Have I got recommendations for you? Yep! In fact much more than I can fit on this one page!
I’m not yet a bookstore affiliate, so I don’t have a handy shopping link for you, but in support of independent bookstores, if you’re buying online, why not check-in with bookstore.org?
These are books I rate highly so forgive me for waxing effusive and saying they’re all unforgettable must-reads … I’m also terribly distracted by themes and telling you the themes as I perceived them, beats giving you spoilers!
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart is unflinchingly dark. What might it have been like to be a little boy living in poverty in the 1980’s, in a Scotland where your mother had a severe substance-abuse problem, your father was a violent homophobe and families in your community were battered by unemployment? Startling in both its compassion and honesty, you won’t be able to forget Shuggie and you will wish him well.
Sofia Khan is Not Obliged is my kind of funny - a page-after-page laugh-out-loud book. Author Ayisha Malik wrote a frank fuck-off-to- Islamophobia, utterly hilarious novel – without being afraid to point out the imperfections of her own community with equal bluntness.
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi. Delightfully irrelevant and unapologetic, packed with action, comedy and a wide cast of engaging characters. An opportunity to look back at London and its suburbs of the 1970’s and be fascinated by what’s changed and what’s just the same. The questions raised in The Buddha of Suburbia have never really gone away.
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things is a literary masterpiece set in Kerala, India. It unfolds like a mystery, shrouded in a heavy mist of sorrow. Yet it’s lit up with the most beautiful writing and vibrant characters. This book is that rare novel I want to go back to and read again.
The Wrong Way to Wright by Dia Adiba tells the story of Aya, a woman tired of waiting for love, who settles instead with the well-off, older Desi. Her debts are cleared and her dream career is taking off, but Marley’s also walked into her life and challenges her settled narrative. A page-turner with plenty of schemers and surprises but no fairy tale vibes. Can Aya do right by her husband without doing wrong to herself?
Ayisha Malik’s This Green and Pleasant Land takes a good, hard look at the polite and respectable version of English Islamophobia, while lightening things up with Malik’s trademark humour. And don’t you love an English book with a pub quiz and a dear Khala who doesn’t speak good English? Whereas Malik’s debut Sophia Khan is Not Obliged is a riot and a proper fuck-off to Islamophobia, This Green and Pleasant Land is a thoughtful exploration.
Julie Cohen has a talent for making you feel deeply for all her characters. Together is the story of a love so beautifully depicted you’ll weep. And it’s a novel with an ending so shocking you’ll …okay, no spoilers.
We That Are Young by Preti Taneja is a modern day re-telling of King Lear, a feat accomplished with sheer brilliance and breathtaking skill. Set in contemporary India, the novel explores power, wealth, misogyny and control. And there is no question it asks about India that we cannot also ask of ourselves, wherever we are in the world.
A white atheist English woman from Kent and a British Pakistani man fall in love. They won’t give up their beliefs but they won’t give up their love either. This moving exploration of the challenges of ‘mixed marriage’ was written by an English woman and a British Pakistani man from the alternating points of view of Honour and Ali. Ruth Ahmed is a pseudonym.
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