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Question

Book club question: we've done Kamila Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid and Mohammed Hanif this year. Who should we read next? Women writers preferred this time.

Oct 25 Everyone

Took the kids up the Margalla trail today and made each of them carry one book. Only one book got read. It was mine. Small wins.

Charity shop on Oldham Street had a whole box of Penguin Modern Classics at 50p each. I have no shelf space left and no regrets.

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Quote
“Sitaron se aage jahan aur bhi hain”
— Allama Iqbal, Bal-e-Jibril

Exam week. Writing this on the first page of every notebook.

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Oct 25 Everyone
Reading update
Moth Smoke
80% through · Central line

Lahore in the late 90s, read on a Central line carriage in London. Strange feeling. Daru is a terrible person and I can't put it down.

Oct 25 Everyone

Went to Urdu Bazaar this morning for ONE book and came back with seven. Old Ibn-e-Safi copies for Rs. 150 each, some still with the original covers. My wife has stopped asking.

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Reading update
The God of Small Things
35% through · Delhi Metro, Yellow Line

Rereading this ten years later. The first time I didn't notice how funny it is under all the sadness.

Question

Urdu fiction for someone who has only ever read English novels? My Urdu reading is slow but I really want to start. Something not too heavy please.

Quote
Middlemarch
“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?”
— George Eliot, Middlemarch, Middlemarch

Our book club picked Middlemarch for winter. Twelve of us, 800 pages and a lot of biscuits. This line has already made it worth it.

Sunday plan: cutting chai, a bench on Marine Drive, and finally starting Sacred Games. 900 pages. Wish me luck.

Reading update
Raja Gidh
62% through · Model Town, Lahore

Third time reading Raja Gidh and it still unsettles me. Nobody writes about hunger the way Bano Qudsia does. My chai went cold and I didn't even notice.

The tide's out. You're all caught up. No endless scrolling here. Come back later, or go and read.

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