Winter break. A time when everyone and their neighbour feel it’s their duty to travel. At least they did, until the world was hit by the Coronavirus, and it became prudent to stay put wherever you are. Thankfully, I have never claimed to be very prudent. And so it was that we decided to go […]
Rating: 3.5 Stars Salt And Saffron by Kamila Shamsie is a light-hearted book about family history, class divisions, prejudices and familial love. Shamsie has created a fictional aristocratic family, proud of its roots that go back many centuries. She has used this family as an example of the elitism and caste system deeply embedded in […]
My mother tongue is Urdu. As an expat living in the Middle East for the last 10 years, one of the things that I am most ashamed of is that I have not been too diligent in teaching my children my mother tongue. Of course, they speak the language and understand it. Two of them […]
Rating: 2.5 Stars The Runaways by Fatima Bhutto has made me very conflicted. Even though this was the first book by her that I was reading, I have caught glimpses of her work over the years, and have always thought of her as very articulate and clear of thought. So, when I started reading this […]
Last week I read a book by a well known Pakistani author. I was looking forward to reading it, the author being someone I really admire in real life. As I delved deeper into the book, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. On the surface, there wasn’t anything wrong with the story or the characters, […]
Rating: 5 Stars I got Aanchal Malhotra‘s Remnants Of A Separation from Karachi, back in July 2018. Since then, it had been sitting around on my shelf with all the other numerous books that I never read. One fine day, sick from my overdose of thrillers, I just picked it up to see what it […]
Rating: 4 Stars Hijabistan by Sabyn Javeri is a collection of short stories about women, with a common thread of hijab running through all the stories. As a rule, I’m not one for short stories. They always leave me feeling like I missed the point. These short stories just sucked me in and left their […]
Rating: 3 Stars I’m suitably spooked. The book cover tricrked me into thinking this was a children’s book, if not funny, then surely a bit sad and melancholy. The name of the writer tricked me into thinking that this would be a lighthearted affair, suitable for reading before going to bed. I was so off […]
Rating: 4.5 Stars Omar Shahid Hamid is a Pakistani author who I rate very highly. If you want to read about the real Karachi, then his books are the ones you should pick up. Of course, his books show the underbelly of this multi-layered, multi-cultural city, and are only reflective of the shady side of […]
2018 has been a year full of ups and downs for me personally. In some of the darkest times of my life, it was reading that brought me peace and sanity. At the same time, there were occasions when reading became the most difficult thing for me to do for days and weeks. My erratic […]
