Book cover of Brick Lane

Book description

Nazneen's inauspicious entry to the world, an apparent stillbirth on the hard mud floor of a Bangladeshi village hut, imbues in her a sense of fatalism that she carries across continents when she is married off to Chanu. Her life in London's Tower Hamlets is, on the surface, calm. For…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Brick Lane as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love this book because it so completely submerged me in the life and surroundings of the protagonist, Nazneen, a young Muslim woman who leaves her small Bangladeshi village to live in a London council flat in an arranged marriage with an older man.

Ali conveys a visceral sense of the stifling apartment, the tedious work, the bleak weather, and the loneliness and dullness of Nazneen’s life. Not that it’s a place we want to be, but we experience Nazneen’s yearning for escape so profoundly that we root passionately for her as she pursues some degree of freedom and purpose.…

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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

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