploring the use of privilege and power by people who identify as White or Black to address the perennial challenge of our time, this book challenges listeners to do the deep introspective work to examine privilege and harness power to fight back against white supremacy. As people from different backgrounds seek to discover ways to eradicate racism while understanding their own biases, When White Supremacy Knocks, Fight Back provides practical guidance that everyone can use to make their voices and actions create the change that they want to see.

Back in January 1995 in Los Angeles, California, a Singaporean pornstar named Annabel Chong took cultural rebellion to an extreme, on terms that had never been negotiated before. She was filmed having sex with a long receiving line of men, servicing them 251 times over a ten-hour period to set a new world record: The World’s Biggest Gangbang.

Jonathan Kuttab, a Palestinian Human Rights lawyer—and Christian pacifist—believes there is a way. In this moving, harrowing memoir, he takes us on a personal journey from anger and thoughts of violence to his deep commitment to unrelenting peaceful activism.

On July 23, 2007, Dr. William Petit suffered an unimaginable horror: Armed strangers broke into his suburban Connecticut home in the middle of the night, bludgeoned him nearly to death, tortured and killed his wife and two daughters, and set their house on fire. He miraculously survived, and yet living through those horrific hours was only the beginning of his ordeal. Broken and defeated, Bill was forced to confront a question of ultimate consequence: How does a person find the strength to start over and live again after confronting the darkest of nightmares?

Journalist Sarah Dingle was 27 when she learned that her identity was a lie. Over dinner one night, her mother casually mentioned Sarah had been conceived using a sperm donor. The man who’d raised her wasn’t her father; in fact, she had no idea who her father was. Or who she really was. As the shock receded, Sarah began to investigate her own existence. Thus began a 10-year journey - digging through hospital files, chasing leads and taking a DNA test - that finally led to her biological origins.

After decades of significant progress, the prospects of women and girls in Afghanistan are once again dependent on radical Islamists who reject gender equality. When the United States announced the end of their twenty-year occupation and the Taliban seized control of the country on August 15, 2021, a steep regression of social, political, and economic freedoms for women in the country began.

In Bodies, author Ian Winwood explores the music industry's many failures, from addiction and mental health issues to its ongoing exploitation of artists. Much more than a touchline reporter, Winwood also tells the story of his own mental health collapse, following the shocking death of his father, in which extinction-level behaviour was given perfect cover by a reckless industry.

In an audiobook that is as unflinching as it is passionate, Lamb tackles head on the growing number of stories of brutality against women from across the world, some of which have shocked her more profoundly than anything she has seen in her 30-year career as a war correspondent. Ethnic and sectarian groups across the world now use rape as a strategy – almost as a weapon of mass destruction – with women rounded up and incarcerated to produce offspring, a new generation of jihadis in a chilling real-life version of The Handmaid’s Tale.

The remarkable story of Judith Schneiderman and her family, from the horror of the Holocaust to the search for loved ones to building a new life in America.

Rodrigo Duterte was elected President of the Philippines in 2016. In his first 18 months in office, 12,000 people were murdered on the streets, gunned down by police officers and vigilante citizens - all with his encouragement. Duterte is a serial womanizer and a self-confessed killer, who has called both Barack Obama and Pope Francis "sons of whores." He is on record as saying he does not "give a shit" about human rights. Yet he is beloved of the 16.6 million Filipinos who voted for him, seen as vulgar but honest, a breath of fresh air, and an iconoclastic, anti-imperialist rebel.

Most of us have dreamed of being the hero in some great “pedestrian epic,” covering great distances unencumbered by the trappings of modern civilization. George Meegan had a similar dream, only his kept him going for seven years and over 19,000 miles. This is his story, a physical and spiritual odyssey.

Special Agent Floy Turner returns for her final crime-fighting battles. With the first page bringing us back to historical 9/11, Floy finds herself in a precarious situation as she and her team face the potential threats of entering and searching the apartments of the 9/11 terrorists mere hours after the attacks. From escorting renown serial killer Aileen Wournos to her execution to interrupting the insidious ploys of kidnappers, cybercrime predators, and human traffickers, Turner uses her seasoned investigator’s skills to ensure justice is served.

A riveting story of personal hardship, the cost of political dissent, and the quest for justice that recounts how NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom became a leading activist for human rights around the world.

How I Became a Human Being is Mark O'Brien’s account of his struggles to lead an independent life despite a lifelong disability. In 1955 he contracted polio and became permanently paralyzed from the neck down. O'Brien describes growing up without the use of his limbs, his adolescence struggling with physical rehabilitation and suffering the bureaucracy of hospitals and institutions, and his adult life as an independent student and writer. Despite his physical limitations, O'Brien crafts a narrative that is as rich and vivid as the life he led.

Covering diversity and equality, globalization, human rights, modern urban living and the role of work and institutions, The Sociology Book looks at the big questions of how we cooperate: What is society? What makes it tick? Why do we interact in the way that we do with our friends, co-workers, and rivals?

"A captivating coming of age story about an Irish weapons trafficker." –BestThrillers.com David is pulled from his bed; he is seven. His father, freelancing for British intelligence, is identified while attempting to assassinate a terrorist. Now a wanted man, he must relocate his family from Northern Ireland to Canada. David is raised in the family's business. A business that, eliminates those that can't keep secrets, sells weapons around the world, and hides those that need protection. As a teen David struggles with his future in the family business and his mother's desire to have him ...

Mouthpiece is a brutally told biographical sketch of an incarcerated pimp in prison for human trafficking. Raw boasts and brazen inner-city tales litter the story’s violent, unrepentant landscape. Like a marked man, Mouthpiece keeps after the listener with a cold perspective. Money is the aim, and young women are the product.