“Against The Loveless World” by Susan Abulhawa (Palestine)Winner of the Palestine Book Award 2020 Synopsis As Nahr sits, locked away in solitary confinement, she spends her days reflecting on the dramatic events that landed her in prison in a country she barely knows. Born in Kuwait in the 70s to Palestinian refugees, she dreamed of falling in love with the perfect man, raising children, and … Continue reading Against The Loveless World
The new season of our Book Club will run from November 2025 to May 2026. The theme is Book Award Winners and the selected books are: The Book Club will meet online every 6-8 weeks from 19:30 to 21:00 (CET). Our discussion will revolve around 2 elements, namely story (plot + character development) and style (writing style + length). We will also score each book so that, … Continue reading Book Club Season 26
“No One Prayed Over Their Graves” by Khaled Khalifa (Syria) Synopsis December, 1907: one morning after a night of drunken carousing in the city, Hanna and his friend Zakariya return home to their village near Aleppo—only to discover a scene of tragedy. A devastating flood has levelled their homes, shops and places of worship, and their neighbours, families and children are nearly all dead. Their … Continue reading No One Prayed Over Their Graves
“One Night, Markovitch” by Ayelet Gundar-Goshan (Israel) Review Readers enjoyed this book describing it as an intriguing and refreshing read. They found it easy to get into and sympathised with most of the characters. They liked how the two protagonists develop from caricatures to individuals with depth and substance. Readers agreed that the story was both funny and annoying at the beginning due its exaggerated … Continue reading One Night, Markovitch
“Reckless” by Hasan Ali Toptas (Turkey) Review From a classic plot-driven novel to an unusual collective ‘novel-essay,’ the four shortlisted books for this year’s Summer Reading Group varied greatly in structure, style of writing, and point of view. Our summer readers also noticed a recurrent theme in all four of dreams and their many meanings. “Reckless” is largely set on the Turkish-Syrian border and tells … Continue reading Reckless
“The Gaze” by Elif Shafak (Turkey) Review Readers had a difficult time getting into this book finding both the language and the narrative hard to follow. Some didn’t manage to finish it, but those who did were very glad they had persisted, because about a third of the way through they felt that the pieces started to fit together. The main story is told from … Continue reading The Gaze
“Samarkand” by Amin Maalouf (Lebanon) Favourite Quote Travellers are in too great a rush these days, in a rush to arrive – whatever it takes. But you do not arrive only at your destination. At every stage of the journey you arrive somewhere and with every step you can discover a hidden facet of our planet. All you have to do is look, wish, believe … Continue reading Samarkand
“Girls of Riyadh” by Rajaa Alsanea (Saudi Arabia) Synopsis Gamrah’s faith in her new husband is not exactly returned …Sadeem is a little too willing to please her fiancé …Michelle is half-American and the wrong class for her boyfriend’s family …While Lamees works hard with little time for love. The girls of Riyadh are young, attractive and living by Saudi Arabia’s strict cultural traditions. Well, not quite. … Continue reading Girls of Riyadh
Nicola's Book Club 