It’s not about the burka, edited by Mariam Khan.

The last of the non-fiction read for a while.

I bought this on a whim, intrigued by the title, and frankly pushed by the fact that my ignorance when it come to Muslim and especially Muslim women is pretty deep.

AND, I repeat, it’s not good to spout judgments or opinion of something we don’t know zero about.

In 2016, Mariam Khan read that David Cameron had linked the radicalization of Muslim men to the ‘traditional submissiveness’ of Muslim women. Mariam felt pretty sure she didn’t know a single Muslim woman who would describe herself that way. 

The book is collection of essays written by a variety of Muslim women talking about their experiences, their life choices, what it means to be a Muslim woman often (more like always) misunderstood, people making assumptions and sweeping generalisations about you just from the way you dress etc. It gives them a voice that is not often heard because, let’s be frank… we think we know it all, right? and we never bothered to ask. Essays about clothes, and divorce, ethnicity, belonging and so much more.

It was really interesting to know more about the religion, the role of women in the Koran and that really the problem is not the Muslim faith but the pervasive and poisonous patriarchy that’s take over. At least that’s what I got out of it. I’m open to be corrected.

I urge you to read it because it is a real eye opener. Some of the essays are amazing, some left me a little … confused and a little ‘meh’… but I’m so glad I read it. Knowledge is power.

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine by Gail Honeyman

I had to break the series of ‘non-fiction’ books with something because my brain was slightly fried, and I seemed to have been the only person in the country that hadn’t read this novel last year… so here we go.

First of all I have to say I enjoyed it. Didn’t LOVE it, but enjoyed it. I guess I’m a little fed up with ‘quirky’ characters that can’t cope with society and are lonely and then get a Kodak ending… you know what a I mean?

Eleanor is 30 and lives on her own and has had the same job since she left college and her life goes by the same routine… slowly we get to know her story and slowly her life changes and… well… I’m sure you’ve read it so I won’t bother telling you more.

It’s well written, a little funny, a little sad, but I actually don’t know what more to say… it was so hyped that I expected a little more I guess, or maybe I wasn’t in the right frame of mind and having recently read ‘the lonely life of Biddy Weir’… this felt a little samey. Or maybe I couldn’t identify at all with Eleanor (love that name by the way, if only I’d had a girl…)

BUT that’s just my opinion.

And now the multitude are demanding food… always food… must go. Happy Sunday

Ok, back on the great book catch up, only four more to go, then we can start chatting breeze again. AND I’m on my last assignment for college so I will soon be able to read for pleasure and hopefully I’ll have time to ‘make’ things again.

All in good time.

White Teeth, by Zadie Smith… I’m probably the only person on the planet who hadn’t read this when it first came out. The novel follows a set of characters, three very different families in London round the turn of the millennium.

Samad is an ‘Indian’ waiter from Bangladesh, his arranged wife sews bondage outfit on the kitchen table for a job. They have tweens, smart Magid was sent to Bangladesh not to forget his heritage but comes back more English than his handsome brother Millat left behind, lover of American music and involved with a Muslim religious group whose acronym is KEVIN, he is loved by the mixed race Irie, daughter of Archie, Samad’s friend in the army, who is married to Clara, toothless, Jamaican, ex Jehovah’s witness. There are also the Chalfens, Jewish, super educated, white ‘liberal’ middleclass, self-righteous…

It’s a very multicultural London, an incredible urban melting pot, and the characters are all trying to find themselves and a little place where they belong. You’ll come to love them all, even the ones you don’t like!

And it’s funny. (And a little gut wrenchingly sad too). BUT you have to remember that to really appreciate this book you must keep in mind that it was written BEFORE 9/11… if you don’t … it’ll sound wrong, flippant at times, and maybe too close to the bone at others… I don’t know, life was different pre September Eleven, more innocent and I don’t think Smith would have written it in this way only a couple of years later.

One of the best books I’ve ever read.

Slowly, read it slowly.