Ramadan Mubarak! The month of May is coming to an end and we’re just counting down the days until the readathon. It’s time to share what we’ve been organising this month, as well as what I plan to read.
In the introduction post, we mentioned that we’ll be hosting some author interviews and Twitter chats and an Instagram photo challenge. We’ll also be posting other related content throughout the month of June. Who are these authors? What topics will the Twitter chats cover? What else will we be discussing on our blogs? You can find all the information in our schedule, although things are still subject to change. Our giveaways are still a surprise but a little birdie tells me there’s almost one for each day of the month!
INSTAGRAM PHOTO CHALLENGES
TWITTER CHATS
If you’re yet to settle on your TBR, we’ve got you covered. You can find MG/YA and adult fiction recommendations here, or non-fiction, poetry and graphic novels here.
I’ll be reading a combination of both fiction and non-fiction books, including a re-read of one of my favourites – A Thousand Splendid Suns. As I’ve never taken part in a readathon before, I didn’t want to be too ambitious. I’m hoping I actually manage to finish all of these before the end of the month.
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS BY KHALED HOSSEINI
Goodreads | Amazon UK | Book Depository
Born a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are two women brought jarringly together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them—in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul—they come to form a bond that makes them both sisters and mother-daughter to each other, and that will ultimately alter the course not just of their own lives but of the next generation.
WHEN THE MOON IS LOW BY NADIA HASHIMI
Goodreads | Amazon UK | Book Depository
Mahmoud’s passion for his wife Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she’s ever known. But their happy, middle-class world—a life of education, work, and comfort—implodes when their country is engulfed in war, and the Taliban rises to power.
Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba has one hope to survive: she must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister’s family in England. With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness. Exhausted and brokenhearted but undefeated, Fereiba manages to smuggle them as far as Greece. But in a busy market square, their fate takes a frightening turn when her teenage son, Saleem, becomes separated from the rest of the family.
Faced with an impossible choice, Fereiba pushes on with her daughter and baby, while Saleem falls into the shadowy underground network of undocumented Afghans who haunt the streets of Europe’s capitals. Across the continent Fereiba and Saleem struggle to reunite, and ultimately find a place where they can begin to reconstruct their lives.
THE LINES WE CROSS BY RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH
Goodreads | Amazon UK | Book Depository
Michael likes to hang out with his friends and play with the latest graphic design software. His parents drag him to rallies held by their anti-immigrant group, which rails against the tide of refugees flooding the country. And it all makes sense to Michael.
Until Mina, a beautiful girl from the other side of the protest lines, shows up at his school, and turns out to be funny, smart—and a Muslim refugee from Afghanistan. Suddenly, his parents’ politics seem much more complicated.
Mina has had a long and dangerous journey fleeing her besieged home in Afghanistan, and now faces a frigid reception at her new prep school, where she is on scholarship. As tensions rise, lines are drawn. Michael has to decide where he stands. Mina has to protect herself and her family. Both have to choose what they want their world to look like.
THE THINGS I WOULD TELL YOU: BRITISH MUSLIM WOMEN WRITE EDITED BY SABRINA MAHFOUZ
Goodreads | Amazon UK | Book Depository
From established literary heavyweights to emerging spoken word artists, the writers in this ground-breaking collection blow away the narrow image of the ‘Muslim Woman’.
Hear from users of Islamic Tinder, a disenchanted Maulana working as a TV chat show host and a plastic surgeon blackmailed by MI6. Follow the career of an actress with Middle-Eastern heritage whose dreams of playing a ghostbuster spiral into repeat castings as a jihadi bride. Among stories of honour killings and ill-fated love in besieged locations, we also find heart-warming connections and powerful challenges to the status quo.
From Algiers to Brighton, these stories transcend time and place revealing just how varied the search for belonging can be.
THE SEALED NECTAR: BIOGRAPHY OF THE NOBLE PROPHET (SAW) BY SAFIUR-RAHMAN AL-MUBARAKPURI
A complete authoritative book on the life of Prophet Muhammad (S) by Sheikh Safiur-Rahman al-Mubarkpuri. It was honored by the World Muslim League as first prize winner book. Whoever wants to know the whole life style of the Prophet in detail must read this book.
That’s our schedule and my non-exhaustive TBR! I’ll also be making more of an effort to read books by Muslim authors once this month is over since I’ve discovered so many great books. Are you participating in the #RamadanReadathon? What are you most looking forward to? What will you be reading?
headscarves & hardbacks 