From human rights activist Michael Shaikh, a sweeping narrative survey on how food and food culture are invisible casualties of war and political violence.
UNTITLED
by Michael Nazir Shaikh
Crown, April 2024
From human rights activist Michael Shaikh, this will be a sweeping survey on how food and food culture are invisible casualties of war and political violence. From Syria to Sri Lanka, Afghanistan to Bolivia, Shaikh examines how a community’s sense of history and identity is lost when food traditions are lost, and the people who are trying to restore and reclaim their heritage.
Michael Shaikh is a climate and human rights activist and writer. He has investigated war crimes in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, genocide in Myanmar and civilian casualties in Mali and Syria for organizations like the United Nations and Human Rights Watch. In 2014, he left the UN in protest to bring public and media attention to UN’s refusal to speak out against the genocide. Since then, he’s been at the forefront of tackling the climate crisis, helping the New York City Mayor’s Office embed human rights protections for the city’s most vulnerable communities into its multibillion-dollar climate agenda. Michael has written for LitHub and contributed commentary to The New York Times, The Economist, The Financial Times, BBC, VICE, Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, and PBS Newshour. He lives in Brooklyn and cooks regularly for CHiPS, his neighborhood’s women’s shelter and soup kitchen.
The world’s most notorious top 10 list was first unveiled in 1950. As soon as he saw the photos, a Mississippi boy realised that the vagrant he’d seen holed up in a cave was in fact William Nesbit, the ‘Dynamite Killer’. He smoked him out. The list quickly became the FBI’s leading crime-fighting tool, leading to the capture of mobsters, serial killers and now terrorists. THE WANTED traces the history of the Most Wanted through seven thrilling manhunts – full of close detective work, psychological profiles and chases – and the fugitives, agents and innocents drawn into its web. With rare access to FBI records and agents, this is both an epic true crime saga, and the story that shaped modern America. The book will include approximately twenty to twenty-five images.
Grounded in brain science and clinical psychology, and informed by contemplative wisdom, LOVE EVERY DAY offers 52 simple yet powerful practices for building healthy relationships, including how to feel that you truly deserve good treatment from others; how to let go of toxic self-criticism; how to feel less anxious in groups; how to tap into the neural circuitry of calm strength and self-worth; how to set and keep healthy boundaries; and how to express your wants with others in ways that make them more likely to be respected and fulfilled.
There are hundreds of types of meditation out there. But entrepreneur Vishen Lakhiani credits his success to a condensed, magic-making, joy-creating, productivity-inducing, goal-smashing mega meditation: The 6 Phase Meditation. He pulled from thousands of years of psycho-spiritual wisdom, cherry-picked the best bits, translated it all into plain English, and put it into a logical, 15-minute practice that anyone can master. The 6 phases are centered on Connection, Gratitude, Forgiveness, Envisioning Your Future, Daily Intention, and Blessing, and only demand 15 minutes of your day. One of the side effects of this particular meditation is increased focus and reduced anxiety as you shift from overwhelm to overwellness—Vishen’s word for an optimum level of balance in all aspects of your life.
At first glance, human history is full of remarkable feats of intelligence. We invented writing. Produced incredible achievements in music, the arts, and the sciences. We’ve built sprawling cities and traveled across oceans—and space—and expanded to every part of the globe.