Another great pick from my Internations bookclub, Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West left me with seriously mixed feelings. On the one hand, I love books that make me question my own paradigms and face my short comings, and this book has definitely scored high points in this category. I also enjoyed the way the author escapes from the commonplace formula of boy meets girl – boy falls in love with girl – they overcome difficulties of their own doing and live happily ever after. Nothing of the sort […]
Another Book That Won’t Be on President Trump’s Nightstand (But Should Be!)
It might seem odd that in cities teetering at the edge of the abyss young people still go to class—in this case an evening class on corporate identity and product branding—but that is the way of things, with cities as with life, for one moment we are pottering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying and our eternally impending ending does not put a stop to our transient beginnings and middles until the instant when it does (3-4). This passage, written […]
“We are all migrants through time”
I’ve been meaning to read Mohsin Hamid for years now so when I found it right after it was added to my library’s collection, I took it as a sign. Sidenote: Can we talk about how beautiful this cover is? I can’t stop staring at it. The cover designer for the US version should be given a raise. I knew Exit West had something to do with immigrants, but that was the extent of my knowledge going in. Turns out I was in for much, […]
Up to some of his old tricks
I mostly liked The Reluctant Fundamentalist but I thought the weird framing device of a conversation in a cafe was actually quite bad. This novel did not have quite a strange device at the center of its story, but it did have a little trickery. This novel kind of starts us off in Syria, but the ambiguity of the narration suggests it could be a lot of different places in the world. As Nadia and Saeed meet, fall in….something, avoid and circulate sex and marriage, their […]