Jan 2018 – The Hotel on the Roof of the World
The Hotel on the Roof of the World; Five Years in Tibet By Alec Le Sueur Alec Le Sueur depicts his time in Tibet from 1988 till 1993 in this travelogue. He was sent to Lhasa as a sales manager for the Holiday Inn, which was in those days the only hotel of international standing […]
Nov 2017 The Feast of Roses
The Feast of Roses (Taj Mahal Trilogy #2), by Indu Sundaresan Most of the book group members had read the book even though some of us were not able to attend the meeting. They really enjoyed the book and rated it 8 out of 10. In our previous reading years – I think two years […]
Oct 2017 – ‘The Sympathizer’
‘The Sympathizer’ by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Book Group 1 October 27th 2017 The Sympathizer is a Pulitzer prizewinning novel about the Vietnam War, written by Vietnamese American author, Viet Thanh Nguyen. It tells the story of an unnamed Vietcong spy deeply embedded undercover as a senior personal aide to an influential South Vietnamese general. He […]
Sep 2017 – The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul
The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul by Deborah Rodriguez Book Group 2 – September 2017 Sunny and her partner, Tommy, are American and Tommy works away from Kabuldoing secret mercenary work. Sunny is on her own whilst Tommy is away and so decides to take on running the coffee shop as a project to keep […]
Aug 2017 – Rooftops of Tehran
Rooftops of Tehran by Mahbod Seraji In a middle class neighbourhood of Tehran, 17 year old Pasha spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, joking and talking about the future. Even as Pasha asks burning questions about life he also wrestles with a crushing secret. He has fallen in […]
Aug 2017 – Half the Sky
Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn American, husband and wife reporters, Nicholas and Sheryl wrote this ground breaking book in 2009; highlighting the unimaginable hurdles many women around the world (although this book focuses mostly on Africa and Asia) deal with day to day. It discusses how charities and the Western […]
Jun, 2017 – In the Light of What We Know
In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman In the Light of What We Know, published in 2014, is a debut novel from Zia Haider Rahman. Set in 2008, it deals with the friendship of Zafar and the narrator (who remains nameless) that goes back to their days together at Oxford in […]
May 2017 – Wolf Totem
In 1969, a young Chinese intellectual from Beijing, Jiang Rong, answered Chairman Mao’s call for city dwellers to go “up to the mountains and down to the countryside,” and travelled to one of China’s most “primitive” places, north-central Inner Mongolia. The city dwellers, some going voluntarily, some forced, were to learn from the rural workers. […]
Apr 2017 – 1421 The Year China Discovered America
Gavin Menzies in 1421 The Year China Discovered America claimed that Admiral Zheng He (Cheng Ho) and his Treasure Ships sailed all over the world between 1421 and 1423. He expends 500+ pages attempting to prove this hypothesis using numerous maps and other ‘evidence’. As a former submarine commander, he claims to have the knowledge […]