First, me starting off randomly and writing lots of
things before getting to the list – for, why not?
When I started to take interest in books, it was a very new
thing for me. I loved reading as well as the idea of reading; that is, how much
a person can learn just by reading words on paper. Stories that have been
lived, imagined, told, and loved, and the knowledge about our world, its
history, politics, philosophies and beauty. I bought books left and right;
whatever that caught my attention, whether the cover, the title, or the critic’s
praises. I was in an utterly vast area with no guide but my earnestness for
discovering and reading books. I read some of the classics, and some of Paulo
Coelho; some Khaled Hosseini, and some Elif Shafak; I also tried my hands at
nonfiction, reading Mark Manson, Susan Cain, Will Durant, to name a few.
And as with everything new, it was through trial and error
that I got a hold of understanding the diversity of books and my way through them.
I bought and read books intuitively for there was so much that appealed to me,
so many books to buy, and my unmatchably moderate pace of reading as many of
them as I could. Of course the famous books, both the classics and contemporary
ones, made me fall in love with reading, but amidst the books that I did not
know about was where I learned and found my own taste. I have definitely read
some unnecessary books, but that was the trial that led me to errors and
insights, and therefrom I learned what I wanted to read and what not.
Last year, a year of lockdowns and uncertainties, and for me
personally, a year of particular pain and anguish, was ironically my most
successful year of reading. If we talk numbers, I read a total of 75 books,
almost as many as I had read in the previous three years combined. I completed
my 100 books last year as well, a psychologically triumphant number for any
reader I guess, and by then and from there on I had built a taste in reading,
based on which I started purchasing and reading books that I knew I wanted to
read, regardless of whether I will love each of them or not – something that’s impossible to guess as I have come to know. This distinction of knowing what
to read and what to avoid is key for every reader, because you cannot read all
the books out there, and you certainly don’t want to read books that would
eventually be a waste of time. Your books also have a way of reflecting who you
are.
As 2020 progressed into 2021, so did my skills in reading. I
started this year with a resolution of reading one particular genre each month
of the year, either from fiction or nonfiction. For example, I set ‘Contemporary
fiction’ for Jan, and ‘Nonfiction Science’ for Feb. Besides being an exercise
for me to know book genres, there were a couple of reasons why this idea popped
into my head: first was the overwhelmingly increasing number of unread books
that I had purchased, which I definitely wanted to read but found no reason to.
Secondly, I wanted to become a more well-rounded learned person; while I love
reading fiction, reading nonfiction was equally important to understand the
world around me and learn from it. There are practical things that only
nonfiction books can teach you, and more straight-on as well.
The resolution saw itself to success, as for half of this
year I have been able to stick to it and have read some of the books from my
collection that I might have not read for who knows how long. Purchasing a Tablet
also helped, for it allowed me to read the eBooks of the books that I couldn’t
get the physical copies of. This year, I read Hawking’s ‘A brief history of
Time’ during Feb (NF Science), and Hedayat’s ‘The Blind Owl’ in March (Iranian
Lit.); Cook’s ‘Koran: a brief introduction’ in April during Ramadan (NF
Religion), and Qudsia’s ‘Raja Gidh’ in June (Urdu Lit.) – some of the books
that I wouldn’t have read unless I was required to.
Finally, with all that said, here are my ten favorite books
(from a total of 30) of this year so far. This is no ranking here, so I will
write about these books in the chronological order of their author’s surname.
Reza Aslan – No god but God (NF Religion)
To everyone, and particularly to the young Muslims, like me,
eager to know Islam in all its entirety, so that they could better understand
what being a Muslim is and what role should religion play in our lives,
especially in this day and age, Aslan’s book is the singular and all-telling
book to read. A most complete book on Islam, covering its history, present, and
future, that would help answer all your questions and clear away your confusion
and anguish.
Shokoofeh Azar – The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
(Iranian Literature)
Reminiscent of Salman Rushdie’s ‘magical-realism’ prose style,
Azar’s novel brings fact, fiction, and fantasy together to tell a
heart-wrenching, poignant, and beautifully sad and consoling tale of an Iranian
family living in the post-revolution Iran. I don’t think any nonfiction book
could’ve told, with such tremendous impact and starkness, the horrific accounts
of brutality and violence of Khomeini’s at times grotesque rule over Iran. An
act of vengeance and posthumous consolation; powerful.
John Banville – The Sea (Literary Fiction)
‘Oh, how literary!’ I wrote in my review when I finished
reading this book. Almost indistinguishable, in how it made me feel so alive
and touched, from Barnes’s similarly beautiful book ‘The Sense of and Ending’,
Banville’s novel is a pure joy to read. With the themes of memory, of looking
back at the days passed, and fulfilling the picture of life by connecting the
past with the ending present, this book is everything I seek in a literary
novel. I loved it!
David Diop – At Night All Blood Is Black (Contemporary
Fiction)
Bizarre, dark, impactful and quick paced, this novella comes
from a soldier who’s pushed to his humanely limits under the grotesque nature
of war. Although I had initial complaints with the small size of this novella,
as time has passed, I’ve come to notice the impacts this novel has left on me.
The panickingly hasty and insensitively honest narration of this book has left
me with insights on true madness of war, on the cruelty of kindness, and of
living with oneself despite the ugliness of one’s consciousness and life.
Yuval Noah Harari – Homo Deus (Nonfiction History/Science)
For me, Harari’s bestseller ‘Homo Sapiens’ beautifully and
meaningfully summed up the whole story of mankind. ‘Homo Deus’ tells the story
further into the shocking yet credible future that we might live ourselves
into. Domination over other animals put us on par with the gods, but now
we’re at the stage where we’ve obtained potentially destructive power in our
hands. Now, we are man-gods ourselves; question is, what fate do we decide for
our race?
Kundera, Milan – Identity (Contemporary Fiction)
One of Kundera’s shorter novels, ‘Identity’ plays on the
idea of the elusiveness of what gives us our identity and how easy it is to
mistake one person for another – even if that person is the love of your life,
someone you know most. Kundera’s thinking and his ability to transmit that
thinking into our minds through his gripping and stark prose is why I love
him. Snippets of this novella still meanders in my thoughts whenever a pointing
event or discourse comes about.
Neimi, Salwa Al – The Proof of Honey (Islamic Literature)
I did not know that there existed erotic literature within
the context of Islam. Sex, in Islam, is not only a private matter, but also a
taboo to talk or explore about before marriage; and even after marriage, it
remains buried with restrictions. Neimi unshackles all that stigma and shame
around sex in Islam. She provides vivid, provoking, and arousing accounts of
her sexual life with references of sexual joy and pleasure that exists at the
very core of Islam.
Offill, Jenny – Dept. of Speculation (Literary Fiction)
Part memoir, part fiction (I guess), Offill writes her book
in bits, carefully choosing pieces of her life to tell, but at the end it all
comes together to become not an only complete and fulfilling book, but
something much more vital and dearer. For me, Offill has turned her rather
ordinary life, through her beautiful and poignant prose and with the help of
quoting other great writers, in an extraordinary book – that is a source of joy,
comfort, and wisdom.
Reza, Parisa – The Gardens of Consolation (Iranian
Literature)
Following Sardar and Talla, man and woman from typical
village families of Iran, Reza’s novel follows them through their marriage and
their migration to Tehran, where they hope they’ll fulfill their dream of
raising a child in the capital city. Their son proves to be just as brilliant
and becomes a political activist in the tumultuous times of 1950s Iran. Through
these two different time periods and two different generations of Iranians,
Reza brilliantly portrays the tragic incompetency of 1950s Iran and how
different people lived through them.
Qudsia, Bano – Raja Gidh (Urdu Literature)
A new addition to my all-time-favorite books, Qudsia’s
profoundly moving and intellectually feeding novel is tale of an investigation
into human madness: its causes, its types, and above all, its importance. Told
in two parallel worlds, one of mankind’s and one of jungle birds’, Qudsia has
written a novel that pierces our heart, as Qayum in the human world moves
through different phases of madness, and parallelly takes us through an
investigation of madness where in the jungle, Gidh (vulture) is put on trial
for showing signs of human madness and is sentenced to exile. ‘Raja Gidh’ is a
masterpiece, and reading it is one of the great joys of living.