What inspires them to leave behind the comforting shore of security for uncertainty and risk? What pushes them to chart uncharted terrains with no reward in sight? Expect the unexpected as Dipa Sanatani takes us on her journey in The Merchant of Stories. “No matter how much we plan things—or not plan anything at all—life’s plans will always take precedence over our own. When we come into this world, we are not promised fortune, fame, a happy family or really anything at all. All we get is the journey. And in these pages, you will mine.” Through a series of musings, letters, poems and notes from her diary, Dipa Sanatani takes readers on a globetrotting adventure that celebrates creative entrepreneurship as a spiritual journey. The book has everything—from the journey of her ancestors to her tales as a traveller; from the struggle of a writer to the rise of an artist; from the ecosystem of an employee to the emergence of an entrepreneur—everything. There is pain, struggle, strength and victory. Evoking both personal experiences and universal themes, The Merchant of Stories shows us that no misstep is ever a mistake. Even the darkest night or the most mundane moment can awaken the soul—The Little Light—that resides inside each and every single one of us. All we have to do is take that first uncertain step and embrace life as one great adventure.

    His journey weaves from fertile Mediterranean hills of the Galilee, down to the Bedouin of the sparse Naqab desert. He speaks with Palestinian hip-hop artists not sure if music can change their world, Israeli cycling activists who hope that bicycles can, and Palestinian cycle clubs determined to go on bike rides despite the military checkpoints that bar their way.Riding through stories of Israel and Occupation in Palestine, talking to people at the roadside, the bicycle becomes a medium for more than just travel in this complex land, cutting through tensions to find truth, and some hope. The book reads as a meditation on making change; how people keep their spirit in dark times and continue to believe a different world is possible.

    Paperback and e-books available online have been corrected**Ukraine, 1940. Julia flees her childhood home, never to see her parents again. She is captured and forced into a labour camp in Germany, where she slowly starts to give up on all hope of survival. Her redemption comes in the form of Henry, a fellow Ukrainian working for the SS.Julia and Henry promise themselves to each other, and the days pass with little hope, but just before liberation, they welcome a daughter into the world and decide to board a boat filled with thousands of immigrants heading to Australia. Salvation. They begin again, trying to make sense of their life in the barren sugarcane fields.But Julia feels isolated and frustrated, and tensions slowly mount between her and Henry, until one day, Julia is forced to reveal a tragic secret; a secret that she'd never revealed for fear of losing him, and their daughter. It breaks Henry's heart and shatters his trust, and so he gives her an ultimatum before they immigrate to New York. It's a choice no mother should ever have to make.Her decision changes the course of her life forever, until 65 years later, the forgiveness she seeks comes from someone she never thought would find her again.Based on extraordinary true events, Motherland is a powerful debut, self-published novel about love, loss, and perseverance against the odds, perfect for fans of We Were The Lucky Ones, The Light Between Oceans, and The Nightingale.

    History category 2020 National Jewish Book Award Finalist in American Jewish Studies 2020 Foreword Indies Book of the Year Finalist  In the wee hours of May 15, 1902, three thousand Jewish women quietly took up positions on the streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Convinced by the latest jump in the price of kosher meat that they were being gouged, they assembled in squads of five, intent on shutting down every kosher butcher shop in New York’s Jewish quarter. What was conceived as a nonviolent effort did not remain so for long. Customers who crossed the picket lines were heckled and assaulted, their parcels of meat hurled into the gutters. Butchers who remained open were attacked, their windows smashed, stocks ruined, equipment destroyed. Brutal blows from police nightsticks sent women to local hospitals and to court. But soon Jewish housewives throughout the area took to the streets in solidarity, while the butchers either shut their doors or had them shut for them. The newspapers called it a modern Jewish Boston Tea Party.The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902 tells the twin stories of mostly uneducated female immigrants who discovered their collective consumer power and of the Beef Trust, the midwestern cartel that conspired to keep meat prices high despite efforts by the U.S. government to curtail its nefarious practices. With few resources and little experience but a great deal of steely determination, this group of women organized themselves into a potent fighting force and, in their first foray into the political arena in their adopted country, successfully challenged powerful vested corporate interests and set a pattern for future generations to follow.