Imli's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 09 May 2025 12:17:16 -0700 60 Imli's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg I’m Glad My Mom Died 59366244
Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,� eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?� She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died , Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly , she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!�), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.]]> 304 Jennette McCurdy 1982185821 Imli 0 currently-reading 4.42 2022 I’m Glad My Mom Died
author: Jennette McCurdy
name: Imli
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Graveyard Empire: Four Decades of Wars and Intervention in Afghanistan]]> 195791683
Operation Enduring Freedom on October 7, 2001 marked the beginning of the so-called “War on Terror� in Afghanistan, which to date has become the longest war fought by the USA and its allies, with thousands of deaths and injuries. For the first time, Emran Feroz describes this 20-year war from an inner Afghan perspective.

From speaking to Hamid Karzai and Taliban officials to interviews with affected citizens who suffered the most from this war, this important book gives a true picture from a non-western point of view—one that is rarely heard in mainstream media reporting. It makes one thing more than The US’s “Saigon moment� in Kabul in August 2021 was more than foreseeable.]]> 202 Emran Feroz 1623711061 Imli 0 to-read 3.50 2021 Graveyard Empire: Four Decades of Wars and Intervention in Afghanistan
author: Emran Feroz
name: Imli
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/05
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]]> <![CDATA[The Muslim (M)other: Social and Political Commentary on Contemporary Muslim Motherhood]]> 216526692 140 Mariya bint Rehan 1847742491 Imli 0 to-read 0.0 The Muslim (M)other: Social and Political Commentary on Contemporary Muslim Motherhood
author: Mariya bint Rehan
name: Imli
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]]> <![CDATA[As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow]]> 57390604
Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors daily. Secretly, though, she is desperate to find a way out of her beloved country before her sister-in-law, Layla, gives birth. So desperate, that she has manifested a physical embodiment of her fear in the form of her imagined companion, Khawf, who haunts her every move in an effort to keep her safe.

But even with Khawf pressing her to leave, Salama is torn between her loyalty to her country and her conviction to survive. Salama must contend with bullets and bombs, military assaults, and her shifting sense of morality before she might finally breathe free. And when she crosses paths with the boy she was supposed to meet one fateful day, she starts to doubt her resolve in leaving home at all.

Soon, Salama must learn to see the events around her for what they truly are—not a war, but a revolution—and decide how she, too, will cry for Syria’s freedom.]]> 417 Zoulfa Katouh 0316351377 Imli 3 4.48 2022 As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow
author: Zoulfa Katouh
name: Imli
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: islamic-muslamic-fiction, syria
review:
Very sad but a reflective story!
]]> <![CDATA[The Simple Seerah: The Story of Prophet Muhammad - Part One]]> 113474410
The Arabic word ‘Seerah� is the term used by many Muslims around the world when referring to the life of the last and final messenger of God, Muhammad (peace be upon him.) He lived an incredible life, filled with challenges and adventures, battles, miracles and so much more!

If someone didn’t tell you that everything inside this book was a true story, you’d think it was all made up. That’s how incredible The Seerah is.

The beautiful thing about the life of Muhammad (PBUH) is that it’s filled with many lessons that we can apply to our own lives today. As you listen through this book, you’ll reflect on your own life and how you can improve it and improve yourself.
We hope you enjoy this book and make The Simple Seerah a companion for the rest of your life.

5 hours and 56 minutes]]> 186 Asim Khan 1739909526 Imli 0 to-read 4.65 The Simple Seerah: The Story of Prophet Muhammad - Part One
author: Asim Khan
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]]> The Life of Muhammad 19961940 In THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD, Haykal achieves two objectives admirably: first, a biography which reveals the career of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the full light of historic reality; second, bringing out the essence of Islam, as exemplified in the life of the greatest Muslim. It includes complete coverage of the Prophet's life, a detailed analysis of pre-Islamic Arabia, the situational context of revelation, and a comparative study of the basics of Islamic and Western civilizations. It is based upon a scholarly examination of all of the extant Sirah and Hadith literature (the Prophet's life, his sayings and narrations of his teachings by his comtemporaries) with the eye of an objective, scientific, and critical scholar who is well versed in modern historical critical methodology. THE LIFE OF MUHAMMAD is an essential book for all English-speaking Muslims, as well as non-Muslims. This English version has been approved by the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Cairo]]> 624 Muhammad Hussain Haykel Imli 0 to-read 4.24 1935 The Life of Muhammad
author: Muhammad Hussain Haykel
name: Imli
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1935
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]]> Heartfelt Advice To A Friend 35197642 80 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya 1904336477 Imli 0 to-read 4.64 Heartfelt Advice To A Friend
author: Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya
name: Imli
average rating: 4.64
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date added: 2025/04/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Pain Killer: A Wonder Drug's Trail of Addiction and Death]]> 1226104 336 Barry Meier 1579546382 Imli 0 to-read 3.96 2003 Pain Killer: A Wonder Drug's Trail of Addiction and Death
author: Barry Meier
name: Imli
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Dangerous Fictions: The Fear of Fantasy and the Invention of Reality]]> 200488198
Fictional stories have long been imagined to hold an uncanny power over hearts and minds, especially those of young people. These days, everybody frets about according to the National Coalition Against Censorship, the current wave of book bans is the worst since the 1980s, and our cultural debates are consumed by questions about the politics and moral responsibility of storytelling. Can readers and viewers, at any age, be harmed by what they read and see?

In Dangerous Fictions Lyta Gold traces arguments both historical and contemporary that have labeled fiction as dark, immoral, frightening, or poisonous; within each she asks, how “dangerous� is fiction, really? And what about it provokes waves of moral panic and even censorship?

Fiction is the story of other that, more than anything else, is what makes it dangerous. From YA readers condemning faults in representation, to debates over the moral worth of controversial works like Lolita, to conservative calls to ban literature that might make white readers feel guilty about American history, people of all political stripes clearly believe stories hold considerable political power.

Dangerous Fictions incisively posits that a panic about art is largely a panic about power in disguise. Gold argues that we’ve been having versions of these same fights over fiction for centuries, and that by exposing fiction as a site of social danger, a battleground of immediate public concern, we can see what each side really the right to shape the future of a world deeply in flux, along with an entertaining sideshow to distract from more pressing material concerns about money, access, and the hard work of politics.

From novels about people driven insane by reading novels to “copaganda� TV shows that impact how viewers regard the police, Gold uses her signature wit, research, and fearless commentary to point readers towards a more substantial fiction may be dangerous to us, but aren’t we also dangerous to it?]]> 352 Lyta Gold 1593767706 Imli 0 to-read 3.96 2024 Dangerous Fictions: The Fear of Fantasy and the Invention of Reality
author: Lyta Gold
name: Imli
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> Great Big Beautiful Life 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 432 Emily Henry Imli 0 to-read 4.11 2025 Great Big Beautiful Life
author: Emily Henry
name: Imli
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
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]]> <![CDATA[Wonder Drug: The Hidden Victims of America’s Secret Thalidomide Scandal]]> 184584011 A riveting account of the most notorious drug of the twentieth century and the never-before-told story of its American survivors.

In 1959, a Cincinnati pharmaceutical firm, the William S. Merrell Company, quietly began distributing samples of an exciting new wonder drug already popular around the world. Touted as a sedative without risks, thalidomide was handed out freely, under the guise of clinical trials, by doctors who believed approval by the Food and Drug Administration was imminent.

Butin 1960, whenthe application for thalidomide landed onthe desk of FDA medical reviewerFrances Kelsey, shequicklygrewsuspicious.Whenshelearned that the drug was causing severe birth abnormalities abroad, she and a team of dedicated doctors, parents, and journalists fought tirelessly to block its authorization in the United States and stop its sale around the world.

Jennifer Vanderbes set out to write about this FDA success story only to discover a sinister truth that had been buried for decades: For more than five years, several American pharmaceutical firms haddistributedunmarkedthalidomide samplesin shoddy clinical trials, reaching tens of thousands of unwitting patients, including hundreds of pregnant women.

As Vanderbes examined government and corporate archives, probed court records, and interviewed hundreds of key players, she unearthed an even more stunning find: Scores of Americans had likely been harmed by the drug. Deceived by the pharmaceutical firms, betrayed by doctors, and ignored by the government, most of these Americans had spent their lives unaware that thalidomide had caused their birthdefects.

Now, for the first time, this shocking episode in American history is brought to light. Based on thousands of previously unseen documents and over three hundred interviews that spanned three continents, Wonder Drug lays bare a shocking episode in American history. This landmark exposé finally gives voice to the unrecognized victims of the 20th century's most notorious drug.]]> 432 Jennifer Vanderbes 0008295697 Imli 0 to-read 3.67 2023 Wonder Drug: The Hidden Victims of America’s Secret Thalidomide Scandal
author: Jennifer Vanderbes
name: Imli
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
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]]> <![CDATA[Bitches in Bonnets: Life Lessons from Jane Austen's Mean Girls]]> 63265773
Bitches in Bonnets explores parallels between Austen's world and our own, showing how modern social and behavioral scientists are just beginning to document and quantify what the author knew instinctively. Interweaving modern research and sociological experiments, author and Austen scholar Sarah Makowski looks beyond Austen's texts for the sources of female aggression both during the Regency and today. Despite incredible advances in gender equality, women still face discrimination and bullying from creche to career. The cruelest assaults are those that are least expected � from other women. Hardly a woman alive has not experienced a false friend whose opinions and affection bring both positive and destructive consequences. The very ordinariness of Austen's stories leaves room for us to identify with her flawed heroines and make peace with their enemies.

Bitches in Bonnets examines how six novels of quiet English life, penned by a parochial Regency spinster, still provide insight on female relationships after all these years and how Austen’s writing � and our reading of it � offers solace to millions of fans worldwide.]]> 226 Sarah J. Makowski Imli 0 to-read 3.90 Bitches in Bonnets: Life Lessons from Jane Austen's Mean Girls
author: Sarah J. Makowski
name: Imli
average rating: 3.90
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]]> <![CDATA[Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex]]> 52128695 An engaging exploration of what it means to be asexual in a world that's obsessed with sexual attraction, and what we can all learn about desire and identity by using an ace lens to see the world

What exactly is sexual attraction and what is it like to go through the world not experiencing it? What does asexuality reveal about consent, about compromise, about the structures of society? This exceedingly accessible guide to asexuality shows that the issues that aces face—confusion around sexual activity, the intersection of sexuality and identity, navigating different needs in relationships—are conflicts that all of us need to address as we move through the world.

Through interviews, cultural criticism, and memoir, ACE invites all readers to consider big-picture issues through the lens of asexuality, because every place that sexuality touches our world, asexuality does too.

Journalist Angela Chen uses her own journey of self-discovery as an asexual person to unpretentiously educate and vulnerably connect with readers, effortlessly weaving analysis of sexuality and societally imposed norms with interviews of ace people. Among those included are the woman who had blood tests done because she was convinced that "not wanting sex" was a sign of serious illness, and the man who grew up in an evangelical household and did everything "right," only to realize after marriage that his experience of sexuality had never been the same as that of others. Also represented are disabled aces, aces of color, non-gender-conforming aces questioning whether their asexuality is a reaction against stereotypes, and aces who don't want romantic relationships asking how our society can make room for them.]]> 210 Angela Chen 080701379X Imli 0 4.35 2020 Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
author: Angela Chen
name: Imli
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: gender-sexual-minorities, currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Imli 0 to-read 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Imli
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much]]> 56898297
A hilarious and whip-smart collection of essays, offering an intimate look at bisexuality, gender, and, of course, sex. Perfect for fans of Lindy West, Samantha Irby, and Rebecca Solnit—and anyone who wants, and deserves, to be seen.

If Jen Winston knows one thing for sure, it’s that she’s bisexual. Or wait—maybe she isn’t? Actually, she definitely is. Unless…she’s not?

Jen’s provocative, laugh-out-loud debut takes us inside her journey of self-discovery, leading us through stories of a childhood “girl crush,� an onerous quest to have a threesome, and an enduring fear of being bad at sex. Greedy follows Jen’s attempts to make sense of herself as she explores the role of the male gaze, what it means to be “queer enough,� and how to overcome bi stereotypes when you’re the posterchild for all of greedy, slutty, and constantly confused.

With her clever voice and clear-eyed insight, Jen draws on personal experiences with sexism and biphobia to understand how we all can and must do better. She sheds light on the reasons women, queer people, and other marginalized groups tend to make ourselves smaller, provoking the What would happen if we suddenly stopped?​�

Greedy shows us that being bisexual is about so much more than who you’re sleeping with—it’s about finding stability in a state of flux and defining yourself on your own terms. This book inspires us to rethink the world as we know it, reminding us that Greedy was a superpower all along.]]> 336 Jen Winston 1982179171 Imli 0 3.92 2021 Greedy: Notes from a Bisexual Who Wants Too Much
author: Jen Winston
name: Imli
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/21
shelves: gender-sexual-minorities, to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers: Quiet the Critical Voice in Your Head, Heal Self-Doubt, and Live the Life You Deserve]]> 63185303 Were you raised by a narcissist? This essential guide will show you how to stop feeling invisible, quiet your critical inner voice, and start living life on your own terms.

Did you grow up with a mother who was controlling or manipulative? Was she emotionally or psychologically abusive toward you? Did she make you feel ashamed, rejected, or “crazy?� Was it all about her, all of the time? When your mother is anarcissist,it can damage and invalidate your sense of self, and leave you with lasting anxiety, insecurity, self-doubt, and a relentlessly critical internal voice. But there are tools you can use to move forward in your adult life with confidence. The evidence-based skills in this bookwill help you heal the scars of growing up with a self-absorbed and narcissistic mother.

Written by a psychologist and expert in narcissism, Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers offers proven-effective strategies drawn from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help you reduce anxiety, build confidence, overcome self-criticism, and live the life you deserve. You’ll also find tons of practical tips to help you build healthy, trusting relationships; stop apologizing for the failures of others; and start trusting your own good judgment.

If you were raised by a narcissistic mother and are struggling with the lingering effects of a toxic upbringing, this is the road map you need to heal the past and thrive in the present and future.]]> 186 Stephanie M. Kriesberg 164848011X Imli 0 to-read 4.14 Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers: Quiet the Critical Voice in Your Head, Heal Self-Doubt, and Live the Life You Deserve
author: Stephanie M. Kriesberg
name: Imli
average rating: 4.14
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date added: 2024/12/20
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]]> About a Boy 4271
Will is thirty-six but acts like a teenager. Single, child-free and still feeling cool, he reads the right magazines, goes to the right clubs and knows which trainers to wear. He's also discovered a great way to score with women at single parents' groups, full of available (and grateful) mothers, all waiting for Mr Nice Guy. That's where he meets Marcus, the oldest twelve-year-old in the world. Marcus is a bit strange: he listens to Joni Mitchell and Mozart, he looks after his Mum and he's never even owned a pair of trainers. Perhaps if Will can teach Marcus how to be a kid, Marcus can help Will grow up and they can both start to act their age.]]> 307 Nick Hornby 0140285679 Imli 0 to-read 3.80 1998 About a Boy
author: Nick Hornby
name: Imli
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/18
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]]> The Year of Magical Thinking 7815
From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year's Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."]]> 227 Joan Didion 1400078431 Imli 0 to-read 3.94 2005 The Year of Magical Thinking
author: Joan Didion
name: Imli
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
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date added: 2024/12/16
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]]> High Fidelity 285092
Rob does. He keeps a list, in fact. But Laura isn't on it—even though she's just become his latest ex. He's got his life back, you see. He can just do what he wants when he wants: like listen to whatever music he likes, look up the girls that are on his list, and generally behaves as if Laura never mattered. But Rob finds he can't move on. He's stuck in a really deep groove—and it's called Laura. Soon, Rob's asking himself some big questions: about love, about life—and about why we choose to share ours with the people we do.]]> 323 Nick Hornby 1573225517 Imli 0 to-read 3.92 1995 High Fidelity
author: Nick Hornby
name: Imli
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
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]]> The Sellout 22237161
Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens―on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles―the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.

Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident―the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins―he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.]]> 289 Paul Beatty 0374260508 Imli 0 to-read 3.75 2015 The Sellout
author: Paul Beatty
name: Imli
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital]]> 17704902
After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths.

Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting, unspools the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing the reader into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of health care rationing.

In a voice at once involving and fair, masterful and intimate, Fink exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals just how ill-prepared we are in America for the impact of large-scale disasters—and how we can do better. A remarkable book, engrossing from start to finish, Five Days at Memorial radically transforms your understanding of human nature in crisis.]]> 558 Sheri Fink 0307718964 Imli 4 3.91 2013 Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
author: Sheri Fink
name: Imli
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: medical-nonfiction, 2024, deathshelf, investigative-journalism
review:
Devastating book!! Seeing medical and justice systems fall apart in 'first-world' countries is always so shocking. I don't know if I have anything unique to add, but it's was a reflective piece of medical journalism. I would recommend this to doctors, medical students, and others who enjoy investigative nonfiction.
]]> <![CDATA[Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich]]> 31125557
The Nazi regime preached an ideology of physical, mental, and moral purity. But as Norman Ohler reveals in this gripping new history, the Third Reich was saturated with drugs. On the eve of World War II, Germany was a pharmaceutical powerhouse, and companies such as Merck and Bayer produced cocaine, opiates, and, most of all, methamphetamines, to be consumed by everyone from factory workers to housewives. Meth proved particularly attractive to some German army leaders, who not only dosed themselves but also incorporated the drug into their battle plans � it was rationed out in pill form to millions of troops. The elevated energy and feelings of invincibility associated with the high even help to account for the breakneck invasion that sealed the fall of France in 1940, as well as other German military victories.

Drugs seeped all the way up to the Nazi high command � and to Hitler himself. Over the course of the war, Hitler became increasingly dependent on injections of a cocktail of drugs � ultimately including Eukodal, a cousin of heroin � administered by his personal doctor. He ended his life as an addict in the throes of withdrawal. While drugs alone can never explain the Nazis� toxic racial theories or the events of World War II, Ohler’s investigation makes an overwhelming case that drugs played an important and shockingly overlooked role in the Third Reich.

Thoroughly researched and rivetingly readable, Blitzed throws light on a history that, until now, has remained in the shadows.]]> 292 Norman Ohler 1328663795 Imli 0 to-read 3.95 2015 Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich
author: Norman Ohler
name: Imli
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2015
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date added: 2024/12/11
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]]> <![CDATA[What Women Want: A Therapist, Her Patients, and Their True Stories of Desire, Power and Love]]> 179799547 A profound and intimate exploration of female desire and identity, as studied through the lives of seven female therapy patients by award-winning psychotherapist Maxine Mei-Fung Chung.

Sigmund Freud once ‘The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "What does a woman want?"' Through the relatable and moving stories of seven very different women, Maxine Mei-Fung Chung refutes this inscrutability and sheds light on our most fundamental needs and desires. From a young bride-to-be struggling to accept her sexuality, to a mother grappling with questions of identity and belonging, and a woman learning to heal after years of trauma, What Women Want is an electrifying and deeply intimate exploration into the inner lives of women.

Based on hours of conversations between Maxine and her patients, this book lays bare our fears, hopes, secrets and capacity for healing. With great empathy and precision, What Women Want presents a fearless look into the depths of who we are, so that we can better understand each other and ourselves.

To desire is an action. This extraordinary book liberates and empowers us to claim what we truly want.]]> 1 Maxine Mei-Fung Chung 1668638398 Imli 0 to-read 5.00 2023 What Women Want: A Therapist, Her Patients, and Their True Stories of Desire, Power and Love
author: Maxine Mei-Fung Chung
name: Imli
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section and the Disturbing State of Maternal Medical Care]]> 195853484 An incisive yet personal look at the science and history of the most common surgery performed in America—the cesarean section—and an exposé on the disturbing state of maternal medical care

When Rachel Somerstein had an unplanned C-section with her first child, the experience was anything but the “routine� operation her doctor described. A series of errors by her clinicians led to a real-life nightmare: surgery without anesthesia. The ensuing mental and physical complications left her traumatized and desperate for answers about how things could have gone so wrong.

In the United States, one in three babies is born via C-section, a rate that has grown exponentially over the past fifty years. And while in most cases the procedure is “safe,� it is not without significant, sometimes life-changing consequences, with its burdens falling disproportionately on people of color. Mothers are often left to navigate these complications alone, with C-sections all but invisible in popular culture, pregnancy guides, and even standard medical advice.

In Invisible Labor, Somerstein weaves personal narrative and investigative journalism with medical, social, and cultural history to reveal the operation’s surprising evolution, from its days being practiced on enslaved women to the ways modern medical technology promotes its overuse. And she uncovers the current-day failures of the medical system, showing how pregnant people’s pain and agency is often disregarded by physicians who, motivated by fear of litigation or a hospital’s commitment to efficiency, make consequential and deeply personal decisions on behalf of their patients.

Candid, raw, and illuminating, Invisible Labor lifts the veil on C-sections so that mothers can navigate future pregnancies and births with more knowledge about surgical birth’s risks, benefits, and alternatives—a corrective to the ongoing curtailment of reproductive rights. Writing with deep feeling and authority, Somerstein offers support and camaraderie to others who have had difficult or traumatic birth experiences, as well as hope for new forms of reproductive justice.]]> 336 Rachel Somerstein 0063264412 Imli 0 to-read 4.16 Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section and the Disturbing State of Maternal Medical Care
author: Rachel Somerstein
name: Imli
average rating: 4.16
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian]]> 216567502
Researched for close to a decade, in this book, we meet an unforgettable cast of a rickshaw driver in Chandni Chowk who ends up tragically dead in a terrorist blast; a doctor who gets arrested for pre-natal sex determination; a gau rakshak whose sister elopes with Syeda’s son; and policemen who delight in beating young Muslim men.

In the end, things comes to a grotesque full circle for Syeda. Her life is upturned for the umpteenth time during the Delhi riots of 2020. But displacement, tragedy and hardships are the things she is used to � being poor and Muslim and a woman. Written with empathy and deep insight, this book is a portal to a harsh world hidden away from elite Indians. It is the story of untold millions and a searing account of urban life in New India.]]> 369 Neha Dixit 9353455030 Imli 0 to-read 4.63 The Many Lives of Syeda X: The Story of an Unknown Indian
author: Neha Dixit
name: Imli
average rating: 4.63
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Simple Seerah: The Story of Prophet Muhammad - Part One]]> 58945050
The Arabic word ‘Seerah� is the term used by many Muslims around the world when referring to the life of the last and final messenger of God, Muhammad (peace be upon him.) He lived an incredible life, filled with challenges and adventures, battles, miracles and so much more!

If someone didn’t tell you that everything inside this book was a true story, you’d think it was all made up. That’s how incredible The Seerah is.

The beautiful thing about the life of Muhammad (PBUH) is that it’s filled with many lessons that we can apply to our own lives today. As you listen through this book, you’ll reflect on your own life and how you can improve it and improve yourself.
We hope you enjoy this book and make The Simple Seerah a companion for the rest of your life.

5 hours and 56 minutes]]> 142 Asim Khan 173990950X Imli 0 muslim-kid-lit, to-read 4.79 The Simple Seerah: The Story of Prophet Muhammad - Part One
author: Asim Khan
name: Imli
average rating: 4.79
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: muslim-kid-lit, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When Only God Can See: The Faith of Muslim Political Prisoners]]> 210237962 ‘This beautifully written and harrowing book bears witness to the devastating experience of imprisonment; it shows the centrality of faith; and tenderly details the prayers, communities and acts of resistance that sustained these prisoners when faced with forced disappearance, punishment, and torture� Laleh Khalili, author ofTime in the Shadows

‘A passionate revelation of the secret endurance of people suffering extraordinary trauma ... A must read to understand the limitless potential of the human spirit� Aida Seif El-Dawla, psychiatrist and co-founder of El Nadeem Centre for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence and Torture

When Only God Can Seeuncovers the unique experiences of Muslim political prisoners held in Egypt and under US custody at Guantanamo Bay and other detention black sites. This groundbreaking book explores the intricate interplay between their religious beliefs, practices of ritual purity, prayer, and modes of resistance in the face of adversity. Highlighting the experiences of these prisoners, faith is revealed to be not only a personal spiritual connection to God, but also a means of contestation against prison and state authorities, reflecting larger societal struggles.

Written by Walaa Quisay, who has worked closely with prisoners in Egypt, and Asim Qureshi, with years of experience supporting detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the authors� deep connections with prisoner communities and their emphasis on the power of resistance shine through.

Asim Qureshi is Research Director at CAGE. He specialises in investigating the impact of counterterrorism practices worldwide. He is the author ofA Virtue of Disobedience. Walaa Quisay is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of Divinity at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author ofNeo-Traditionalism in Islam in the Orthodoxy, Spirituality and Politics.]]> 258 Walaa Quisay 0745348963 Imli 0 to-read 4.86 When Only God Can See: The Faith of Muslim Political Prisoners
author: Walaa Quisay
name: Imli
average rating: 4.86
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Muta', Temporary Marriage in Islamic Law]]> 49448899 79 Sachiko Murata Imli 0 to-read 3.00 2014 Muta', Temporary Marriage in Islamic Law
author: Sachiko Murata
name: Imli
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Huda F Wants to Know? 215805865 In the hilarious and poignant follow-up to National Book Award Finalist Huda F Cares?, Huda's life and worldview is turned upside down when her parents announce they're divorcing.

Huda Fahmy is ready for junior year. She’s got a plan to join all the clubs, volunteer everywhere, ace the ACTs, write the most awe-inspiring essay for her scholarship applications. Easy.

But then Mama and Baba announce the most unthinkable they’re getting a divorce.

Huda is devastated. She worries about what this will mean for her family, their place in the Muslim community, and her future. Her grades start tanking, she has a big fight with her best friend, and everything feels out of control. Will her life ever feel normal again? Huda F wants to know.]]> 224 Huda Fahmy 0593855620 Imli 0 to-read 4.37 2025 Huda F Wants to Know?
author: Huda Fahmy
name: Imli
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> How It Happened 17280214
Haroon, the apple of her eye, has to suffer half a dozen candidates until he finds the perfect Shia-Syed girl of his dreams. But it is Zeba, his sister, who has the tougher time, as she is accosted by a bevy of suitors, including a potbellied cousin and a banker who reeks of sesame oil.

Told by the witty, hawk-eyed Saleha, the precocious youngest sibling, this is a romantic, amusing and utterly delightful story about how marriages are made and unmade---not in heaven, but in the drawing room and over the phone.]]> 311 Shazaf Fatima Haider 0670086460 Imli 4 3.82 2012 How It Happened
author: Shazaf Fatima Haider
name: Imli
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/02
shelves:
review:
I was a bit apprehensive that the mixed English and urdu use would not appeal that much to me, but the writing style and especially humor was pretty neat, the book was funny, entertaining and somewhat relatable!
]]> Consent: A Memoir 200798634 Half a Life. She asks herself whether she told the whole truth back then. What did truth look like to her in the era of love-bead curtains, when no one asked who was served by the permissibility of May-December romance? With new understanding about the imbalance of power between an older man and a minor girl, Ciment re-explores the erotic wild ride and intellectual flowering that shaped an improbable but blissful marriage that lasted for forty-five years, until her husband’s death at age ninety-three.]]> 145 Jill Ciment 0593701062 Imli 0 to-read 3.83 2024 Consent: A Memoir
author: Jill Ciment
name: Imli
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor]]> 35510008 Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know � and more than a few things you didn't � about life on and off the hospital ward.

As seen on ITV's Zoe Ball Book Club

This edition includes extra diary entries and a new afterword by the author.

]]> 285 Adam Kay Imli 0 currently-reading 4.40 2017 This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
author: Adam Kay
name: Imli
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction]]> 33985321 A fiercely courageous account of one woman's unflinching, raw, and ultimately hopeful journey through sex and porn addiction.

For almost two decades, Erica Garza was consumed by a singular, secret, shame-fueled pursuit that threw her life into chaos: orgasm. Back-braced, isolated, and teased in adolescence, and ambivalent about her Catholic upbringing, Garza found a secret solace in masturbation and porn--first by way of the limited softcore viewing offered by late-night cable, and, later, with the booming proliferation of online porn.

In this wrenching, vivid account, Garza explores her sexual fixations and relives the series of disastrous relationships and one-night stands that haunt her as she runs from one side of the world to the other in a futile attempt to break free of her habits―from East Los Angeles to Hawaii and Southeast Asia, through the brothels of Bangkok and the yoga studios of Bali to disappointing stabs at twelve-steps, therapy, and rehab back home.

Garza's terror at digging so deeply into her history to understand her anxieties is palpable, as is her exhilaration when she begins to believe she might just be free of them. And yet there is no false hope or prepackaged sense of redemption. Even her relationship to the man she will ultimately marry is credibly rocky as it finds its legs with several false starts, making her increasing sense of self-acceptance and peace by journey's end feel utterly earned.

In exploring the cultural taboos surrounding sex and porn from a female perspective, Garza offers a brave and necessary voice to our evolving conversations about addiction and the impact that Internet culture has had on young women.]]> 192 Erica Garza Imli 3
Very interesting and well written book detailing a woman's struggle with her body, her self-worth, her addictive patterns and tendencies towards porn, masturbation and sex leading to self-sabotaging behaviors towards herself and also towards seemingly working relationships.
When you hear about sex and porn addition, there is a general assumption that it's a men's problem, the book does a pretty good job in dispelling the myth that this is not a gender specific issue, especially now that excess to such content is widely accessible and freely available to all.

Though the book maybe good in providing "empathy" to someone going through similar stuff, I am not sure if it provides "answers" or "solution", although Garza doesn't claims to be "cured" or anything but just saying...recommend to those who are curious to read about human behaviors and are not bothered by explicit content in memoirs.]]> 3.61 2018 Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction
author: Erica Garza
name: Imli
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/02
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves: 2024, memoirs-autobiographies, gender-sexual-minorities, reviewed-books
review:
While the details can be a bit hard to stomach for some, this is the kind of transparency and vulnerability I have come to like in memoirs.

Very interesting and well written book detailing a woman's struggle with her body, her self-worth, her addictive patterns and tendencies towards porn, masturbation and sex leading to self-sabotaging behaviors towards herself and also towards seemingly working relationships.
When you hear about sex and porn addition, there is a general assumption that it's a men's problem, the book does a pretty good job in dispelling the myth that this is not a gender specific issue, especially now that excess to such content is widely accessible and freely available to all.

Though the book maybe good in providing "empathy" to someone going through similar stuff, I am not sure if it provides "answers" or "solution", although Garza doesn't claims to be "cured" or anything but just saying...recommend to those who are curious to read about human behaviors and are not bothered by explicit content in memoirs.
]]> Erasure 355862 We's Lives in Da Ghetto, the exploitative debut novel of a young, middle-class black woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Hailed as an authentic representation of the African American experience, the book is a national bestseller and its author feted on the Kenya Dunston television show. The book's success rankles all the more as Monk's own most recent novel has just notched its seventh rejection.

Even as his career as a writer appears to have stalled, Monk finds himself coping with changes in his personal life. In need of distraction from old memories, new responsibilities, and his professional stagnation, Monk composes, in a heat of inspiration and energy, a fierce parody of the sort of exploitative, ghetto wanna-be lit represented by We's Lives in Da Ghetto.

But when his agent sends this literary indictment (included here in its entirety) out to publishers, it is greeted as an authentic new voice of black America. Monk -- or his pseudonymous alter ego, Stagg R. Leigh -- is offered money, fame, success beyond anything he has known. And as demand begins to build for meetings with and appearances by Leigh, Monk is faced with a whole new set of problems.]]> 280 Percival Everett 0786888156 Imli 4
Thelonius Ellison, aka Monk, a professor of literature and a novelist who also happens to be Black, writes academic novels, but for most part lacks much recognition and commercial benefits due to the inaccessible nature of his writings and due to the fact that his writings are perceived to be not 'Black enough'. Prompted by growing personal financial responsibilities and frustrated by the recent success of a stereopical debut novel by an African Amercican writer, Juanita Mae Jenkins, We's Lives in Da Ghetto about her short visit to Harlem, Monk pens down a hedious satirical parody novel, My Pafology or later called Fuck under the pen name Stagg R Leigh. Filled with stereotypes and tired tropes of potrayals of Black suffering in media, but ironically, to his dismay, the novel attracts too much attention and brings Monk to the heart of literary culture he so abhors.

There were some literary references that simply went over my head, probably there were too many passages about fishing and woodwork, and the parody novel was a task in it self to go through but overall the writing was very engrossing, I was hooked from the get go. There was some light humor and satire, and the family drama and dynamics were very interesting to read through. I'll admit, though, I am left with questions about what Percival Everett thinks about current representation in media and own voices discourse.]]> 4.17 2001 Erasure
author: Percival Everett
name: Imli
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/23
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves: 2024, fiction, reviewed-books, recommended
review:
Almost 50% satire and 50% drama, admittedly I went in for the satire part after watching the trailer for American Fiction (highly anticipated watch for me) but came out impressed with the drama side of the book.

Thelonius Ellison, aka Monk, a professor of literature and a novelist who also happens to be Black, writes academic novels, but for most part lacks much recognition and commercial benefits due to the inaccessible nature of his writings and due to the fact that his writings are perceived to be not 'Black enough'. Prompted by growing personal financial responsibilities and frustrated by the recent success of a stereopical debut novel by an African Amercican writer, Juanita Mae Jenkins, We's Lives in Da Ghetto about her short visit to Harlem, Monk pens down a hedious satirical parody novel, My Pafology or later called Fuck under the pen name Stagg R Leigh. Filled with stereotypes and tired tropes of potrayals of Black suffering in media, but ironically, to his dismay, the novel attracts too much attention and brings Monk to the heart of literary culture he so abhors.

There were some literary references that simply went over my head, probably there were too many passages about fishing and woodwork, and the parody novel was a task in it self to go through but overall the writing was very engrossing, I was hooked from the get go. There was some light humor and satire, and the family drama and dynamics were very interesting to read through. I'll admit, though, I am left with questions about what Percival Everett thinks about current representation in media and own voices discourse.
]]> <![CDATA[Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family]]> 59892260 From the bestselling author and host of the wildly popularUndisclosed podcast,a warm, intimate memoir about food, body image, and growing up in a loving but sometimes oppressively concerned Pakistani immigrant family.

"My entire life I have been less fat and more fat, but never not fat."According to family lore, when Rabia Chaudry’s family returned to Pakistan for their first visit since moving to the United States, two-year-old Rabia was more than just a pudgy toddler. Dada Abu, her fit and sprightly grandfather, attempted to pick her up but had to put her straight back down, demanding of Chaudry’s mother: “What have you done to her?� The answer was two full bottles of half-and-half per day, frozen butter sticks to gnaw on, and lots and lots of American processed foods.

And yet, despite her parents plying her with all the wrong foods as they discovered Burger King and Dairy Queen, they were highly concerned for the future for their large-sized daughter. How would she ever find a suitable husband? There was merciless teasing by uncles, cousins, and kids at school, but Chaudry always loved food too much to hold a grudge against it. Soon she would leave behind fast food and come to love the Pakistani foods of her heritage, learning to cook them with wholesome ingredients and eat them in moderation. At once a love letter (with recipes) to fresh roti, chaat, chicken biryani, ghee, pakoras, shorba, parathay and an often hilarious dissection of life in a Muslim immigrant family, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom is also a searingly honest portrait of a woman grappling with a body that gets the job done but that refuses to meet the expectations of others.

Chaudry's memoiroffers readers a relatable and powerful voice on the controversial topic of body image, one that dispenses with the politics and gets to what every woman who has ever struggled with weight will relate to.
]]> 352 Rabia Chaudry 1643750380 Imli 4 2024, reviewed-books
Fast paced, funny, and so so much relatable that it almost felt like I wasn't reading but sitting in drawing room listening to an auntie or khala recalling interesting tales about family around afternoon chai time Some of the descriptions and details are so real and relatable that I could see the same things happening in my own family. Rabia truly is a skilled writer, using humor and storytelling as a way of sharing her life long struggle with weight gain, her coke addiction in college and then weight loss by different methods from excercise and diet to eating and throwing up, and over salting her food to bariatric surgery and then plastic surgery.

P.S. While reading the book, I came across the knowledge that Rabia Chaudry has also been involved in an Anti BDS, Pro Israel, Muslim Leadership Initiative, or MLI, involved in faithwashing the Israeli occupation. The book doesn't really mention anything about it, but given the current climate, I felt like it was right to mention it in my review.]]> 4.04 Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family
author: Rabia Chaudry
name: Imli
average rating: 4.04
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves: 2024, reviewed-books
review:
Previously known for her advocacy for Adnan Syed's case and appearance on the podcast Serial and HBO documentary on the case, Rabia Chaudry, here in her memoir Fatty Fatty, Boom Boom is talking about her life as a 2nd generation Pakistani American woman, her relationship with food especially her love for the Pakistani cuisine, her struggle with weight gain and fat shaming in the desi community and her stories about her family.

Fast paced, funny, and so so much relatable that it almost felt like I wasn't reading but sitting in drawing room listening to an auntie or khala recalling interesting tales about family around afternoon chai time Some of the descriptions and details are so real and relatable that I could see the same things happening in my own family. Rabia truly is a skilled writer, using humor and storytelling as a way of sharing her life long struggle with weight gain, her coke addiction in college and then weight loss by different methods from excercise and diet to eating and throwing up, and over salting her food to bariatric surgery and then plastic surgery.

P.S. While reading the book, I came across the knowledge that Rabia Chaudry has also been involved in an Anti BDS, Pro Israel, Muslim Leadership Initiative, or MLI, involved in faithwashing the Israeli occupation. The book doesn't really mention anything about it, but given the current climate, I felt like it was right to mention it in my review.
]]> <![CDATA[You're the Only One I've Told: The Stories Behind Abortion]]> 51074920
At a time where reproductive rights are at risk, these vital stories of diverse individuals serve as a reminder of the importanceofempathy, finding community and motivating advocacy

For a long time, when people asked Dr. Meera Shah,Chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic,what she did, she would tell them she was a doctor and leave it at that.Butwhen she started to be direct about her work as an abortion provideran interesting thing started to one by one, people would confidethat they'd had an abortion themselves.The refrain was often the You're the only one I've told.

This book collects these storiesas they've been told to Shah to humanize abortion and to combat myths that persist in the discourse that surrounds it.Awide range of ages, races, socioeconomic factors, and experiences shows that abortion always occurs in a unique context.

Today, a healthcare issue that's so precious and foundational to reproductive, social, and economic freedom for millions of people is exploited by politicians who lack understanding or compassion about the context in which abortion occurs. Stories have the power to break down stigmas and help us to empathize with those whose experiences are unlike our own.

A portion of proceedswill be donated to promote reproductive health access.]]> 304 Meera Shah 1641603631 Imli 3 4.45 2020 You're the Only One I've Told: The Stories Behind Abortion
author: Meera Shah
name: Imli
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/15
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves: 2024, anthologies, reviewed-books
review:
It's rare that reading a book on a particular topic might change my person views around the topic so I wasn't looking for that, but as a young doctor I am always curious about different perspective even when I personally don't wholly agree with them. This was an informative book by a US doctor, bringing in 17 different stories from the country about the difficulties people face trying to access abortion services for various reasons and under various circumstances. It was interesting to read how the debate around Abortion has developed in American politics, some of the things I was already aware of, and some were new to me.
]]> How to Say Babylon 62919742 Educated and Born a Crime, How to Say Babylon is the stunning story of the author’s struggle to break free of her rigid Rastafarian upbringing, ruled by her father’s strict patriarchal views and repressive control of her childhood, to find her own voice as a woman and poet.

Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience.

In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya’s mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father’s beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiya’s voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them.

How to Say Babylon is Sinclair’s reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke, How to Say Babylon is both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about.']]> 352 Safiya Sinclair 1982132337 Imli 3
I may have come across the word or may have heard some song of Bob Marley (prominent follower of the religion) at some point but I'll be honest before reading the goodreads description I didn't even know that Rastafari was a religion and also supposedly claimed to be an Abrahamic one. People generally associate Dreadlocks, Cannabis and reggae music with the community, but Rastafari beliefs or Rastology, are based on a specific reading of the Bible and was developed in Jamaica during the 1930s According to their beliefs, God is referred to as Jah, Emperor Haile Selassie. There are three main sects of Rastafari, the Mansion of Nyabinghi, The Twelve Tribes of Israel and The Bobo Shanti, ranging on a full spectrum from the most conservative militantly Pan-Africanist group, believing in Haile Selassie as reincarnation of God or Black Messiah on earth and the prophecized Black Emperor of Ethiopia, believing in Black unification, liberation, and repatriation to Ethiopia to a more liberal Rastafari sect, welcoming wayward uptown Jamaican youth and white foreigners as members; they eat meat and believe in Jesus Christ to a more closed off, conservative group, adhering to Jewish Mosaic Laws from the Old Testament, including observing Sabbath, and special separation laws for menstruating women. Rastafari also have a spiritual concept of Livity, that is the righteous living, have specific dietary religious regulations called Ital (strict vegetarian diet free from additives, chemicals and meat), and have concepts of Babylon and Zion with the belief that Black African Diaspora are exiles living in Babylon, a term which applies to Western Society. For Rasta people, European colonialism and capitalism and Christianity are regarded as manifestations of Babylon, while police and soldiers are viewed asitss agents.

Contrary to popular perception, Rastafarian people are a persecuted minority in Jamaica, prohibited from roaming around beaches and resorts lest they spoil the image of the touristy sights by their unpleasant and unkempt appearances. Up until the 1960s, the anti-Rastafarian sentiments were so prevalent among the government and police that when a group of Rastas refused to relinquish the farmlands they lived on to government seizure, Alexander Bustamante, the white prime minister then, ordered the military to “Bring in all Rastas, dead or alive!� This triggered a devastating military operation where Rasta communes were burned island-wide in a weekend of terror, where more than 150 Rastas were dragged from their homes, imprisoned, and tortured, and an unknown number of Rastas were killed. Als, search Coral Garden Massacre. The Rastafari, though shunned and outcast by their own people, became the living mascots and main cultural export of Jamaican tourism, with barely any profit to the Rasta community, their spiritual reggae music diluted and commercialized for the foreign masses while they were themselves painfully maligned at home.

As a teenager Safiya's father founded the Rastafari community after being let down by his own neglected, abusive upbringing and met Safiya's mother, who also had her own set of familial traumas and both had four kids between them, three daughters and a son, they however did not get married ever, because the Rastafari don't believe in marriage. Safiya's father was a reggae musician and guitarist who at some point had his own band, but after being exploited and facing discrimination, he started playing at these resorts for foreigners. Both of her parents, and particularly her mother, prioritized education. Her mother taught her kids at home and simultaneously organized a teaching program to bring some additional income at home along with providing free education to the more underprivileged kids. At first you find yourself relating to the strong anti-colonial and anti-capitalist stance of Rastafari people but then after you read about the repressive attitudes of the some members of the community, particularly towards it's female members, you are forced to see it differently. As time went on, Safiya's father became plagued with a deep insecurity at his inability to properly provide for his family, paranoid from the outer world and corrupt forces of Baldheads and Babylon, he became increasingly obsessed with righteousness and purity of his children, particularly his daughters. The children were prohibited from befriending the other kids at school, and girls were forbidden to wear jewelry, makeup, and pants. Overtime harsh words transformed into physical abuse. While her father grew militant in his ways, her mother was mostly passive and nonconfrontational, her recurrent attitude was smoking a spliff everytime something odd happened at home, sometimes even in the face of abuse and cheating. Safiya had always been acutely aware of her different family since a very young age, this sense built around by bullying by her peers or her own curious nature or being secluded from the outside world, or a mixture of everthing, Safiya grew up to be quite different and opposite to her father and in turn had to bear the brunt of his words and physical violence. She gradually grew estranged from her community and detached and detestful of her father. To escape his world, she sought refuge in poetry and writings and went on to win awards and scholarships. While her mother finally came around and stood up for her, Safiya eventually severed her ties with the Rastafari community and symbolically cut off her dreadlocks at the age of nineteen years which she had been wearing for over a decade.

The memoir, though interesting and well-written, it was way too long and repetitive for me. It could probably be cut 100 pages short. It was fascinating reading about this relatively unknown community, but it wasn't as mind-blowing to me as the other two memoirs I have mentioned above. The book has strong themes of physical abuse, suicidal ideation, and self-harm, so beware of triggers.]]> 4.43 2023 How to Say Babylon
author: Safiya Sinclair
name: Imli
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/10
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves: 2024, memoirs-autobiographies, dysfunctional-families, reviewed-books
review:
I'm not sure if it's the proper word to use, but I kind of seem to have a thing for books about dysfunctional families. After "enjoying" Educated by Tara Westover and The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, this new memoir is about a Jamaican woman raised under a strict Rastafarian Father.

I may have come across the word or may have heard some song of Bob Marley (prominent follower of the religion) at some point but I'll be honest before reading the goodreads description I didn't even know that Rastafari was a religion and also supposedly claimed to be an Abrahamic one. People generally associate Dreadlocks, Cannabis and reggae music with the community, but Rastafari beliefs or Rastology, are based on a specific reading of the Bible and was developed in Jamaica during the 1930s According to their beliefs, God is referred to as Jah, Emperor Haile Selassie. There are three main sects of Rastafari, the Mansion of Nyabinghi, The Twelve Tribes of Israel and The Bobo Shanti, ranging on a full spectrum from the most conservative militantly Pan-Africanist group, believing in Haile Selassie as reincarnation of God or Black Messiah on earth and the prophecized Black Emperor of Ethiopia, believing in Black unification, liberation, and repatriation to Ethiopia to a more liberal Rastafari sect, welcoming wayward uptown Jamaican youth and white foreigners as members; they eat meat and believe in Jesus Christ to a more closed off, conservative group, adhering to Jewish Mosaic Laws from the Old Testament, including observing Sabbath, and special separation laws for menstruating women. Rastafari also have a spiritual concept of Livity, that is the righteous living, have specific dietary religious regulations called Ital (strict vegetarian diet free from additives, chemicals and meat), and have concepts of Babylon and Zion with the belief that Black African Diaspora are exiles living in Babylon, a term which applies to Western Society. For Rasta people, European colonialism and capitalism and Christianity are regarded as manifestations of Babylon, while police and soldiers are viewed asitss agents.

Contrary to popular perception, Rastafarian people are a persecuted minority in Jamaica, prohibited from roaming around beaches and resorts lest they spoil the image of the touristy sights by their unpleasant and unkempt appearances. Up until the 1960s, the anti-Rastafarian sentiments were so prevalent among the government and police that when a group of Rastas refused to relinquish the farmlands they lived on to government seizure, Alexander Bustamante, the white prime minister then, ordered the military to “Bring in all Rastas, dead or alive!� This triggered a devastating military operation where Rasta communes were burned island-wide in a weekend of terror, where more than 150 Rastas were dragged from their homes, imprisoned, and tortured, and an unknown number of Rastas were killed. Als, search Coral Garden Massacre. The Rastafari, though shunned and outcast by their own people, became the living mascots and main cultural export of Jamaican tourism, with barely any profit to the Rasta community, their spiritual reggae music diluted and commercialized for the foreign masses while they were themselves painfully maligned at home.

As a teenager Safiya's father founded the Rastafari community after being let down by his own neglected, abusive upbringing and met Safiya's mother, who also had her own set of familial traumas and both had four kids between them, three daughters and a son, they however did not get married ever, because the Rastafari don't believe in marriage. Safiya's father was a reggae musician and guitarist who at some point had his own band, but after being exploited and facing discrimination, he started playing at these resorts for foreigners. Both of her parents, and particularly her mother, prioritized education. Her mother taught her kids at home and simultaneously organized a teaching program to bring some additional income at home along with providing free education to the more underprivileged kids. At first you find yourself relating to the strong anti-colonial and anti-capitalist stance of Rastafari people but then after you read about the repressive attitudes of the some members of the community, particularly towards it's female members, you are forced to see it differently. As time went on, Safiya's father became plagued with a deep insecurity at his inability to properly provide for his family, paranoid from the outer world and corrupt forces of Baldheads and Babylon, he became increasingly obsessed with righteousness and purity of his children, particularly his daughters. The children were prohibited from befriending the other kids at school, and girls were forbidden to wear jewelry, makeup, and pants. Overtime harsh words transformed into physical abuse. While her father grew militant in his ways, her mother was mostly passive and nonconfrontational, her recurrent attitude was smoking a spliff everytime something odd happened at home, sometimes even in the face of abuse and cheating. Safiya had always been acutely aware of her different family since a very young age, this sense built around by bullying by her peers or her own curious nature or being secluded from the outside world, or a mixture of everthing, Safiya grew up to be quite different and opposite to her father and in turn had to bear the brunt of his words and physical violence. She gradually grew estranged from her community and detached and detestful of her father. To escape his world, she sought refuge in poetry and writings and went on to win awards and scholarships. While her mother finally came around and stood up for her, Safiya eventually severed her ties with the Rastafari community and symbolically cut off her dreadlocks at the age of nineteen years which she had been wearing for over a decade.

The memoir, though interesting and well-written, it was way too long and repetitive for me. It could probably be cut 100 pages short. It was fascinating reading about this relatively unknown community, but it wasn't as mind-blowing to me as the other two memoirs I have mentioned above. The book has strong themes of physical abuse, suicidal ideation, and self-harm, so beware of triggers.
]]> Brutalities: A Love Story 77265039 "Brutalities is electric with insight, riveted by its commitments—to love and bewilderment, to bearing witness—and utterly propulsive." —Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams



A searing, vivid memoir that investigates the dynamics of violence, power, desire, and a body pushed to the brink.


Quarantined in a southwestern desert city in the midst of her high-risk pregnancy, Margo Steines felt her life narrow around her growing body, compelling her to reckon with the violence entangled in its history. She was a professional dominatrix in New York City, a homestead farmer in a brutal relationship, a welder on a high-rise building crew, and a mixed martial arts enthusiast; each of her many lives brought a new perspective on how power and masculinity coalesce—and how far she could push her body toward the brink. With unflinching candor, Steines searches for the roots of her erstwhile attraction to pain while charting the complicated triumph of gentleness and love.]]> 284 Margo Steines 1324050888 Imli 3 4.11 2023 Brutalities: A Love Story
author: Margo Steines
name: Imli
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/17
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves: 2024, memoirs-autobiographies, reviewed-books
review:
I was looking for insight into the authors eccentric lifestyle choices and tendencies and what inclined her to them. Even though the prose and passages were good, I don't think I got much from it personally.
]]> <![CDATA[Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption]]> 55298403 Against White Feminism, centering women of color in this transformative overview and counter-manifesto to white feminism’s global, long-standing affinity with colonial, patriarchal, and white supremacist ideals.

Covering such ground as the legacy of the British feminist imperialist savior complex and “the colonial thesis that all reform comes from the West� to the condescension of the white feminist–led “aid industrial complex� and the conflation of sexual liberation as the “sum total of empowerment,� Zakaria follows in the tradition of intersectional feminist forebears Kimberlé Crenshaw, Adrienne Rich, and Audre Lorde. Zakaria ultimately refutes and reimagines the apolitical aspirations of white feminist empowerment in this staggering, radical critique, with Black and Brown feminist thought at the forefront.]]> 272 Rafia Zakaria 1324006617 Imli 0 currently-reading 4.31 2021 Against White Feminism: Notes on Disruption
author: Rafia Zakaria
name: Imli
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex]]> 5981308 Bonk, the best-selling author of Stiff turns her outrageous curiosity and insight on the most alluring scientific subject of all: sex. Can a person think herself to orgasm? Why doesn't Viagra help women-or, for that matter, pandas? Can a dead man get an erection? Is vaginal orgasm a myth? Mary Roach shows us how and why sexual arousal and orgasm-two of the most complex, delightful, and amazing scientific phenomena on earth-can be so hard to achieve and what science is doing to make the bedroom a more satisfying place.]]> 303 Mary Roach 0393334791 Imli 0 3.91 2008 Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
author: Mary Roach
name: Imli
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves: medical-nonfiction, science-sex-sexuality, currently-reading
review:

]]> Funny Story 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Imli 4 2024 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Imli
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/16
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: 2024
review:
I guess sometimes, you just feel like reading a mushy romance novel!
]]> <![CDATA[A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3.1)]]> 768889
The Seven Kingdoms are divided by revolt and blood feud. In the northern wastes, a horde of hungry, savage people steeped in the dark magic of the wilderness is poised to invade the Kingdom of the North where Robb Stark wears his new-forged crown. And Robb's defences are ranged against the South, the land of the cunning and cruel Lannisters, who have his young sisters in their power.

Throughout Westeros, the war for the Iron Throne rages more fiercely than ever, but if the wall is breached, no king will live to claim it.]]> 663 George R.R. Martin 0006479901 Imli 0 to-read 4.47 2000 A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3.1)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Imli
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality]]> 58667392
It’s an admission, she writes, that usually causes people’s pupils to dilate, their cheeks to flush, and their questions to start flowing. Ask people to name famous bisexual actors, politicians, writers, or scientists, and they draw a blank. Despite statistics that show bisexuality is more common than homosexuality, bisexuality is often invisible.

In BI: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality, Shaw probes the science and culture of attraction beyond the binary. From the invention of heterosexuality to the history of the Kinsey scale, as well as asylum seekers trying to defend their bisexuality in a court of law, there is so much more to explore than most have ever realized. Drawing on her own original research—and her own experiences—this is a personal and scientific manifesto; it’s an exploration of the complexities of the human sexual experience and a declaration of love and respect for the nonconformists among us.]]> 240 Julia Shaw 1419744356 Imli 0 4.12 2022 Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality
author: Julia Shaw
name: Imli
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: to-read, gender-sexual-minorities
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Fierce Love: Creating a Love that Lasts---One Conversation at a Time]]> 60101710 New York Times bestselling author Susan Scott guides couples through eight must-have conversations to create a fierce love that stands the test of time and grows stronger over the years.

Often in our romantic relationships, we long for deep connection, but we don't know how to communicate well and sometimes withhold what we're really thinking and feeling. This can lead to fighting, resentment, or, worse, complacency--where you are just going through the motions, more like roommates than two people in love. As Susan writes, "It's as if we've pulled off our own wings." As couples, we don't stop to think how important our conversations are. And we certainly don't understand that what we talk about and how we talk about it determine whether our relationships will thrive, flatline, or fail.

In Fierce Love, New York Times bestselling author Susan Scott guides couples through eight must-have conversations that lead to deep connection and lasting commitment. Through the use of true stories and hands-on exercises, Susan helps us


understand that the conversation is the relationship;
identify and dispel five relationship myths that mislead and derail us;
learn eight conversations that are critical to enriching relationships; and
stop fighting or ignoring issues and start connecting in a deep and meaningful way.
After a season where many relationships were tested and tried, where some relationships thrived and others have exposed cracks couples didn't even realize were there, or realized but didn't acknowledge, now is the best time to learn to communicate well. By having honest, compelling conversations with our partners, we can foster true connection and a fierce love that will withstand the test of time and grow stronger over the years.]]> 240 Susan Scott 1400233259 Imli 0 to-read 4.12 2022 Fierce Love: Creating a Love that Lasts---One Conversation at a Time
author: Susan Scott
name: Imli
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression]]> 53915218 114 Teresa Wong 1551527669 Imli 0 to-read 4.33 2019 Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression
author: Teresa Wong
name: Imli
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women]]> 58870736 Explore real women’s tales of healthcare trauma and medical misogyny with this “masterfully written� (Sophia A. Nelson, bestselling author of The Woman Code and Black Woman Redefined), meticulously researched, in-depth examination of the women’s health crisis in America—and what we can do about it.When Anushay Hossain became pregnant in the US, she was so relieved. Growing up in Bangladesh in the 1980s, where the concept of women’s healthcare hardly existed, she understood how lucky she was to access the best in the world. But she couldn’t have been more wrong. Things started to go awry from the minute she stepped into the hospital, and after thirty hours of labor (two of which she spent pushing), Hossain’s epidural slipped. Her pain was so severe that she ran a fever of 104 degrees, and as she shook and trembled uncontrollably, the doctors finally performed an emergency C-section. Giving birth in the richest country on earth, Hossain never imagined she could die in labor. But she almost did. The experience put her on a journey to explore, understand, and share how women—especially women of color—are dismissed to death by systemic sexism in American healthcare. Following in the footsteps of feminist manifestos such as The Feminine Mystique and Rage Becomes Her, The Pain Gap is an “eye-opening� (Christy Turlington Burns, founder of Every Mother Counts) and stirring call to arms that encourages women to flip their “hysteria complex� on its head and use it to revolutionize women’s healthcare. This book tells the story of Hossain’s experiences—from growing up in South Asia surrounded by staggering maternal mortality rates to lobbying for global health legislation on Capitol Hill to nearly becoming a statistic herself. Along the way, she realized that a little fury might be just what the doctor ordered. Meticulously researched and deeply reported, this “must-read� (Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her) book explores real women’s traumatic experiences with America’s healthcare system—and empowers everyone to use their experiences to bring about the healthcare revolution women need.]]> 231 Anushay Hossain 1982177780 Imli 0 to-read 3.75 2021 The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women
author: Anushay Hossain
name: Imli
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A History of the World in 21 Women: A Personal Selection]]> 40825830
Encompassing artists, politicians, activists, reporters and heads of state from past and present, A History of the World in 21 Women celebrates the lives, struggles and achievements of women who have had a profound impact on the shaping of our world.

Jenni’s 21 are: Joan of Arc, Artemesia Gentileschi, Angela Merkel, Benazir Bhutto, Hillary Clinton, Coco Chanel, Empress Dowager Cixi, Catherine the Great, Clara Schumann, Hatshepsut, Wangari Maathai, Golda Meir, Frida Kahlo, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Isabella of Castile, Cathy Freeman, Anna Politokovskaya, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Madonna and Marie Curie.]]> 280 Jenni Murray 1786074117 Imli 0 to-read 3.81 A History of the World in 21 Women: A Personal Selection
author: Jenni Murray
name: Imli
average rating: 3.81
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Qur'an 36691128
This superb new translation of the Qur'an is written in contemporary language that remains faithful to the meaning and spirit of the original, making the text crystal clear while retaining all of this great work's eloquence. The translation is accurate and completely free from the archaisms, incoherence, and alien structures that mar existing translations. Thus, for the first time, English-speaking readers will have a text of the Qur'an which is easy to use and comprehensible. Furthermore, Haleem includes notes that explain geographical, historical, and personal allusions as well as an index in which Qur'anic material is arranged into topics for easy reference. His introduction traces the history of the Qur'an, examines its structure and stylistic features, and considers issues related to militancy, intolerance, and the subjection of women.

Clearly written and filled with helpful information and guidance, this brilliant translation of the Qur'an is the best available introduction to the faith of Moslems around the world.

About the For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.]]> 505 Anonymous Imli 0 to-read 4.45 632 The Qur'an
author: Anonymous
name: Imli
average rating: 4.45
book published: 632
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Developing a Model of Islamic Psychology and Psychotherapy: Islamic Theology and Contemporary Understandings of Psychology (Routledge Research in Psychology)]]> 57064360
Drawing on a qualitative, grounded theory analysis of interviews with Islamic scholars and clinicians, this unique volume distils complex religious concepts to reconcile Islamic theology with contemporary notions of psychology. Chapters offer nuanced explanations of relevant Islamic tradition and theological sources, consider how this relates to Western notions of psychotherapy and common misconceptions, and draw uniquely on first-hand data to develop a new theory of Islamic psychology. This, in turn, informs an innovative and empirically driven model of practicethat translates Islamic understandings of human psychology into a clinical framework for Islamic psychotherapy.

An outstanding scholarly contribution to the modern and emerging discipline of Islamic psychology, this book makes a pioneering contribution to the integration of the Islamic sciences and clinical mental health practice. It will be a key resource for scholars, researchers, and practicing clinicians with an interest in Islamic psychology and Muslim mental health, as well as religion, spirituality and psychology more broadly.]]> 0 Abdallah Rothman 1000416194 Imli 0 to-read 4.52 Developing a Model of Islamic Psychology and Psychotherapy: Islamic Theology and Contemporary Understandings of Psychology (Routledge Research in Psychology)
author: Abdallah Rothman
name: Imli
average rating: 4.52
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Living a Feminist Life 34015616 308 Sara Ahmed 0822373378 Imli 0 to-read 4.34 2017 Living a Feminist Life
author: Sara Ahmed
name: Imli
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Most Important Job In The World]]> 60810996
When Gina Rushton admitted she had little time left to make the decision for herself, the magnitude of the choice overwhelmed her. Her search for her own 'yes' or 'no' only uncovered more questions to be answered.

How do we clearly consider creating a new life on a planet facing catastrophic climate change? How do we reassess the gender roles we have been assigned? How do we balance ascending careers with declining fertility? How do we know if we've found the right co-parent, or if we want to go it alone, or if we don't want to do it at all?

Drawing on the depth of knowledge afforded by her body of work as an award-winning journalist, Rushton wrote the book that she needed, and others need, to stop a panicked internal monologue and start a genuine dialogue about what we want from our lives and why. The Most Important Job in the World is a powerful, compelling and forensic analysis of the role of motherhood in society today, and the competing forces that draw us towards and away from it.

PRAISE FOR THE MOST IMPORTANT JOB IN THE WORLD

 'Gina Rushton searingly describes the complex internal conflict so many young women do I want kids? And what becomes of me if I do, or don't? I've not read a book that so perfectly captures how I feel as a woman in her late twenties.' Zara McDonald, host of Shameless podcast and bestselling author of The Space Between

'Gina Rushton reports unflinchingly from the disjunction between received wisdoms about motherhood and received realities that continue to constrict the choices of women of her generation. A significant and vital book; a must-read.' Sarah Krasnostein, bestselling author of The Trauma Cleaner

'Grounded in Rushton's years of frontline reporting on reproductive access, this book reflects on both the politics and philosophies underpinning parenthood. It challenged some of my deeply ingrained presumptions about the career-family binary, and Rushton is unafraid to sit with ambivalence. Contraception, legacy, loss, climate change... it's all here. I am so glad this book exists and I am glad I read it.' Bri Lee, author of Eggshell Skull

'I can't remember the last book that made me think so much - about all sorts of things I didn't expect. Gina Rushton is what every writer should be - both wise and curious - and when I had finished her fascinating book I saw the world in new ways.' Sean Kelly

'The Most Important Job in the World keenly captures the rollercoaster of anxiety and hope that embodies living at this moment in history. Gina Rushton has written a book that is globally impactful and deeply personal at once, further solidifying her status as one of this country's most exciting writers. This is a generation-defining text that everyone (not only those considering parenthood) must read immediately.' Gen Fricker

'Gina Rushton interrogates the most personal, political and primal anxieties of our generation, and delivers a clarity so sharp, it borders on pain. But the pain is transformative when shared and given shape, and I read The Most Important Job in the World feeling nothing short of seen, consoled and grateful.' Benjamin Law

'A mesmerising investigation into the beauty and trauma of motherhood.' Samantha Maiden]]> 300 Gina Rushton 1761260979 Imli 0 to-read 4.04 2022 The Most Important Job In The World
author: Gina Rushton
name: Imli
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Slavery and Islam 42524676
Every major religion and philosophy once condoned or approved of slavery, but in modern times nothing is seen as more evil. Americans confront this crisis of authority when they erect statues of Founding Fathers who slept with their slaves. And Muslims faced it when ISIS revived sex slavery, justifying it with verses from the Quran and the practice of Muhammad.

Exploring the moral and ultimately theological problem of slavery, Jonathan A.C. Brown traces how the Christian, Jewish and Islamic traditions have tried to reconcile modern moral certainties with the infallibility of God’s message. He lays out how Islam viewed slavery in theory, and the reality of how it was practiced across Islamic civilization. Finally, Brown carefully examines arguments put forward by Muslims for the abolition of slavery.]]> 416 Jonathan A.C. Brown 1786076365 Imli 0 4.11 Slavery and Islam
author: Jonathan A.C. Brown
name: Imli
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves: islamic-books, currently-reading, 2024
review:

]]> Book Lovers 58690308 One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming....

Nora Stephens� life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters� trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.]]> 377 Emily Henry 0593334833 Imli 4 2023 4.09 2022 Book Lovers
author: Emily Henry
name: Imli
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/31
date added: 2024/08/16
shelves: 2023
review:
I am just gonna say I loved the book and the banter in it! I really love Emily Henry's romances and look forward to their movie adaptations. This is probably my favorite of hers so far.
]]> Remember Me? 1358844
Somehow Lexi went from a twenty-five-year-old working girl to a corporate big shot with a sleek new loft, a personal assistant, a carb-free diet, and a set of glamorous new friends. And who is this gorgeous husband—who also happens to be a multimillionaire? With her mind still stuck three years in reverse, Lexi greets this brave new world determined to be the person she…well, seems to be. That is, until an adorably disheveled architect drops the biggest bombshell of all.

Suddenly Lexi is scrambling to catch her balance. Her new life, it turns out, comes complete with secrets, schemes, and intrigue. How on earth did all this happen? Will she ever remember? And what will happen when she does?

With the same wicked humor and delicious charm that have won her millions of devoted fans, Sophie Kinsella, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Shopaholic & Baby, returns with an irresistible new novel and a fresh new heroine who finds herself in a life-changing and utterly hilarious predicament…]]> 352 Sophie Kinsella Imli 2 3.82 2008 Remember Me?
author: Sophie Kinsella
name: Imli
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2008
rating: 2
read at: 2013/06/30
date added: 2024/08/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 Imli 0 to-read 3.86 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: Imli
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You]]> 155383
In ihrem zweiten Band zum Thema Hochsensibilität erläutert Elaine N. Aron wichtige Fragen: Welche Gefühle werden ausgelöst, wenn sich Hochsensible verlieben? Wodurch kann Stress reduziert werden? Wie können beide Partner voneinander profitieren - egal, ob einer oder beide hochsensibel sind.]]> 261 Elaine N. Aron 0767903366 Imli 0 to-read 3.87 2000 The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You
author: Elaine N. Aron
name: Imli
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Dance with Dragons 1: Dreams and Dust (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5, Part 1 of 2)]]> 13337715
Tyrion Lannister, having killed his father, and wrongfully accused of killing his nephew, King Joffrey, has escaped from King’s Landing with a price on his head.

To the north lies the great Wall of ice and stone � a structure only as strong as those guarding it. Eddard Stark's bastard son Jon Snow has been elected 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. But Jon has enemies both inside and beyond the Wall.

And in the east Daenerys Targaryen struggles to hold a city built on dreams and dust.]]> 690 George R.R. Martin Imli 0 to-read 4.33 2011 A Dance with Dragons 1: Dreams and Dust (A Song of Ice and Fire, #5, Part 1 of 2)
author: George R.R. Martin
name: Imli
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2011
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]]> <![CDATA[Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution]]> 305826
"In order for all women to have real choices all along the line," Adrienne Rich writes, "we need fully to understand the power and powerlessness embodied in motherhood in patriarchal culture." Rich's investigation, in this influential and landmark book, concerns both experience and institution. The experience is her own - as a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a mother - but it is an experience determined by the institution, imposed in its many variations on all women everywhere. She draws on personal materials, history, research, and literature to create a document of universal importance.

One of our most distinguished poets, ADRIENNE RICH was born in Baltimore in 1929. Over the last forty years she has published more than seventeen volumes of poetry and five books of nonfiction prose, including Arts of the Possible: Essays and Conversations; On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Blood, Bread, and Poetry; and What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics. She has received numerous awards, including the Ruth Lilly Prize, the Lambda Book Award, the National Book Award, and the Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. She lives in California.]]> 322 Adrienne Rich 0393312844 Imli 0 to-read 4.23 Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution
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]]> Letters of Note: Mothers 49530235 A fascinating new volume of messages about motherhood, from the author of the bestselling Letters of Note collections

TK]]> 144 Shaun Usher 0143134728 Imli 0 to-read 3.86 2013 Letters of Note: Mothers
author: Shaun Usher
name: Imli
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2013
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]]> <![CDATA[It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (But Were Never Told)]]> 195790756 An inclusive and essential guide to reproductive health—including period problems, pelvic pain, menopause, fertility, sexual health, vaginal and urinary conditions, and overall wellbeing―from leading expert Dr. Karen Tang

Reproductive healthcare, from abortion to gender-affirming care, is under siege. The onus continues to fall on patients to find and advocate for the care they need. Dr. Karen Tang is on a mission to transform how women engage with their bodies and their healthcare.

Did you know that one in three women experiences menstrual abnormalities or pelvic issues, yet these conditions are overwhelmingly misunderstood, misdiagnosed, or dismissed? The root causes for these issues, such as polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis, fibroids, ovarian cysts, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and pelvic-floor muscle dysfunction, don’t receive the stream of funding for research and new treatments that other conditions do, despite the potential to affect up to half the population.

It’s Not Hysteria is a comprehensive guide to common conditions and potential treatment options, with practical tools such as symptom prompts and sample questions to ask one's provider. In the face of uncertainty and misinformation, It’s Not Hysteria is destined to become a new classic that educates and empowers.]]> 384 Karen Tang 1250894158 Imli 0 to-read 4.19 2024 It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (But Were Never Told)
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name: Imli
average rating: 4.19
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]]> Drinking Games 61167682 Part memoir and part social critique, Drinking Games is about how one woman drank and lived � until sobriety freed her.

Drinking Games explores the role alcohol has in our formative adult lives, and what it means to opt out of a culture completely enmeshed in drinking. Sarah explores what our short-term choices about alcohol do to our long-term selves and how it challenges our ability to be vulnerable enough to discover what we really want in life. While many millennial women will see themselves in Sarah's words and story, Drinking Games is dedicated to anyone who feels like their private struggles are terminally unique. Whether it’s alcohol, food, exercise, or work, so many of us are grasping for control and struggling to keep our heads above water.

Candid, dynamic, Drinking Games speaks to the millennial experience of working hard, playing harder, and wanting everything to look perfect on social media. Dedicated to those who might be questioning their relationship with alcohol but scared that quitting drinking is an ending, Drinking Games illustrates how, for one woman, sobriety was just the beginning of the story. Sarah's words strike the perfect chord of relatability and biting honesty. Instead of claiming to have the answers, she takes readers by the hand throughout her journey, and shows us that life's messiest moments are the ones that can end up being the most profound.]]> 277 Sarah Levy 1250280591 Imli 0 to-read 4.04 2023 Drinking Games
author: Sarah Levy
name: Imli
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
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]]> <![CDATA[Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today]]> 45731373
A weeping woman is a monster. So too is a fat woman, a horny woman, a woman shrieking with laughter. Women who are one or more of these things have heard, or perhaps simply intuited, that we are repugnantly excessive, that we have taken illicit liberties to feel or fuck or eat with abandon. After bellowing like a barn animal in orgasm, hoovering a plate of mashed potatoes, or spraying out spit in the heat of expostulation, we've flinched-ugh, that was so gross. I am so gross. On rare occasions, we might revel in our excess--belting out anthems with our friends over karaoke, perhaps--but in the company of less sympathetic souls, our uncertainty always returns. A woman who is Too Much is a woman who reacts to the world with ardent intensity is a woman familiar to lashes of shame and disapproval, from within as well as without.

Written in the tradition of Shrill, Dead Girls, Sex Object and other frank books about the female gaze, TOO MUCH encourages women to reconsider the beauty of their excesses-emotional, physical, and spiritual. Rachel Vorona Cote braids cultural criticism, theory, and storytelling together in her exploration of how culture grinds away our bodies, souls, and sexualities, forcing us into smaller lives than we desire. An erstwhile Victorian scholar, she sees many parallels between that era's fixation on women's "hysterical" behavior and our modern policing of the same; in the space of her writing, you're as likely to encounter Jane Eyre and Lizzie Bennet as you are Britney Spears and Lana Del Rey.



This book will tell the story of how women, from then and now, have learned to draw power from their reservoirs of feeling, all that makes us "Too Much."]]> 352 Rachel Vorona Cote 1538729709 Imli 0 to-read 3.54 2020 Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today
author: Rachel Vorona Cote
name: Imli
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2020
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]]> Strong Female Character 59903149
1. I'm diagnosed with autism 20 years after telling a doctor I had it.

2. My terrible Catholic childhood.

3. My friendship with an elderly man who runs the corner shop and is definitely not trying to groom me. I get groomed.

4. Homelessness.

5. Stripping.

6. More stripping but with more nervous breakdowns.

7. I hate everyone at uni and live with a psycho etc.

8. REDACTED as too spicy.

9. After everyone tells me I don't look autistic, I try to cure my autism and get addicted to Xanax.

10. REDACTED as too embarrassing.]]> 288 Fern Brady 1914240448 Imli 0 to-read 4.43 2023 Strong Female Character
author: Fern Brady
name: Imli
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2023
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]]> <![CDATA[DIY: The Wonderfully Weird History and Science of Masturbation]]> 195590471 240 Eric Sprankle 1454948795 Imli 0 to-read 4.33 DIY: The Wonderfully Weird History and Science of Masturbation
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]]> <![CDATA[They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom]]> 60149517 A Palestinian activist jailed at sixteen after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers illuminates the daily struggles of life under occupation in this moving, deeply personal memoir.

“What would you do if you grew up seeing your home repeatedly raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, for just a moment, to imagine that this was your life. How would you want the world to react?�

Ahed Tamimi is a world-renowned Palestinian activist, born and raised in the small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance to Israeli occupation when an illegal, Jewish-only settlement blocked off its community spring. Tamimi came of age participating in nonviolent demonstrations against this action and the occupation at large. Her global renown reached an apex in December 2017, when, at sixteen years old, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who refused to leave her front yard. The video went viral, and Tamimi was arrested.

But this is not just a story of activism or imprisonment. It is the human-scale story of an occupation that has riveted the world and shaped global politics, from a girl who grew up in the middle of it . Tamimi’s father was born in 1967, the year that Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and he grew up immersed in the resistance movement. One of Tamimi’s earliest memories is visiting him in prison, poking her toddler fingers through the fence to touch his hand. She herself would spend her seventeenth birthday behind bars. Living through this greatest test and heightened attacks on her village, Tamimi felt her resolve only deepen, in tension with her attempts to live the normal life of a daughter, sibling, friend, and student.

An essential addition to an important conversation, They Called Me a Lioness shows us what is at stake in this struggle and offers a fresh vision for resistance. With their unflinching, riveting storytelling, Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri shine a light on the humanity not just in occupied Palestine but also in the unsung lives of people struggling for freedom around the world.]]> 288 Ahed Tamimi 0593134583 Imli 4
This is surely a timely read for anyone willing and wanting to learn more about Palestinian people and their fight for justice and self determination, particularly from a youth/youngster's perspective. Recommended.]]> 4.67 2022 They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom
author: Ahed Tamimi
name: Imli
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves: 2024, palestine, reviewed-books
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In December of 2017, at the age of sixteen years, while she took part in a demonstration in Nabi Salih opposing the expansion of Israeli settlements, Ahed Tamimi was filmed and subsequently arrested for slapping an IDF soldier after one of the soldiers shot her cousin, Mohammed, in the head. Ahed, whose sentencing started from a six day detention stretched to an eight months imprisonment, comes from a strong family of Palestinian activists living in a small village, named Nabi Salih, in the central West Bank, numerous members of her family have been involved in arranging weekly friday protests, some were journalist documenting Israeli apartheid (her maternal uncle who was also shot dead by an IDF soldier while being a journalist on duty), some were even imprisoned, including her father, mother and paternal aunt, so it understandable that Ahed was always acutely and personally politically aware and conscious while growing up. But Ahed Tamimi's story, is not only her's, her's is a story of Palestinian children and youth living under Israeli occupation and apartheid. While you would expect kids in any other geographical location to grow up playing house-house or other "innocent" games at their age, she recounts a robbed off childhood under occupation, her childhood sometimes consisted of playing games that imitated her's and other Palestinian kids' lives under Israeli occupation, she mentions her elders practicing and playing mock interviews with them, incase any of them gets arrested while taking part in demonstration alongwith their parents. She mention daily struggles of going through checkpoints a hindrance in normal school life and childhood. About her imprisonment, she talks about the unfairness of being on trial under military court instead of a civilian one, she describes meeting other minors being given lengthy sentences for so-called "crimes of agitation and inciting violence" for something as simple and small as throwing stones at IDF soldiers in retaliation of them throughing grenades, tear gas, pouring skunk water and even shooting while the Palestinian kids demonstrated in peaceful protests. She talks of their fight for right to education during imprisonment, under the leadership of Khalida Jarar, another political prisoner.

This is surely a timely read for anyone willing and wanting to learn more about Palestinian people and their fight for justice and self determination, particularly from a youth/youngster's perspective. Recommended.
]]> <![CDATA[1971: A People's History from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India]]> 50432697
Navigating the widely varied terrain that is 1971 across Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, Anam Zakaria sifts through three distinct state narratives, and studies the institutionalization of the memory of the year and its events. Through a personal journey, she juxtaposes state narratives with people's history on the ground, bringing forth the nuanced experiences of those who lived through the war. Using intergenerational interviews, textbook analyses, visits to schools and travels to museums and sites commemorating 1971, Zakaria explores the ways in which 1971 is remembered and forgotten across countries, generations and communities.]]> 402 Anam Zakaria Imli 0 4.16 1971: A People's History from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India
author: Anam Zakaria
name: Imli
average rating: 4.16
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]]> <![CDATA[Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship After Empire (Religion, Culture, and Public Life Book 49)]]> 123154956


In this groundbreaking book, SherAli Tareen explores how leading South Asian Muslim thinkers imagined and contested the boundaries of Hindu-Muslim friendship from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. He argues that often what was at stake in Muslim scholarly discourse and debates on Hindu-Muslim friendship were unresolved tensions and fissures over the place and meaning of Islam in the modern world. Perilous Intimacies considers a range of topics, including Muslim scholarly translations of Hinduism, Hindu-Muslim theological polemics, the question of interreligious friendship in the Qur'an, intra-Muslim debates on cow sacrifice, and debates on emulating Hindu customs and habits.

Based on the close reading of an expansive and multifaceted archive of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu sources, this book illuminates the depth, complexity, and profound divisions of the Muslim intellectual traditions of South Asia. Perilous Intimacies also provides timely perspective on the historical roots of present-day Hindu-Muslim relations, considering how to overcome thorny legacies and open new horizons for interreligious friendship.]]> 362 Sherali Tareen 023155835X Imli 0 to-read 4.88 Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship After Empire (Religion, Culture, and Public Life Book 49)
author: Sherali Tareen
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]]> <![CDATA[The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing]]> 64631561 New York Times bestselling author Lara Love Hardin recounts her slide from soccer mom to opioid addict to jailhouse shot-caller and her unlikely comeback as a highly successful ghostwriter in this harrowing, hilarious, no-holds-barred memoir.

No one expects the police to knock on the million-dollar, two-story home of the perfect cul-de-sac housewife. But soccer mom Lara Love Hardin has been hiding a shady she is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbors� credit cards.

Lara is convicted of thirty-two felonies and becomes inmate S32179. She learns that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. Furniture is made from tampon boxes and Snickers bars are currency. But Lara quickly finds the rules and brings love and healing to her fellow inmates as she climbs the social ladder to become the “shot caller,� showing that jailhouse politics aren’t that different from the PTA meetings she used to attend.

When she’s released, she reinvents herself as a ghostwriter. Now, she’s legally co-opting other people’s identities and getting to meet Oprah, meditate with The Dalai Lama, and have dinner with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. But the shadow of her past follows her. Shame is a poison worse than heroin—there is no way to detox. Lara must learn how to forgive herself and others, navigate life as a felon on probation, prove to herself that she is more good than bad, and much more.

The Many Lives of Mama Love is a heartbreaking and tender journey from shame to redemption, despite a system that makes it almost impossible for us to move beyond the worst thing we have ever done.]]> 319 Lara Love Hardin 1982197668 Imli 0 to-read 4.45 2023 The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing
author: Lara Love Hardin
name: Imli
average rating: 4.45
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]]> <![CDATA[Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Healing]]> 61918944 An unexpected family photograph leads Dionne Ford to uncover the stories of her enslaved female ancestors, reclaim their power, and begin to heal

Countless Black Americans descended from slavery are related to the enslavers who bought and sold their ancestors. Among them is Dionne Ford, whose great grandmother was the last of six children born to a Louisiana cotton broker and the enslaved woman he received as a wedding gift.

What shapes does this kind of intergenerational trauma take? In these pages, which move between her inner life and deep research, Ford tells us. It manifests as alcoholism and post-traumatic stress; it finds echoes in her own experience of sexual abuse at the hands of a relative, and in the ways in which she builds her own interracial family.

To heal, Ford tries a wide range of therapies, lifestyle changes, and recovery meetings. “Anything,� she writes, “to keep from going back there.� But what she learns is that she needs to go back there, to return to her female ancestors, and unearth what she can about them to start to feel whole.]]> 256 Dionne Ford 164503013X Imli 0 to-read 4.05 2023 Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Healing
author: Dionne Ford
name: Imli
average rating: 4.05
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]]> <![CDATA[Life After Death: Surviving Suicide]]> 62918493 An intertwined tale of a boy’s world shattered by suicide and a man’s story rewritten by neuroscience.

When Richard Brockman found his mother’s body, the simple narrative of his childhood ended. Life After Death tells the story of a boy who died and of a man who survived when the boy and the man are one and the same. It tells a very personal—yet tragically common—story of irredeemable loss. It tells the story of story itself. How story forms. How it grows. How it changes. How it can be broken. And finally, how sometimes it can be repaired.

Now an expert in genetics, epigenetics, and the biology of attachment, Brockman chronicles his evolution from a child overwhelmed by trauma to a man who has struggled to reclaim his past. He lays bare the core of one who is both victim and healer. By weaving together childhood despair and clinical knowledge, Brockman shows how the shattered pieces of the self—though never the same and not without scars—can sometimes be put back together again.]]> 433 Richard Brockman 1680998064 Imli 0 to-read 4.19 Life After Death: Surviving Suicide
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]]> <![CDATA[Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature]]> 25489389 Everything an aspiring memoirist needs to know, in one readable volume, a follow-up to the acclaimed writers� handbook Why We Write

For the many amateurs and professionals who write about themselves—bloggers, journal-keepers, aspiring essayists, and memoirists—this book offers inspiration, encouragement, and pithy, practical advice. Twenty of America’s bestselling memoirists share their innermost thoughts and hard-earned tips with veteran author Meredith Maran, revealing what drives them to tell their personal stories, and the nuts and bolts of how they do it. Speaking frankly about issues ranging from turning oneself into an authentic, compelling character to exposing hard truths, these successful authors disclose what keeps them going, what gets in their way, and what they love most—and least—about writing about themselves.]]> 254 Meredith Maran 0142181978 Imli 0 to-read 3.85 2016 Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature
author: Meredith Maran
name: Imli
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2016
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]]> <![CDATA[Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society]]> 537182
"If a reader were to select only one book in order to gain insight into women's status and prospects in Islamic society, this study should be the one chosen for its clarity, honesty, depth of knowledge and thought-provoking qualities." --Arab Book World

In this expanded and updated edition, with a new introduction on Muslim women and fundamentalism, Mernissi argues that Islamic fundamentalism is in part a defense against recent changes in sex roles and perceptions of sexual identity.

Fatema Mernissi (1940�2015) was a leading advocate for women’s rights in the Muslim world. In 2003, she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature along with Susan Sontag. Mernissi’s works have been translated into thirty languages.]]> 224 Fatema Mernissi 0253204232 Imli 0 to-read 3.83 1975 Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society
author: Fatema Mernissi
name: Imli
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1975
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]]> Yale and Slavery: A History 188531505 A comprehensive look at how slavery and resistance to it have shaped Yale University Award-winning historian David W. Blight, with the Yale and Slavery Research Project, answers the call to investigate Yale University’s historical involvement with slavery, the slave trade, and abolition. This narrative history demonstrates the importance of slavery in the making of this renowned American institution of higher learning. Drawing on wide-ranging archival materials, Yale and Slavery extends from the century before the college’s founding in 1701 to the dedication of its Civil War memorial in 1915, while engaging with the legacies and remembrance of this complex story. The book brings into focus the enslaved and free Black people who have been part of Yale’s history from the beginning—but too often ignored in official accounts. These individuals and their descendants worked at Yale; petitioned and fought for freedom and dignity; built churches, schools, and antislavery organizations; and were among the first Black students to transform the university from the inside. Always alive to the surprises and ironies of the past, Yale and Slavery presents a richer and more complete history of Yale, the third-oldest college in the country, showing how pillars of American higher education, even in New England, emerged over time intertwined with the national and international history of racial slavery.]]> 448 David W. Blight 0300273843 Imli 0 to-read 4.57 Yale and Slavery: A History
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average rating: 4.57
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]]> <![CDATA[The Family Roe: An American Story]]> 57356641 The Family Roe presents her life in full. Propelled by the crosscurrents of sex and religion, gender and class, it is a life that tells the story of abortion in America.

Prager begins that story on the banks of Louisiana’s Atchafalaya River where Norma was born, and where unplanned pregnancies upended generations of her forebears. A pregnancy then upended Norma’s life too, and the Dallas waitress became Jane Roe.

Drawing on a decade of research, Prager reveals the woman behind the pseudonym, writing in novelistic detail of her unknown life from her time as a sex worker in Dallas, to her private thoughts on family and abortion, to her dealings with feminist and Christian leaders, to the three daughters she placed for adoption.

Prager found those women, including the youngest—Baby Roe—now fifty years old. She shares her story in The Family Roe for the first time, from her tortured interactions with her birth mother, to her emotional first meeting with her sisters, to the burden that was uniquely hers from conception.

The Family Roe abounds in such revelations—not only about Norma and her children but about the broader “family� connected to the case. Prager tells the stories of activists and bystanders alike whose lives intertwined with Roe. In particular, he introduces three figures as important as they are unknown: feminist lawyer Linda Coffee, who filed the original Texas lawsuit yet now lives in obscurity; Curtis Boyd, a former fundamentalist Christian, today a leading provider of third-trimester abortions; and Mildred Jefferson, the first black female Harvard Medical School graduate, who became a pro-life leader with great secrets.

An epic work spanning fifty years of American history, The Family Roe will change the way you think about our enduring American divide: the right to choose or the right to life.]]> 672 Joshua Prager 0393247716 Imli 0 to-read 4.13 2021 The Family Roe: An American Story
author: Joshua Prager
name: Imli
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
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]]> <![CDATA[White Like Her: My Family's Story of Race and Racial Passing]]> 34181487 White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing is the story of Gail Lukasik’s mother’s “passing,� Gail’s struggle with the shame of her mother’s choice, and her subsequent journey of self-discovery and redemption.

In the historical context of the Jim Crow South, Gail explores her African-American mother’s decision to pass, how she hid her secret even from her own husband, and the price she paid for choosing whiteness.

Haunted by her mother’s fear and shame, Gail embarks on a quest to uncover her mother’s racial lineage, tracing her family back to eighteenth-century colonial Louisiana. In coming to terms with her decision to publicly out her mother, Gail changed how she looks at race and heritage.
]]> 316 Gail Lukasik 1510724125 Imli 0 to-read 3.59 2017 White Like Her: My Family's Story of Race and Racial Passing
author: Gail Lukasik
name: Imli
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/05/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic]]> 38255327
In Pain Killer, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Barry Meier exposes the roots of the most pressing health epidemic of the twenty-first century. Powerful narcotic painkillers, or opioids, were once used as drugs of last resort for pain sufferers. Purdue turned OxyContin into a billion-dollar blockbuster by launching an unprecedented marketing campaign claiming that the drug's long-acting formulation made it safer to use than traditional painkillers for many types of pain. That illusion was quickly shattered as drug abusers learned that crushing an Oxy could release its narcotic payload all at once. Even in its prescribed form, Oxy proved fiercely addictive. As OxyContin's use and abuse grew, Purdue concealed what it knew from regulators, doctors, and patients.

Here are the people who profited from the crisis and those who paid the price, those who plotted in boardrooms and those who tried to sound alarm bells. A country doctor in rural Virginia, Art Van Zee, took on Purdue and warned officials about OxyContin abuse. An ebullient high school cheerleader, Lindsey Myers, was reduced to stealing from her parents to feed her escalating Oxy habit. A hard-charging DEA official, Laura Nagel, tried to hold Purdue executives to account. The drugmaker's owners, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, whose names adorn museums worldwide, made enormous fortunes from the commercial success of OxyContin.

In this updated edition of Pain Killer, Barry Meier breaks new ground in his decades-long investigation into the opioid epidemic. He takes readers inside Purdue to show how long the company withheld information about the abuse of OxyContin and gives a shocking account of the Justice Department's failure to alter the trajectory of the opioid epidemic and protect thousands of lives. Equal parts crime thriller, medical detective story, and business expos�, Pain Killer is a hard-hitting look at how a supposed wonder drug became the gateway drug to a national tragedy.
]]> 240 Barry Meier 0525511105 Imli 0 to-read 4.04 2003 Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic
author: Barry Meier
name: Imli
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2003
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date added: 2024/05/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Histories of the Transgender Child]]> 39732783 A groundbreaking twentieth-century history of transgender children

With transgender rights front and center in American politics, media, and culture, the pervasive myth still exists that today’s transgender children are a brand new generation—pioneers in a field of new obstacles and hurdles. Histories of the Transgender Child shatters this myth, uncovering a previously unknown twentieth-century history when transgender children not only existed but preexisted the term transgender and its predecessors, playing a central role in the medicalization of trans people, and all sex and gender.

Beginning with the early 1900s when children with “ambiguous� sex first sought medical attention, to the 1930s when transgender people began to seek out doctors involved in altering children’s sex, to the invention of the category gender, and finally the 1960s and �70s when, as the field institutionalized, transgender children began to take hormones, change their names, and even access gender confirmation, Julian Gill-Peterson reconstructs the medicalization and racialization of children’s bodies. Throughout, they foreground the racial history of medicine that excludes black and trans of color children through the concept of gender’s plasticity, placing race at the center of their analysis and at the center of transgender studies.

Until now, little has been known about early transgender history and life and its relevance to children. Using a wealth of archival research from hospitals and clinics, including incredible personal letters from children to doctors, as well as scientific and medical literature, this book reaches back to the first half of the twentieth century—a time when the category transgender was not available but surely existed, in the lives of children and parents.]]> 288 Jules Gill-Peterson 1517904676 Imli 0 4.39 2018 Histories of the Transgender Child
author: Jules Gill-Peterson
name: Imli
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/28
shelves: to-read, gender-sexual-minorities
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]]> <![CDATA[Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex]]> 6780051 240 Elizabeth Reis 0801891558 Imli 0 4.05 2009 Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex
author: Elizabeth Reis
name: Imli
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience]]> 4817123 384 Katrina Karkazis 0822343185 Imli 0 4.16 2008 Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience
author: Katrina Karkazis
name: Imli
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2008
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]]> A Boy Named Ibrahim 123827399 24 Sitti Aminah Sarte 1538394073 Imli 0 muslim-kid-lit, to-read 4.22 2014 A Boy Named Ibrahim
author: Sitti Aminah Sarte
name: Imli
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/12
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]]> <![CDATA[Lost Words: An Armenian Story of Survival and Hope]]> 182761642
What is it like to walk away from your home? To leave behind everything and everyone you’ve ever known? Poetic, sensitive, and based on a true family history, Lost Words follows a young Armenian boy from the day he sets out to find refuge to the day he finally finds the courage to share his story.

“It is difficult to find the words to describe the type of loss a Genocide can cause to a young child. I’ve been looking for something similar for my own son. This picture book is a good start to help explain loss and raise the many questions necessary to start the conversation.”—Serj Tankian, activist, artist, and lead vocalist for System of a Down

INTERGENERATIONAL This story is a reassuring testament to the bond between parent and child, and the love people pass down to future generations through shared stories.

ENCOURAGES In the midst of the current international refugee crisis, stories of refugees and immigrants are an evocative reminder of the importance of showing kindness and empathy to strangers from all walks of life.

UNIVERSAL While this story specifically centers Armenians, it also speaks to a shared experience of many people across the globe. Reckoning with loss after a traumatic event is a common experience that many people can relate to, but the poignancy of this story delivers a powerful message of hope, courage, and remembrance.

UNDERREPRESENTED There are thought to be well over one million Armenians in the U.S., yet there are no known picture books about the Armenian Genocide. This moving portrait of family is a recognition of strength and resilience in the face of oppression, and a loving ode to a thriving community that refused to be silenced.

Perfect ]]> 44 Leila Boukarim 1797213652 Imli 0 to-read 4.46 Lost Words: An Armenian Story of Survival and Hope
author: Leila Boukarim
name: Imli
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]]> <![CDATA[Between God and the Sultan: A History of Islamic Law]]> 745155
Knut S. Vikor introduces the development and practice of Islamic law to a wide students, lawyers, and the growing number of those interested in Islamic civilization. He summarizes the main concepts of Islamic jurisprudence; discusses debates concerning the historicity of Islamic sources of dogma and the dating of early Islamic law; describes the classic practice of the law, in the formulation and elaboration of legal rules and practice in the courts; and sets out various substantive legal rules, on such vital matters as the family and economic activity.]]> 400 Knut S. Vikør 0195223985 Imli 0 to-read 3.96 2005 Between God and the Sultan: A History of Islamic Law
author: Knut S. Vikør
name: Imli
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2005
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]]> <![CDATA[Women and Gender in the Qur'an]]> 56818013
Celene Ibrahim () explores the complex cast of female figures in the Qur'an, probing themes related to biological sex, female sexuality, female speech, and women in sacred history. Stories about gendered social relations permeate the Qur'an, and nearly three hundred verses involve specific women or girls. The Qur'an features these figures in accounts of human origins, in stories of the founding and destruction of nations, in narratives of conquest, in episodes of romantic attraction, and in incidents of family devotion and strife. Overall, stories involving women and girls weave together theology and ethics to reinforce central Qur'anic ideas regarding submission to God and moral accountability.

Ibrahim considers major and minor figures referenced in the Qur'an, including those who appear in narratives of sacred history, in parables, in descriptions of the eternal abode, and in verses that allude to events contemporaneous with the advent of the Qur'an in Arabia. Women and Gender in the Qur'an outlines how women and girls - old, young, barren, fertile, chaste, profligate, reproachable, and saintly-enter Qur'anic sacred history and advance the Qur'an's overarching didactic aims.
]]> 232 Celene Ibrahim Imli 0 women-and-islam, to-read 3.00 Women and Gender in the Qur'an
author: Celene Ibrahim
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]]> <![CDATA[Women in the Mosque: A History of Legal Thought and Social Practice]]> 20483264
Tracing Sunni legal positions on women in mosques from the second century of the Islamic calendar to the modern period, Katz connects shifts in scholarly terminology and argumentation to changing constructions of gender. Over time, assumptions about women's changing behavior through the lifecycle gave way to a global preoccupation with sexual temptation, which then became the central rationale for limits on women's mosque access. At the same time, travel narratives, biographical dictionaries, and religious polemics suggest that women's usage of mosque space often diverged in both timing and content from the ritual models constructed by scholars. Katz demonstrates both the concrete social and political implications of Islamic legal discourse and the autonomy of women's mosque-based activities. She also examines women's mosque access as a trope in Western travelers' narratives and the evolving significance of women's mosque attendance among different Islamic currents in the twentieth century.]]> 432 Marion Holmes Katz 0231162669 Imli 0 to-read, women-and-islam 4.25 2014 Women in the Mosque: A History of Legal Thought and Social Practice
author: Marion Holmes Katz
name: Imli
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2014
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]]> <![CDATA["Believing Women" in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an]]> 530114
Beginning with a historical analysis of religious authority and knowledge, Barlas shows how Muslims came to read inequality and patriarchy into the Qur'an to justify existing religious and social structures and demonstrates that the patriarchal meanings ascribed to the Qur'an are a function of who has read it, how, and in what contexts. She goes on to reread the Qur'an's position on a variety of issues in order to argue that its teachings do not support patriarchy. To the contrary, Barlas convincingly asserts that the Qur'an affirms the complete equality of the sexes, thereby offering an opportunity to theorize radical sexual equality from within the framework of its teachings. This new view takes readers into the heart of Islamic teachings on women, gender, and patriarchy, allowing them to understand Islam through its most sacred scripture, rather than through Muslim cultural practices or Western media stereotypes.]]> 274 Asma Barlas 0292709048 Imli 0 4.27 2002 "Believing Women" in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an
author: Asma Barlas
name: Imli
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2002
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]]> Feminist Edges of the Qur'an 18965323 Feminist Edges of the Qur'an is a vital intervention in urgent conversations about women and the Qur'an.
]]> 288 Aysha A. Hidayatullah 019935958X Imli 0 to-read, women-and-islam 3.97 2014 Feminist Edges of the Qur'an
author: Aysha A. Hidayatullah
name: Imli
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands: Controversies in Modern Qur'anic Commentaries]]> 59450236 Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands brings into conversation the distinct fields of tafsīr (Qur'anic exegesis) studies and women's studies by exploring significant shifts in modern Qur'anic commentaries on the subject of women. Hadia Mubarak places three of the most influential, Sunni Qur'anic commentaries in the twentieth century- Tafsīr al-Manār, Fī Zilāl al-Qur'an, and al-Tahrīr wa'l-Tanwīr - against the backdrop of broader historical, intellectual, and political developments in modern North Africa. Mubarak illustrates the ways in which colonialism, nationalism, and modernization set into motion new ways of engaging with the subject of women in the Qur'an. Focusing her analysis on Qur'anic commentaries as a scholarly genre, Mubarak offers a critical and comparative analysis of these three modern commentaries with seven medieval commentaries, spanning from the ninth to fourteenth centuries, on verses dealing with neglectful husbands (4:128), rebellious wives (4:34), polygyny (4:3), and divorce (2:228). In contrast to assessments of the exegetical tradition as monolithically patriarchal, this book captures a medieval and modern tafsīr tradition with pluralistic, complex, and evolving interpretations of women and gender in the Qur'an. Rather than pit a seemingly egalitarian Qur'an against an allegedly patriarchal exegetical tradition, Mubarak affirms the need for a critical engagement with tafsīr studies among scholars concerned with women and gender in Islam. Mubarak argues that the capacity to bring new meanings to bear on the Qur'an is not only an intellectually viable one but inherent to the exegetical tradition.]]> 368 Hadia Mubarak 0197553303 Imli 0 to-read, women-and-islam 4.47 Rebellious Wives, Neglectful Husbands: Controversies in Modern Qur'anic Commentaries
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name: Imli
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]]> <![CDATA[The Bystander Effect: The Psychology of Courage and Inaction]]> 53479817
Why did no one stop the abduction of Jamie Bulger, despite many witnesses reporting they felt uneasy seeing the two-year-old's distress? How did the USA gymnastics team doctor, Larry Nassar, abuse hundreds of young women under his care for so long? Why didn't anyone intervene when David Dao, an innocent sixty-nine-year-old man, was forcibly removed from his seat on a United Airlines aeroplane and dragged down the aisle by security officers? How did large crowds of men get away with sexually assaulting an estimated 1,200 women in Cologne during the 2015 New Year's Eve celebrations?

In The Bystander Effect, pioneering psychologist Catherine Sanderson uses real-life examples, neuroscience and the latest psychological studies to explain why we might be good at recognising bad behaviour but bad at taking action against it. With practical strategies to transform your thinking, she shows how we can all learn to speak out, intervene, think outside the group mentality and ultimately become braver versions of ourselves.

Courage is not a virtue we're born with. A bystander can learn to be brave.]]> 272 Catherine Sanderson 0008361622 Imli 0 to-read 3.69 2020 The Bystander Effect: The Psychology of Courage and Inaction
author: Catherine Sanderson
name: Imli
average rating: 3.69
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]]> <![CDATA[Sorry for the Inconvenience: A Memoir]]> 207644087 From a Pakistani American author comes a bracing memoir about tradition, upending expectations, and the volatility of family, friendship, and, inevitably, love.

Pakistani American Farah Naz Rishi’s first year of college was perfectly, thankfully, uneventful. After all, she was in college to learn and forge a path of self-sufficiency, especially after her last relationship fell apart—dashing her mother’s aspirations for an early marriage. What could Farah expect, anyway? For the ideal guy to just conveniently waltz into her life? Life isn’t a love story.

Enter Stephen, a Jamaican student with an open smile and a disarmingly laid-back attitude. It’s not love at first sight. And there’s no way Farah’s mother would approve of him as marriage material. But they have something an inexplicable connection. Through a series of impossible tragedies, grief, and trying to find her place in the world, Stephen is always there as Farah’s confidant, champion, and, most of all, best friend. Anything more could ruin a perfectly good thing� Right?

Spanning thirteen years of complex family dynamics and a surprising kinship, Farah Naz Rishi’s story explores the unpredictability of love—familial, platonic, and romantic, but never truly instant.]]> 316 Farah Naz Rishi 1662520964 Imli 0 to-read 4.07 2024 Sorry for the Inconvenience: A Memoir
author: Farah Naz Rishi
name: Imli
average rating: 4.07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy (Oxford Handbooks)]]> 30151741
The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy gives both the advanced student and active scholar in Islamic philosophy, theology, and intellectual history, a strong sense of what a work in Islamic philosophy looks like and a deep view of the issues, concepts, and arguments that are at stake. Most importantly, it provides an up-to-date portrait of contemporary scholarship on Islamic philosophy.]]> 716 Khaled El-Rouayheb 0199917388 Imli 0 to-read 4.10 The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Philosophy (Oxford Handbooks)
author: Khaled El-Rouayheb
name: Imli
average rating: 4.10
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]]> <![CDATA[Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People]]> 201866614 From the National Book Award–winning author of All That She Carried, an intimate and revelatory reckoning with the myth and the truth behind an American everyone knows and few really understand

Harriet Tubman is, if surveys are to be trusted, one of the ten most famous Americans ever born and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she’s a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero—the woman who, despite being barely five feet tall, illiterate, and suffering from a brain injury, managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others north to freedom without loss of life, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some 750 people. You could almost say she’s America’s Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood.

Tiya Miles’s extraordinary Night Flyer changes all that. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman’s life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman’s surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritual wilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs. What emerges, uncannily, is a human being whose mysticism becomes the more palpable the more we understand it—a story that offers us powerful inspiration for our own time of troubles. Harriet Tubman traversed many boundaries, inner and outer. Now, thanks to Tiya Miles, she becomes an even clearer and sharper signal from the past, one that can help us to echolocate a more just and sustainable path.]]> 336 Tiya Miles 0593491165 Imli 0 to-read 4.06 2024 Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People
author: Tiya Miles
name: Imli
average rating: 4.06
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]]> <![CDATA[This Ordinary Stardust: A Scientist's Path from Grief to Wonder]]> 198493750
A decade ago, Dr. Alan Townsend’s family received two unthinkable pieces of catastrophic news: his 4-year-old daughter and his brilliant and vivacious wife developed unrelated, life-threatening forms of brain cancer. As he witnessed his young daughter fight during the courageous final months of her mother’s life, Townsend � a lifelong scientist � was indelibly altered. He began to see scientific inquiry as more than a source of answers to a given problem, but also as a a lens on the world that could help him find peace with the painful realities he could not change. Through scientific wonder, he found ways to bring meaning to his darkest period.

At a time when society’s relationship with science is increasingly polarized while threats to human life on earth continue to rise, Townsend offers a balanced, moving perspective on the common ground between science and religion through the spiritual fulfillment he found in his work. Awash in Townsend's electrifying and breathtaking prose, This Ordinary Stardust offers hope that life can carry on even in the face of near-certain annihilation.]]> 272 Alan Townsend 1538741180 Imli 0 to-read 4.11 2024 This Ordinary Stardust: A Scientist's Path from Grief to Wonder
author: Alan Townsend
name: Imli
average rating: 4.11
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]]> <![CDATA[A Fatal Inheritance: How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery]]> 198902282 Named a best book of the year by Amazon and Kirkus

Weaving his own moving family story with a sweeping history of cancer research, Lawrence Ingrassia delivers an intimate, gripping tale that sits at the intersection of memoir and medical thriller

Ingrassia lost his mother, two sisters, brother, and nephew to cancer—different cancers developing at different points throughout their lives. And while highly unusual, his family is not the only one to wonder whether their heartbreak is the result of unbelievable bad luck, or if there might be another explanation.

Through meticulous research and riveting storytelling, Ingrassia takes us from the 1960s—when Dr. Frederick Pei Li and Dr. Joseph Fraumeni Jr. first met, not yet knowing that they would help make a groundbreaking discovery that would affect cancer patients for decades to come—to present day, as Ingrassia and countless others continue to unpack and build upon Li and Fraumeni’s initial discoveries, and to understand what this means for their families.

In the face of seemingly unbearable loss, Ingrassia holds onto hope. He urges us to “fight like Charlie,� his nephew who battled cancer his entire life starting with a rare tumor in his cheek at the age of two—and to look toward the future, as gene sequencing, screening protocols, CRISPR gene editing, and other developing technologies may continue to extend lifespans and perhaps, one day, even offer cures.]]> 320 Lawrence Ingrassia 1250837227 Imli 0 to-read 4.27 2024 A Fatal Inheritance: How a Family Misfortune Revealed a Deadly Medical Mystery
author: Lawrence Ingrassia
name: Imli
average rating: 4.27
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]]> <![CDATA[Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject]]> 66421

Not only is this book a sensitive ethnography of a critical but largely ignored dimension of the Islamic revival, it is also an unflinching critique of the secular-liberal principles by which some people hold such movements to account. The book addresses three central How do movements of moral reform help us rethink the normative liberal account of politics? How does the adherence of women to the patriarchal norms at the core of such movements parochialize key assumptions within feminist theory about freedom, agency, authority, and the human subject? How does a consideration of debates about embodied religious rituals among Islamists and their secular critics help us understand the conceptual relationship between bodily form and political imaginaries? Politics of Piety is essential reading for anyone interested in issues at the nexus of ethics and politics, embodiment and gender, and liberalism and postcolonialism.]]> 233 Saba Mahmood 0691086958 Imli 0 to-read 4.17 2004 Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
author: Saba Mahmood
name: Imli
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2004
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]]> <![CDATA[Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report]]> 25885765
The plight of religious minorities in the Middle East is often attributed to the failure of secularism to take root in the region. Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges this assessment by examining four cornerstones of secularism―political and civil equality, minority rights, religious freedom, and the legal separation of private and public domains.

Drawing on her extensive fieldwork in Egypt with Coptic Orthodox Christians and Bahais―religious minorities in a predominantly Muslim country―Saba Mahmood shows how modern secular governance has exacerbated religious tensions and inequalities rather than reduced them. Tracing the historical career of secular legal concepts in the colonial and postcolonial Middle East, she explores how contradictions at the very heart of political secularism have aggravated and amplified existing forms of Islamic hierarchy, bringing minority relations in Egypt to a new historical impasse. Through a close examination of Egyptian court cases and constitutional debates about minority rights, conflicts around family law, and controversies over freedom of expression, Mahmood invites us to reflect on the entwined histories of secularism in the Middle East and Europe.

A provocative work of scholarship, Religious Difference in a Secular Age challenges us to rethink the promise and limits of the secular ideal of religious equality.]]> 248 Saba Mahmood 0691153280 Imli 0 to-read 4.28 2015 Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report
author: Saba Mahmood
name: Imli
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
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]]> A Dutiful Boy 49442346 A coming of age memoir about growing up queer in a strict Muslim household. Like Educated with a modern British context.

Mohsin grew up in a deprived pocket of east London; his family was close-knit but very religiously conservative. From a young age Mohsin felt different but in a home where being gay was inconceivable he also felt very alone. Outside of home Mohsin went to a failing inner city school where gang violence was a fact of life.

As he grew up life didn’t seem to offer teenage Mohsin any choices: he was disenfranchised as a poor, brown boy, and he was isolated from his family as a closet gay Muslim.

However Mohsin had incredible drive and he used education as a way out of his home life and to throw himself into a new kind of life. He became the first person from his school to go to Oxford University and there he found the freedom to come out to his friends.

But Oxford was a whole different world with its own huge challenges and Mohsin found himself increasingly conflicted. It came to a head when Mohsin went back to visit his parents only to be confronted by his father and a witchdoctor he'd invited to 'cure' Mohsin.

Although Mohsin's story takes harrowing turns it is full of life and humour, and it ends inspiringly. Through his irrepressible spirit Mohsin breaks through emotional and social barriers and in the end he even finds acceptance from his family.

Now Mohsin is a top criminal barrister who fights large-scale cases on a daily basis. Having faced battles growing up, he truly understands the importance of justice as a way of life.]]> 288 Mohsin Zaidi 1529110157 Imli 0 4.56 2020 A Dutiful Boy
author: Mohsin Zaidi
name: Imli
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2020
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]]> <![CDATA[The Gulag Doctors: Life, Death, and Medicine in Stalin's Labour Camps]]> 188531504
A byword for injustice, suffering, and mass mortality, the Gulag exploited prisoners, compelling them to work harder for better rations in shocking conditions. From 1930 to 1953, eighteen million people passed through this penal-industrial empire. Many inmates, not reaching their quotas, succumbed to exhaustion, emaciation, and illness.

It seems paradoxical that any medical care was available in the camps. But it was in fact ubiquitous. By 1939 the Gulag Sanitary Department employed 10,000 doctors, nurses and paramedics—about 40 percent of whom were prisoners.

Dan Healey explores the lives of the medical staff who treated inmates in the Gulag. Doctors and nurses faced extremes of repression, supply shortages, and isolation. Yet they still created hospitals, re-fed prisoners, treated diseases, and “saved� a proportion of their patients. They taught apprentices and conducted research too. This groundbreaking account offers an unprecedented view of Stalin’s forced-labour camps as experienced by its medical staff.]]> 368 Dan Healey 0300187130 Imli 0 to-read 4.00 The Gulag Doctors: Life, Death, and Medicine in Stalin's Labour Camps
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]]> The Empathy Exams 17934655 The Empathy Exams is a bold and brilliant collection; winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize.

Beginning with her experience as a medical actor who was paid to act out symptoms for medical students to diagnose, Leslie Jamison’s visceral and revealing essays ask essential questions about our basic understanding of others: How should we care about each other? How can we feel another’s pain, especially when pain can be assumed, distorted, or performed? Is empathy a tool by which to test or even grade each other? By confronting pain—real and imagined, her own and others’—Jamison uncovers a personal and cultural urgency to feel. She draws from her own experiences of illness and bodily injury to engage in an exploration that extends far beyond her life, spanning wide-ranging territory—from poverty tourism to phantom diseases, street violence to reality television, illness to incarceration—in its search for a kind of sight shaped by humility and grace.]]> 230 Leslie Jamison 1555976719 Imli 0 to-read 3.68 2014 The Empathy Exams
author: Leslie Jamison
name: Imli
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2014
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]]> All My Rage 61079848

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2022
Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature WINNER
An INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

'A gorgeous, star-crossed story . . . I read this in a single day' Jodi Picoult

'This book will stay with me for a long time to come' Nicola Yoon

'All My Rage is an unflinching, profound force that will rattle your heart and toughen your soul' Adam Silvera

Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.

Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.

Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah's health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing working at her wrathful uncle's liquor store while hiding the fact that she's applying to college so she can escape him - and Juniper - forever.

When Sal's attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth - and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.

From one of today's most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness - one that's both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.

'All My Rage is a love story, a tragedy and an infectious teenage fever dream about what home means when you feel you don't fit in' New York Times Book Review

'Searing. Riveting. Beautiful. All My Rage takes the reader on an unforgettable journey into the heart of love. Exploring the painful truths of hidden traumas and the crush of broken dreams, Sabaa Tahir shows us the healing, redemptive power of forgiveness, of hope, of connection in her stunning contemporary debut' Samira Ahmed, New York Times bestselling author of Internment

'This is the kind of book that positively climbs into your bones and steals your breath in the very best way' Buzzfeed Books

'The first-person prose vibrates with adolescent intensity - of grief, desire, and above all searing rage' Entertainment Weekly]]> 383 Sabaa Tahir 0349125252 Imli 0 4.43 2022 All My Rage
author: Sabaa Tahir
name: Imli
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2022
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]]> The Sublime Quran 81249 768 Anonymous 1567447503 Imli 0 quran-tafseer, to-read 4.16 632 The Sublime Quran
author: Anonymous
name: Imli
average rating: 4.16
book published: 632
rating: 0
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]]>