Latest news with #SixDaysinBombay
Toronto Star
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Toronto Star
A missing novelist, an early 20th-century painter and the Brontë sisters inspire new historical fiction
'The Story She Left,' by Patti Callahan Henry, Simon & Schuster Canada, $25.99. The Story She Left Behind Patti Callahan Henry Simon & Schuster Canada, 352 pages, $25.99 Inspired by the unsolved disappearance of 25-year-old fantasy novelist Barbara Newhall Follett in 1939, Henry's fictional version concerns Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, who walks out on her husband and child in 1927 South Carolina. In 1952, Bronwyn's daughter, Clara Harrington, an elementary school art teacher and award-winning children's book illustrator, receives a perplexing call from a London stranger, Charlie Jameson, who has a leather satchel with a manuscript; he has instructions from his recently deceased father to give it in person to Clara. She travels there with her asthmatic eight-year-old daughter Wynnie, where the Great Smog displaces them to the cleaner air of the pastoral Lake District. A Russian nesting doll of secrets is revealed — including the whereabouts of a mysterious linguistic key that will unlock the story of the second novel Bronwyn left behind when she abandoned her family — in this tender narrative about the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'The Resistance Painter,' by Kath Jonathan, Simon & Schuster Canada, $24.99. The Resistance Painter Kath Jonathan Simon & Schuster Canada, 448 pages, $24.99 In a dual timeline that artfully shifts between occupied Poland during the Second World War and Toronto in 2010, we follow the lives of two women artists, painter Irena Marianowska and her granddaughter Josephine Blum, a sculptor who specializes in graveyard monuments that reveal the life stories of the deceased. As a teenager, Irena joins the Polish resistance known as the AK, the Army Krajowa, in Warsaw, and works secretly for many years helping Jewish citizens escape through the underground network of sewers and aboveground safe houses. When a commission introduces Josephine to an ailing Polish client, Stefan, who claims to have also served in the resistance, she discovers a threatening truth about his past that leads her to the horrors of Ravensbrück and her own family history, in which her intrepid, risk-taking, beloved grandmother dared all to do what was morally right. Examining sacrifice, selflessness and resilience, Jonathan's atmospheric debut is both timely and timeless. 'Six Days in Bombay,' by Alka Joshi, MIRA, $25.99. Six Days in Bombay Alka Joshi MIRA, 352 pages, $25.99 Amrita Sher-Gil, the early 20th-century painter known as 'the Frida Kahlo of India' and the daughter of a Hungarian Jewish mother and an Indian aristocrat father, inspires the fictional biracial figurative painter Mira Novak who is at the heart of this engrossing novel that opens in 1937 Bombay. Hospitalized due to complications from a miscarriage, Mira is expected to make a full recovery. Yearning for a life larger than her own, attending nurse Sona Falstaff, only a few years younger, welcomes Mira's exotic and enchanting stories of travels and former lovers throughout Europe. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW When Mira dies suddenly, the hospital administration wrongly focuses on Sona, dismissing her. Even though the nurse only knew her patient for a short time, four of Mira's paintings have been left in her care to pass along to people from her past in Prague, Florence and Paris. Themes of identity and self-discovery drive this engaging portrait of young women daring to challenge societal expectations to become who they are meant to be. 'Fifteen Wild Decembers,' by Karen Powell, Europa Editions, $27. Fifteen Wild Decembers Karen Powell Europa Editions, 288 pages, $27 With its title appropriately lifted from an Emily Brontë poem, this captivating coming-of-age novel opens with six-year-old Emily joining her sisters at a girls' school in 1824, where the unsanitary conditions lead to the rampant spread of tuberculosis and the Brontës' subsequent return home to Haworth. Raised by their widowed father and his sister-in-law, and educated both at home and in boarding schools, encouraged to draw, write stories and stomp about the moors in the company of several cherished family dogs, the surviving Brontë children — Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne — share lives enriched and inspired by the natural world. Powell's sumptuous, careful prose vividly recreates Victorian Yorkshire and richly conveys Emily's vibrant inner life that sets her imagination aflame as she writes 'Wuthering Heights,' its wildness in her heart. An immersive, moving, literary page-turner.
Forbes
18-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
This AI Founder Is The World's Youngest Self-Made Female Billionaire. Plus: The Surprising Fact That Boosts Women's Competitive Spirit
This is this week's ForbesWomen newsletter, which every Thursday brings news about the world's top female entrepreneurs, leaders and investors straight to your inbox. Click here to get on the newsletter list! In 1941, Indian artist Amrita Sher-Gil died, mysteriously, at the age of 28. An accomplished painter who helped pioneer modern Indian art, Sher-Gil has been mostly lost to history. But she serves as the inspiration for a new novel from Alka Joshi, the bestselling author of the Henna Artist trilogy and someone you may recognize from her time on the Forbes 50 Over 50 list. 'I got a B.A. in art history and I'd never heard of this woman before,' Joshi said in an interview about her new book, Six Days in Bombay, with me and Mika Brzezinski for Morning Joe earlier this week. 'I think if she'd lived beyond the age of 28, we *would* know who she is.' Joshi and I continued talking after the cameras stopped rolling and she told me that she wants the ForbesWomen audience, in particular, to understand that Sher-Gil 'was a woman who was so convinced of her own value, that she didn't care what other people thought' She had 'something to say about the empowerment of women in the south of India who do not get a chance to make their own decisions in life. And she conveyed all of that through her art.' Six Days in Bombay is a fictional take on Sher-Gil's life, but like most of Joshi's work, the book contains very real themes of female independence and financial power. 'It's always intentional on my part to say that if a woman makes a decision—good, bad, whatever we feel about it— we have to think about the decision she made for herself' and why she made that decision, Joshi said of how she considers depicting her female characters and their choices. When I told her that it felt like a lot of the women in her books are seeking financial independence, Joshi said this, too, is intentional. 'If we want financial independence for ourselves, we have to support other women who are trying to also obtain their own financial independence,' Joshi said, noting that these efforts are equally important in fiction and in real life. 'It's not just about us. We have to support the entire network of women who are trying to create that life for themselves.' Cheers to that! P.S.: Speaking of the 50 Over 50: Don't forget that nominations for the 2025 U.S. 50 Over 50 list are now open! Head to this link here to tell us about a woman you think should be on this year's list. Full nominations criteria are on that page but the two most important bits to remember: We're looking for people who were born in 1974 or earlier, and we're looking for women who have never been on the list before, because we don't allow repeats! Jamel Toppin for Forbes Lucy Guo is one of just six self-made female billionaires on the planet under the age of 40. She's also the only one who's made the bulk of her fortune from a company she left years ago. Guo cofounded artificial intelligence firm Scale AI in 2016; after leaving the company in 2018, she astutely held on to most of her stake while pursuing her next startup. Guo still owns an estimated stake of just under 5% of Scale AI worth nearly $1.2 billion. Add in her other assets—including her holding in her second startup, Passes—and she's worth $1.25 billion, Forbes estimates. 'I don't really think about it much, it's a bit wild. Too bad it's all on paper haha,' says Guo via text in response to her new billionaire status. Getty Images Speaking of new books, billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates is out with a new memoir that shares previously untold stories that she hopes will provide guidance for others on how to make the most of life's transitions. French Gates spoke with ForbesWomen contributor Marianne Schnall about what she wants people to learn from this memoir. This week we released the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list, a collection of founders and game-changers who are building the future while navigating a global trade war, a live war in Ukraine, and the whiplash of generative AI ripping up rules of work, creativity, and capitalism in real time. Europe's U30 Class of 2025 includes actors like Ella Purnell, social entrepreneur Lisa Oberaigner and healthcare founder Felicia von Reden; check out the full list here! Elon Musk has long claimed civilization will collapse unless we raise the birth rate. Meanwhile, his 'DOGE' group is slashing billions in funding for pregnant and nursing mothers and their children. It suspended more than $27 million in grants to women's health centers, laid off federal workers running programs for expecting mothers on Medicaid, and cancelled $1.6 million in funding for maternal and postpartum care at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, GA. Read the full Forbes analysis here. When Commissioner Cathy Engelbert called Paige Bueckers' name with the first overall pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft earlier this week, there wasn't a surprised face in the room. The announcement came on the heels of Bueckers' winning the NCAA tournament less than two weeks ago, making her the first player since Breanna Stewart in 2016 to go No. 1 and win the national championship in the same year. 1. If you aspire to small business ownership, skip the MBA. That degree will cost you $300,000 or more, counting lost earnings. Worth it, if you want to climb the corporate ladder. Not so much, if you're looking to buy or build most small businesses. Here's why. 2. Talk about the gender gap and boost a friend's competitive spirit. Despite being just as qualified as their male counterparts, women are significantly less likely to compete at work—whether that means applying for executive roles, asking for promotions, or negotiating higher pay. The result is a persistent gender competition gap that keeps women from advancing at the same rate as men. However, new research reveals that simply informing women of this gender gap boosts their willingness to compete. 3. Learn to navigate loss in the workplace. We don't often talk about grief in professional spaces, but we should. Whether you're managing a team or building a business, your ability to sit with hard emotions, tolerate ambiguity, and stay grounded in uncertainty is the exact skill set you need to lead with empathy, clarity, and integrity. A likely sign of today's uncertain times, a TikTok trend #probablyneededahug currently making the rounds is actually based on endocrine science showing that physical hugs lead to an increase in the so-called 'cuddle hormone.' Which of these 'happiness' hormones is most associated with warm, social feelings?
