Shows
The 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 60: A Class of Their OwnFor many years, Matthew Knott worked as a private tutor for extremely wealthy and privileged children in the heart of London. In this book, he retells stories from his first three years in this unusual industry.
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2025-09-0117 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 59: One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against ThisOmar El Akkad's book is an urgent and necessary reckoning about what it means to live in the West today. As an immigrant, Omar believed his whole life that the West offered freedom and justice for all. But now, watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, he comes to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie.
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Mohammed El-Kurd Addresses the UN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xuan2uAQg0
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, This Is Not a Humanising Poem:
2025-08-0825 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 58: The Handmaid's TaleMargaret Atwood's iconic novel is set in a dystopian future where world-wide environmental collapse & disease have caused a widespread infertility crisis. This gives rise to a radical fundamentalist group called The Sons of Jacob who stage a coup against the United States government and replace it with the Republic of Gilead. The new regime forces the few fertile women into reproductive servitude as handmaids. The novel is narrated in the first person by a handmaid referred to as Offred.
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Mentioned book:
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
2025-08-0614 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 57: The Color PurpleAlice Walker's classic novel is set in the rural south of America, in the state of Georgia, in the early 20th century. It revolves around two sisters, Celie and Nettie. This is a beautiful epistolary tale of love, forgiveness and the road to strength.
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2025-08-0611 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 56: Think and Grow RichFirst published in America in 1937 during The Great Depression, Napoleon Hill's timeless book claims to have uncovered the secret to great wealth. The book outlines a 13-step formula to help the reader identify their goals, master the secret of true lasting success, obtain whatever they want in life and join the ranks of the super-successful.
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2025-08-0512 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 55: Oranges are not the Only FruitJeanette Winterson's classic coming of age story is a semi-autobiography. She is adopted by strict Pentecostal evangelists in the north of England, and from a young age she’s raised to be a missionary and is immersed in a rigid religious worldview. But as Jeanette gets older, she discovers that she’s a lesbian, which puts her in direct conflict with her church and her adoptive mother.
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Mentioned book:
Why be Happy When You Can be Normal by Jeanette Winterson.
2025-07-2810 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 54: WaterlandGraham Swift's prize winning novel is set in the Fens of eastern England and fluctuates across multiple timelines. The narrator, Tom Crick, is a 52 year old history teacher who recounts stories of his family history and their deeply buried secrets. At its heart, the novel reflects history's purpose, not as simply a record of facts, but a fragile and necessary attempt to give meaning to chaos.
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2025-07-2708 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 53: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestKen Kesey's classic novel is set in a state mental institute in 1950s America. Nurse Ratchet runs the ward like a military operation, weaponising shame, fear, and manipulation to keep the patients compliant. She maintains this façade of politeness and professionalism while emotionally castrating the men in her care, who have internalised the notion that they are deeply broken and can’t survive freedom outside the hospital. All this changes at the arrival of a new patient named Randle Patrick McMurphy.
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2025-07-2510 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 52: The GiverLois Lowry's modern classic in young adult literature is a dystopian novel that takes place in a seemingly utopian society that has eliminated pain, fear, war, and hatred by converting to "Sameness"— which is a plan that erases all emotional depth and memories of the past. It follows the main character, Jonas, he’s a 12-year-old boy who lives in this tightly controlled community. Everyone is assigned roles in the community when they turn twelve, and Jonas is given a unique and prestigious role: he’s to become The Receiver of Memory.
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2025-04-2113 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 51: The Kite RunnerKhaled Hosseini's critically acclaimed novel follows Amir, a young boy from a wealthy family in Kabul, and his close friendship with Hassan, the son of his father’s servant. Despite their bond, class differences and societal pressures strain their relationship, and a pivotal moment of betrayal by Amir changes both of their lives forever.
A Thousand Splendid Suns Review: https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/week-33-a-thousand-splendid-suns/
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2025-04-2008 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 50: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-TimeMark Haddon's novel was first published in 2003. It’s a unique story that’s told from the perspective of a 15-year-old boy Christopher Boone, who describes himself as “a mathematician with some behavioral difficulties." The novel begins with Christopher discovering that his neighbour's dog, Wellington, has been mysteriously killed with a garden fork. Christopher sets out to find the person who killed the dog, and what begins as a simple investigation quickly unfolds into a deeper, more complex journey that reveals secrets about his own family and forces him to step far outside his comfort zone.
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2025-04-1910 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 49: The MetamorphosisFirst published in German in 1915, it's one of Franz Kafka’s most famous and influential works — a blend of the absurd, existential, and psychological. Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up one day to find that he's turned into a “monstrous vermin”.
University of Oxford, Conversation of Kafka:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/conversations-on-kafka/id1750531209?i=1000657947433
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2025-04-1810 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 48: The HelpKathryn Stockett's novel is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s, around the time of The Civil Rights Movement in America.
It follows three characters, Skeeter Phelan; a young white aspiring writer who comes back home from college and starts to develop an awareness of racial inequality and the unfair treatment of Black domestic workers, specifically black women who work as maids in white homes. The second character is Aibileen Clark; a black woman who has spent her life raising white children. The third character is Aibileen's best friend, Minny Jackson; a highly skilled cook with a sh...
2025-04-1714 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 47: Under the SkinMichel Faber's iconic novel is a unique blend of science fiction, horror, and social commentary. It follows a woman named Isserley as she drives around the Scottish Highlands picking up male hitchhikers that she then drugs and takes to a secret farm facility. Over time, it becomes clear that she’s not what she seems—she’s actually an alien working for an extraterrestrial corporation that harvests human meat for consumption on her home planet. Instagram: 15minbookclub
2025-04-1612 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 46: Facing the ForestsAvraham Yehoshua's short story follows an unnamed Israeli scholar who takes a job as a forest ranger. He’s stationed in a remote fire-watch tower, and his job is to guard the forest and immediately sound the alarm if he sees it catch fire. As the story progresses, he gradually starts to realise that the forest is prone to fires because the land was never meant to sustain it in the first place —it was planted over the ruins of a Palestinian village, effectively covering up its existence.
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Men in the Sun Review: https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/week-9-m...
2025-04-1607 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 45: The Little PrinceAntoine De Saint-Exupery's literary classic, published in 1943 and translated into over 500 languages, is about a pilot who crash lands in the Sahara Desert and meets The Little Prince who tells him all about his adventures visiting different planets. Although this is officially classified as a children’s book, it’s widely considered to be a kind of philosophical fable for adult readers as well.
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2025-03-0211 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 44: Minor DetailAdania Shibli's groundbreaking novel is divided into two parts. The first half is narrated in the third person from the perspective of an Israeli soldier, and is set in the summer of 1949 in the Negev desert. The second half takes place in the present day, and is narrated in the first person from the perspective of a Palestinian woman living in Ramallah. The novel draws a chilling parallel between past and present, showing that the violence of 1949 is not just a “minor detail” of history—it continues to define Palestinian existence even today.
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2025-03-0212 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 43: The Tyranny of MeritMichael J. Sandel examines our current political polarisation, which in many ways is the result of our general attitude towards success and failure, especially in a time of rising inequality. The book looks at the fallacy of being self-made, he argues that there is no such thing as a self-made individual.
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Studio B, Unscripted: With Ken Loach and Edouard Louis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J89RTrx1_eM
Week 19: The End of Eddy:
https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/week-19-the-end-of-eddy/
2025-02-0316 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 42: Freak the MightyRodman Philbrick's wholesome young adult novel is about two young boys in the seventh grade named Kevin and Max. Max is super tall and strong but can barely read. Kevin on the other hand is extremely intelligent, a kind of child prodigy genius with a physical disability where his organs grow faster than his bones. Both of them are bullied and outcast at school for different reasons.
This is a wholesome story about their unlikely friendship.
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2025-01-2612 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 41: The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel is narrated from the perspective of Nick Carraway. Nick looks back at the summer of 1922 when he met Jay Gatsby, a man with an extraordinary gift for hope. Gatsby is in love with Nick's cousin Daisy, who is married to the wealthy and arrogant Tom Buchanan. At its heart, this novel is a love story. But one that explores the role that economic and social class divide plays in love and marriage.
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2025-01-2514 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 40: Amphibious SoulCraig Foster's book is a kind of call for us to go back to what he considers to be our true home, the wild. He recounts many remarkable encounters he’s had with animals in the wild. Craig believes that there is a wild creature in all of us, and in the book he looks at practical ways in which we can let that part out to thrive. He examines the way we’ve become domesticated as a species, and how this abandonment of the wild in many ways goes against our inherent nature. At its heart, the book is n...
2025-01-1421 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 39: OrbitalWinner of the 2024 Booker Prize, Samantha Harvey's novel follows six astronauts onboard a spacecraft that's orbiting the Earth. This is a beautifully written book that puts its readers face-to-face with the obscurity of our existence.
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2024-12-3113 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 38: RebeccaDaphne Du Maurier's classic novel is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator who marries Maxim De Winter and becomes the new mistress of Manderley. We follow her as she tries to navigate living in his first wife, Rebecca’s, shadow, and ultimately uncovering the mystery of her tragic death.
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2024-12-2619 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 37: Wuthering HeightsEmily Bronte's epic novel is set among the Yorkshire moors in the late 18th and early 19th century. Kathy and Heathcliff, two sadistic and unhinged individuals, are madly in love but could never be together in life.
"My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and HE remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem...
2024-12-2616 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 36: The Picture of Dorian GrayOscar Wilde's only published novel and one of my favourite books of all time.
“"How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it was only the other way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old! For this--for this--I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the wh...
2024-12-2608 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 35: All Quiet on the Western FrontErich Maria Remarque's classic novel follows a young German soldier named Paul who is sent to the frontline during WWI in Germany’s fight against France. This is one of the most important novels about WWI, not just because of how incredibly well written it is, but because it was one of the first texts to show the true face of WWI, away from the romanticisation of war and patriotism. It’s a true anti-war novel that reflects the brutal realities of trench warfare.
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2024-12-1914 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 34: AmericanahChimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel follows a young Nigerian woman named Ifemelu who, at the age of 19, moves to America from Nigeria for her education. As she tries to navigate the complexities of life as a Black African immigrant, she becomes aware of race and her own blackness more soberly than she ever had before in her life.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story | TED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg&t=568s
Book mentioned:
Half of a...
2024-12-1913 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 33: A Thousand Splendid SunsKhaled Hosseini's novel is set in Afghanistan and opens in the early 1970s. The story takes place over a 30 year period and follows two main characters, Mariam and Laila, co-wives to an extremely abusive man named Rasheed. This is a beautifully written novel that reflects the reality of a life lived in the shadow of shame.
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Books mentioned:
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
2024-12-1811 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 32: LessPatrick Grant's book is about the crisis of consumption and quality in fashion. He looks at how we might make ourselves happier by rediscovering the joy of living with fewer, better quality things.
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Community Clothing: https://communityclothing.co.uk/
2024-12-1810 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 31: The Unbearable Lightness of BeingMilan Kundera's novel follows a Czech surgeon named Tomas and his wife Tereza between the late 1960s and early 1970s. It takes place mainly in Prague during the Prague Spring of 1968, which was a period of political reform in Czechoslovakia. This is an inherently philosophical novel, the title is a reference to notions of lightness and weight as they relate to human existence. Kundera asserts that life occurs only once, without repetition, making it "light" and fleeting because actions can’t be undone or judged by eternal consequences.
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Bo...
2024-12-1809 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 30: Animal FarmThe story takes place on Manor Farm, where the animals are subjected to harsh, exploitative treatment by the human owner. One day, the animals have had enough, and through a rebellion manage to overthrow the farmer and take control of Manor Farm, which they rename Animal Farm. George Orwell intended this novel as an allegory of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent rise of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. Through the novel, Orwell was putting forward a critique of Soviet totalitarianism and the betrayal of revolutionary ideals. These were direct responses to the political climate of the time.
2024-12-1807 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 29: SapiensThere are a lot of books about the history of humankind, many of which are written from an evolutionary biological perspective, but Yuval Noah Harari is not a scientist, he's a historian. So he’s not coming up with anything new about the history of humankind, he’s simply observing theories that already exist and putting them under the philosophical microscope. His train of thought and the different tangents he takes you on in order to explain an evolutionary concept is brilliant. He has this uncanny ability of tying evolutionary biology with social science.
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2024-11-0117 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 28: The ProphetThis is one of Gibran Khalil Gibran's most famous books, it's composed of 26 prose-poetry fables. A prophet named Al Mustafa has been living in the city of Orphalese for 12 years and he’s about to board a ship that’s taking him home, but just as he’s about to leave, a group of people stop him and ask him to give them some final words of wisdom on matters relating to the human condition.
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Books mentioned:
The Conscious Parent by Dr. Shefali Tsabary
The Yo...
2024-10-2908 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 27: Keeping it HalalJohn O’Brien is a sociologist and lecturer at New York University in Abu Dhabi. He spent three and a half years conducting an ethnographic study of a group of Muslim teenagers coming of age in post-9/11 America, and this book is the result of his research. Over the span of three and a half years, he follows 7 boys who were between the ages of 11 and 17 when his research began and he observes how they navigate the complexities of being both American teenagers and good Muslims.
Spoiler alert, his main thesis and conclusions are pretty weak.
2024-10-1314 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 26: Small Things Like TheseWritten by Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These follows Bill Furlong in the days leading up to Christmas in 1985. As he's dropping off a delivery of coal at the local convent, he discovers something that haunts him. The convent is essentially a mother and baby home, one of the many notorious laundries run by the Irish Catholic church for decades.
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Conversation with Mary:
https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/june-2024-in-conversation-with-the-wonderful-mary-obrien/
Books mentioned:
Foster by Claire Keegan
The Lost Child of Philomena Le...
2024-10-0109 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 25: Midaq AlleyA historical realist novel by Nobel Laureate, Naguib Mahfouz. Set in the 1940s, the novel revolves around various characters who live, trade and beg in a bustling alley in the backstreets of Cairo. Through this microcosm of broader society, Mahfouz reflects the changes that were taking place in Egyptian society at the time.
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Film mentioned:
The Alley of Miracles
2024-09-2412 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 24: Angela's AshesFrank McCourt was an Irish-American writer and Teacher. He recounts a childhood of utter destitution and extreme poverty, between the early 1930s until the late 1940s. When they were in New York his family struggled quite a lot as the great depression had just started, but things took a turn for the worse when they moved to Limerick in Ireland.
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Books mentioned:
‘Tis by Frank McCourt
Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
Article about Angela’s Ashes: https://www.irishpost.com/enterta...
2024-09-2115 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 23: The Power of WomenDr. Denis Mukwege is a gynaecologist from The Democratic Republic of The Congo, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his incredible services to survivors of rape, and his global campaigns to end the use of rape as a weapon of war. In his book, he recounts his experience in treating women with injuries caused by sexual violence. He named the book The Power of Women as a tribute to the thousands of women he has treated over the years who have confronted some of the darkest circumstances imaginable but still find the courage to carry on and...
2024-09-1519 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 22: The Anxious GenerationJonathan Haidth is a sociologist, and in this book he examines the decline in mental health among adolescents around the world. He observes the link between the rise in depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide with the introduction of smart phones in 2010. He offers plenty of evidence and statistics that suggest this rise in mental health issues among people is in large part due to, what he calls, ‘the great rewiring of childhood’.
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Book mentioned:
Stolen Focus by Johan Hari
Further materials:
anxi...
2024-09-0320 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 21: EducatedEducated is Tara Westover's memoir. She grew up in a super conservative Mormon family in Idaho in the United States. She details a very unusual upbringing. Her family had a deeply seeded distrust towards the government, they didn’t believe in modern medicine or the public school system. The book is essentially a story of her metamorphosis, how she leaves the bubble she was brought up in and goes out into the real world, only to have everything she’s ever known challenged. Without a formal education, Tara ends up attending university at the age of 17, and then goes on t...
2024-08-2719 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 20: Stolen LivesStolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail is Malika Oufkir's first memoir. It is a full account of her unlawful and unjust political incarceration at the age of 19, along with her mother and five siblings, in various squalid desert prisons across Morocco. For over two decades, they suffered from starvation and diseases in isolation as punishment for their father's attempt to overthrow King Hassan II in 1972.
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Ahmed Marzouki’s ten part interview on Al Jazeera: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFF3C67C9E43201CA
2024-08-2016 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 19: The End of EddyThe End of Eddy by Edouard Louis is a memoir that sheds light on a part of French society that are unseen by those in the political centre; people who have been actively excluded from art, film and literature. By revisiting his childhood, Edouard is also trying to unpack the socioeconomic context that he was brought up in.
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Edouard Louis on The Guardian Books Podcast: https://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2017/feb/28/fact-or-fiction-autobiographical-novels-edouard-louis-books-podcast
Ken Loach and Edouard Louis in conversation: https://www.youtube.com...
2024-08-1316 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 18: Man's Search For MeaningMan's Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor E. Frankl is one of the most famous accounts of The Holocaust, it also encompasses a basic exploration of the parameters of Logotherapy. Originally published in German in 1946, Dr. Frankl asks why those who have experienced great suffering don't commit suicide. He tries to answer this question through Nietzsche’s assertion that: “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how”, and the existential notion that “to live is to suffer and to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.”
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2024-08-0622 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 17: Revolutionary RoadRevolutionary Road is a classic mid-twentieth century novel by Richard Yates. It's a critique of American suburban life in the 1950s and the lies we tell ourselves, and each other, in maintaining a picturesque family life. It raises questions about the nature of insanity, and what happens when our inner selves start to revolt against our forced conforming to the collective norm.
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2024-07-3018 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 16: The White TigerThe White Tiger by Aravind Adiga is a witty and deeply cynical narrative. Our first person narrator, Balram, is under no illusions of righteousness. He understands that he has been born into a broken system, where one needs to be ruthless in order to thrive and prosper. He has awoken from the fallacy of the master and servant dynamic, and takes his destiny into his own hands.
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2024-07-2318 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubJune 2024 - In Conversation With The Wonderful Mary O'BrienJoin my wonderful friend Mary and I in an extended conversation about all the incredible books she’s read over the years. She talks about Irish writers, old and new; reading obsessions, past and present; the miracle of the written word; and so much more!
Mary is one of my closest and dearest friends and I am so happy that you get to hear from her. She is an extremely avid reader who relishes in having complex intellectual and philosophical discussions. She’s someone who hasn’t lost the art of debate without extreme polarisation, and is always...
2024-07-222h 26The 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 15: On BeautyOn Beauty by Zadie Smith is an incredibly well crafted web of complexities. Its various sub plots tackle different conflicts of identity, such as race, gender, politics and socioeconomics. It's a philosophically thought-provoking narrative that is certainly worth the read.
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2024-07-1715 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 14: A Heart That WorksIn A Heart That Works, Rob Delaney recounts the short life of his son Henry, who died at the age of two after going in and out of hospital for a year with a brain tumour. In his narrative style, Delaney has an uncanny ability to balance between humour and heartbreak. He manages to weave in humour while describing the most gut wrenching events. The book is a kind of reflection of life itself; a never ending fluctuation between comedy and tragedy.
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2024-07-1521 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 13: The Buddha in the AtticThe Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka is a poetic narrative of the immigrant experience, written in first person plural from the perspective of Japanese picture brides in the early 20th century. Follow their journey to America, their false expectations of this new life, and the tragic mass incarceration of their community during WWII in the aftermath of Pearl Harbour. Based on historical events, this is a short read you don't want to miss.
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2024-07-1325 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 12: Nothing to EnvyBarbara Demick conducts extended interviews with six North Korean defectors. They describe their lives in North Korea before escaping, recounting the realities of a regime that puts its image at the cost of the lives and dignities of its own citizens.
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Book mentioned: In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park.
Yeonmi Park interview with Joe Rogan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGJm4bjRaaE
Yeonmi Park interview with Jordan Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yqa-SdJtT4
2024-07-0827 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 11: We Need to Talk About KevinA disturbing and eye opening novel by Lionel Shriver that raises difficult questions. What happens when a mother does not connect emotionally with her child? What if this child commits mass murder? Is the mother to blame? Has her lack of affection created a sociopathic killer?
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Sue Klebold's TED Talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXlnrFpCu0c&rco=1
2024-06-1816 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubHay Festival Adventures 2024The Hay Festival is an annual literary festival in the town of books, Hay-on-Wye, in Wales. I spent 10 days at the festival this year taking in all the incredible energy. In total I attended about 20 events, each one packed with things to think about.
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Day 1 mentions:
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
For Ian Charleson by Ian McKellen
Bibliomaniac by Robin Ince
Day 2 mentions:
BBC Radio 4 Podcast You’re Dead to Me: https://www.bbc.co.uk/pr...
2024-06-1545 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 10: LolitaThis week I'm looking at the classic novel Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. A controversial tale of Humbert Humbert, a middle aged man who falls in love with a 12-year-old girl.
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2024-06-1110 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 9: Men in the SunThis week I'm reviewing a short story by Ghassan Kanafani. Men in the Sun follows three Palestinian refugees in the early 1960s who are being smuggled across the border from Iraq to Kuwait in search of a better life.
A gripping tale as old as old as time about what happens when we are excluded from every form of nationhood.
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2024-06-0608 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 8: A Horse Walks into a BarThis week's book is A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman, winner of the 2017 Man Booker International prize. Watch as Dovaleh slowly descends into madness while giving a stand-up comedy show at a comedy club in Netanya. Dovaleh's breakdown is perhaps a physical and emotional manifestation of the damaged psyche of a nation trying to live a normal existence, under extremely abnormal circumstances.
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Book mentioned in the episode: To the End of the Land by David Grossman
David Grossman’s interview with The Har...
2024-05-2815 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 7: Cobalt RedThis week's book is Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara. Kara travels to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the heart of the cobalt mining communities where unimaginable atrocities are happening on a daily-basis in the process of mining for cobalt, a vital element in the manufacturing of lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. He gives first hand accounts of those being exploited by the cobalt mining industry. This is the very bottom of the manufacturing chain that makes it possible for all of us to use our phones, laptops, tablets and electric cars.
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2024-05-2117 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubMay 2024 - In Conversation With My Brilliant Friend JeniJoin me and my friend Jeni in a conversation about books we’ve read, loved and hated. We talk about motherhood and the social and neurological changes that come with it; audio books and why many of us think of it as cheating; the controversy surrounding support for non-offending pedophiles and so much more!
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Books mentioned in this episode:
Each Peach Pear Plum by Allan Ahlberg and Janet Ahlberg
Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins
Stolen focus by Johan Hare
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Watership Down by Rich...
2024-05-161h 31The 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 6: HomegoingThis week's book is Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, another historical fiction novel. The story spans 300 years, alternating between Ghana and the United States in the midst of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and leading up to modern times. It's a tale of inherited trauma and its evolution across multiple generations of persecution.
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The Guardian Books Podcast: https://www.theguardian.com/books/series/books
Yaa Gyasi on The Guardian Books Podcast: https://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2017/feb/17/reclaiming-history-yaa-gyasi-chibundu-onuzo-books-podcast
2024-05-1411 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 5: The Red TentThis week's book is The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. A historical fiction novel that reimagines the life of Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob. In The Bible, Dinah is very briefly mentioned in relation to the tragic loss of her husband at the hands of her brothers. In Diamant's novel, the Gods still have plans for Dinah who lives a long life beyond the tragedy. One of my all time favourite novels, it is a captivating tribute to womanhood.
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Book mentioned in this episode: Women Who Ru...
2024-05-0919 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 4: Stolen FocusThis week's non-fiction book is Stolen Focus by Johan Hari. In my personal opinion, it is one of the most important books of the decade. We should all read this one.
Hari explores our collective inability to pay attention, and why this has increased over the last ten years. He interviews a number of experts to find out how and why our phones have been designed to keep us distracted. Is this something we are doing to ourselves, or is this being done to us?
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Jo...
2024-04-3011 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 3: Prophet SongThis week's book is the 2023 Booker Prize winner, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.
As Ireland slowly succumbs to a devastating civil war, Eilish refuses to leave. With her husband abducted by Ireland's secret police, she is on her own trying to keep her family together. As everything around her falls apart, she realises that the end of the world is not a grand world-wide finale, it's a localised event that happens over and over all the time.
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Article on how power affects the brain, by Th...
2024-04-2311 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 2: Flowers for AlgernonThis week's book is the classic science fiction novel, Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.
Charlie Gordon's life is changed by a group of scientists that develop a treatment that can help increase his IQ, but what happens once Charlie becomes aware enough to see things as they are? Is ignorance truly bliss?
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2024-04-1610 minThe 15-Minute Book ClubWeek 1: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for LoversThis week's book: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo.
Zhuang's life is forever changed after she spends a year abroad in England. She falls in love, travels around Europe, expands her cultural horizons, and learns what true loneliness means. Narrated as journal entries, we watch her struggle to navigate and make sense of a foreign language, as well as a foreign lover.
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Interview with Xiaolu Guo: https://podcasts.apple.com/jo/podcast/world-book-club/id263658343?i=1000633622386
My research paper on Confronting Persi...
2024-04-1114 min