book recommendations

A lot of friends have been recently asking me for my top recommendations on what to read next. So instead of copying and pasting the same text message over and over again, I thought it might be a better idea if I did a quick blog post to share with you all.

BOOKS

1. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
2. Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam
3. On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta
4. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
5. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
6. The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
7. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
9. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
10. Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta
11. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
12. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
13. Reclaim Your Heart by Yasmin Moghaded

I have rainy mood and some of my favourite songs playing in the background as I am writing this. For some reason, writing this list is making me want to re-read some of these books badly. I am so incredibly attached to this list of books. I could go on and on about these. I wanted to write a quick sentence next to each book explaining why I am recommending it but I thought maybe that would be boring you unnecessarily.

I really hope you find this useful. Please let me know if you end up reading any of the above! Happy reading xx

2016 reading list

As promised in my previous blog post, below is my 2016 reading list which is based on a reading challenge that I stumbled across online. Although my 2016 reading list already feels slightly challenging as compared to my 2015 reading list, I am super excited to get my hands on these books. Similarly to 2015, I absolutely cannot wait to share my favourite quotes on this blog post as I read my way through these books:

A book published this year

“I’ll never understand how certain things that happen to us can climb under our skin and make us someone new.”

A book you can finish in a day

“Remember that feeling on your first day of school or university, where you were worried about finding the right classroom or lecture hall? You found it, it didn’t you? So, rather than having sleepless nights into the future, remember you have overcome past worries since childhood and the outcomes of the challenges you encounter in the workplace will be no different if you maintain the right attitude.”

A book you have been meaning to read

“They say, Find a purpose in your life and live it. But, sometimes, it is only after you have lived that you recognize your life had a purpose, and likely one you never had in mind.”

A book recommended by your other half 

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

A book you should have read in school

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God.”

A book published before you were born

A book that was banned at some point

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

A book you previously abandoned 

“Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don’t you do the same?” He says, “Not in years. But today. Today maybe I did.”

A book you own but have never read

“The obligatory acts in Islam in themselves provide cures for many diseases. Salah is a cure for the disease of heedlessness, zakat is a cure for the love of this world and miserliness, the fasts of Ramadan are a cure for the diseases of desire while Hajj, if performed with sincerity, is the ultimate cure for all diseases of the heart.”

A book you have already read at least once

“These people have history and I crave history. I crave someone knowing me so well that they can tell what I’m thinking.”

2015 reading list

To prevent myself from re-reading the Harry Potter series for the billionth time, I promised myself that I would read a new book each month for the rest of 2015. Naturally, I started off my reading list with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows because my reading list would feel very incomplete without Harry Potter!

January’s read

“Every second he breathed, the smell of the grass, the cool air on his face, was so precious: To think that people had years and years, time to waste, so much time it dragged, and he was clinging to each second.”

February’s read

“I was trying to feel some kind of good-bye. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-bye or a bad good-bye, but when I leave a place I like to know I’m leaving it. If you don’t you feel even worse.”

March’s read

“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”

April’s read

“Sometimes I get so immersed in my own company, if I unexpectedly run into someone I know, it’s a bit of a shock and takes me a while to adjust.” 

May’s read

“Childhood memories are sometimes covered and obscured beneath the things that come later, like childhood toys forgotten at the bottom of a crammed adult closet, but they are never lost for good.”

June’s read

“Why do we focus on certain things at the expense of others? We will risk our lives to save a person from drowning, yet not make a donation that could save dozens of children from starvation.”

July’s read

“It is so hard to leave — until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.”

August’s read

 “I didn’t feel sad or happy. I didn’t feel proud or ashamed. I only felt that in spite of all the things I’d done wrong, in getting myself here, I’d done right.” 

September’s read

“The things that go unsaid are often the things that eat at you–whether because you didn’t get to have your say, or because the other person never got to hear you and really wanted to.”

October’s read

“Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls, and when the sky grew dark, and they parted with leaves in their hair.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”

November to December’s read

“The dead could only speak through the mouths of those left behind, and through the signs they left scattered behind them.”