Book Review: Middlemarch by George Eliot + Favourite quotes

Blurb: Dorothea is bright, beautiful and rebellious. Lydgate is the ambitious new doctor in town. Both of them long to make a positive difference in the world. But their stories do not proceed as expected and both they and the other inhabitants of Middlemarch, must struggle to reconcile themselves to their fates and find their …

Book Review & dream cast: Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar

Blurb: The daughter of a star and a mortal, Sheetal is used to keeping secrets. Pretending to be "normal." But when an accidental flare of her starfire puts her human father in the hospital, Sheetal needs a full star's help to heal him. A star like her mother, who returned to the sky long ago. …

Book Review: A place for us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

Blurb: A Place for Us catches an Indian Muslim family on the eve of the eldest daughter’s wedding. As Hadia’s marriage -- one chosen of love, not tradition -- gathers the family back together, her parents Rafiq and Layla must come to terms with the choices that their two daughters, and their estranged son Amar, have …

Book Review: You beneath your skin by Damyanti Biswas

Blurb: Indian American single mother Anjali Morgan juggles her job as a psychiatrist with caring for her autistic teenage son. She is in a long-standing affair with ambitious police commissioner Jatin Bhatt – an irresistible attraction that could destroy both their lives. Across the city there is a crime spree: slum women found stuffed in trash …

Book Review: The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

Blurb: Oscar Wilde's madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The rapid-fire wit and eccentric characters of The Importance of Being Earnest have made it a mainstay of the high school curriculum for decades. Published: 14 February 1895 Favourite quote: …

Book Review: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Blurb: A haunting Orwellian novel about the terrors of state surveillance, from the acclaimed author of The Housekeeper and the Professor. Published: 13 August 2019 (first published in 1994) Page length: 274 Review: The Memory Police is a dystopian novel about an island where things keep disappearing. Things like birds, emeralds, perfume, roses, fruits, calendars, and then finally …

Book Review: Suncatcher by Romesh Gunesekera

Blurb: 1964. Ceylon is on the brink of change. But Kairo is at a loose end. School is closed, the government is in disarray, the press is under threat and the religious right are flexing their muscles. Kairo’s hard-working mother blows off steam at her cha-cha-cha classes; his Trotskyite father grumbles over the state of …

TV Show Review: Self Made

About: A chronicle of the incredible story of Madam C.J. Walker, who was the first African American self-made millionaire. Starring: Octavia Spencer as Madam C. J. Walker, Tiffany Haddish as Lelia, Blair Underwood as C. J. Walker, Carmen Ejogo as Addie Munroe, Kevin Carroll as Ransom, Bill Bellamy as Sweetness, Garrett Morris as Cleophus Release: 20 …

Book Review: It’s not about the burqa by Mariam Khan (Editor)

Blurb: When was the last time you heard a Muslim woman speak for herself without a filter? 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 …

Happy women’s day!

Before you go off wishing the women in your life and then wait for a delicious Sunday dinner made by your mom slaving in the kitchen, here’s how you can do something meaningful which isn’t empty words and chocolate. Stand up for women’s rights irrespective of their caste, religion, and race. Make your feminism inclusive …