relationships

Book 37 for 2026: “Women Without Men”, Shahrnush Parsipur

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Shahrnush Parsipur, a renowned Iranian writer, died this summer at the age of 80. In Iran her fiction was considered subversive, so much so that she was imprisoned repeatedly (one time for nearly five years) by both the Shah and the Islamic Republic. This year, this novel, Women Without Men, was published for the first time in the UK and was long listed for the Booker Prize. Her prison memoir will be published in 2027.

“Women Without Men” is set in Tehran during the 1953 coup d’stat. It links the stories of five women who seek refuge from patriarchal oppression in a garden. However, before they “find” the garden, their varied lives from upper class to prostitute to rural peasant demonstrate the hypocrisy and oppression toward women in Iran. This novel, like several other Iranian novels I have read, contains elements of magical realism, e.g. mind reading and the ability to fly. Much of the novel also contains elements of satire. I found myself laughing .

With the exception of a somewhat eccentric gardener, the men in the novel are not portrayed in a very favorable light. For example, one 40 year old man insists on marrying a much younger woman because he thinks she must be a virgin and chaste and rejects an older woman who actually cares for him. The real virgin is the older woman, not the one he marries.

Although the novel focuses on Iranian society, many of the themes apply worldwide wherever there are issues of class, women’s rights, oppression of the poor, etc.

Book 36 for 2026: “Supersaurio”, Meryem El Mehdati

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Several weeks ago I wrote a post about young people and asked if the problems they are having are global. It is this novel which caused me to ask that question. The author lives in Gran Canario, the largest of the Canary Islands which is the setting of this novel. The novel is written in first person from the viewpoint of Meryem, a twenty-five year old young woman who at the beginning of the novel is still living with her parents because she cannot afford a place of her own. She has a college degree and speaks multiple languages but cannot find a good job even close to what she thought she would be doing at twenty-five when she was younger. She is unhappy and disappointed.

She acquires an internship with Supersaurio, the largest super market chain in the Canary Islands. She finds the work boring and tedious. She cannot stand her boss, a woman 20 or so years older, a woman who will not even look at Meryem when she is talking to her and who never bothers to learn to pronounce Meryem’s name correctly even though Meryem explains repeatedly. Nevertheless, Meryem endures, produces excellent work and never complains–at least not at work. However, as she informs the reader endlessly, she hates her job, feels her colleagues look down on her, and nothing is going ok. To pass time she writes fiction about her work mates, tries to find a nice guy to date, and because she needs the money, keeps working.

As the novel progresses, her life does sort of get better and she adjusts sort of, but you have to read it to find out.

I kept thinking the same thing over and over–how is her life different from that of a lot of young people in the US? Meryem seems to think it is because of where she lives at least in part and because the island is dependent on Spain and tourism, but are these the real causes?? Do a lot of young people in Europe and other places in the world feel as she does, struggle to “make it”?

Book 35 for 2026: “Warlight”, Michael Ondaatje

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Many will know this writer from his Booker Prize winning novel “The English Patient” and many have seen the movie even if they did not read the book.

“Warlight” takes place mostly just after WWII but is a totally different angle than any other WWII novel I have read. The scene is England, actually London and locales nearby. Two teenagers, a brother and sister, have their seemingly ordinary life totally upended when their parents announce they are leaving them with the man who lives in rooms at the top of their house. The two teens refer to this man as The Moth. The teens, Nathanial and Rachel, begin to think The Moth and his friends may be criminals given their strange goings and comings. They still go to school. Nathanial finds some jobs via The Moth and meets a girl at one of them. Her brother is in real estate. Nathanial and she hang out and have adventures in the empty for sale houses. The brother and sister do discover that their mother worked with The Moth during the war. Otherwise, they know little.

Eventually, their mother returns with no explaining about where she was or what she was doing. They never see their father again and have no clue what happened to him. Rachel is so angry about this that she has little to do with the mother and only sees Nathanial occasionally. Years later Nathaniel acquires a job where he is able to discover who his mother really is, what she had been doing for years, and what happened to her and others with whom she was close.

This novel reveals how little we sometimes know about others, the effects of their secrets, and how behavior good or bad leads to consequences often unexpected.

I’ve read several of the author’s novels and always find them complex and enlightening, sometimes revealing worlds about which I have little or no knowledge.

Is the Problem Young People Are Having Global?

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Earlier today I am sitting in a coffee shop in Claremont, California, drinking horchata and eating tiny donuts, a specialty of this shop. I look around and realize I must be at least 4 times older than the average age of most of the other customers–it is a college town. Three library books form a stack in front of me as I decide which one to open first. I pick up “Supersaurio” by Meryem El Mehdati, a young author who was born in Morocco but lives in the largest of the Canary Islands which is the setting of this, her first novel.

The main character is also named Meryem, just like the author. She is twenty five, a college graduate, unable to find the job of her dreams so she is stuck in an internship at the largest super market chain in the Canary Islands. She hates her boss, finds her job dreadfully boring, and wonders if life is worth it, if she would choose to be born if she had a choice. “I’m not at all what I thought I’d grown up to be. I was convinced I would…succeed. That I’d become a financially independent adult.” She’s not. “I for one don’t know where heaven is anymore, or hell.” I’ve gleaned all this in just the first seven pages as I sit here watching all these young people getting their drinks and others on their computers or chatting. The nearby Claremont Colleges are top colleges with high tuitions. I’ve heard the news, heard young people comment, their frustrations. Yesterday, on the news I heard a young woman from a good college in the Southeast with an electrical engineering degree and good grades say she had sent out over 400 applications and nothing. She’s wondering if AI is a factor. Then they interviewed some top professor who had no advice except for her to hang in there. Really. Is this supposed to make her feel better? On another bit of news I heard that 25% of those looking for employment have been looking for at least six months.

What stuck me is this: If I did not know the setting for this novel is in the Canary Islands, I would have thought it is in the US. It sounds exactly like what I hear on the news, from individual young people. What will the future hold for them and not just in the US, globally?

Book 33 for 2026: “The Stationery Shop”, Marjan Kamali

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I said I was going to read all her novels. This one is the middle novel but they are not a series. The time span in this one goes from 1913 to 2013. The political events are more detailed in this novel, including how the toppling of Mossadegh by the Shah’s forces and Britain and US, the later revolution, and the Iran-Iraq War affects various characters and their families. The novel’s title comes from the stationery shop owned by Mr. Fakhri where the other two main characters in the novel meet when both are 17. They love books and fall in love via their visits to this shop. Then the events of 1953 occur, family’s histories create havoc, and people’s pasts catch up with them in unexpected ways.

This novel also goes into greater depth about how Persian traditions affect lives, how much social class matters, arranged versus love matches, modern families versus more traditional families and how all these issues affect individual lives for better or worse. As in the others, the reader learns a lot about Persian food with some details as to how to make various dishes–no recipes, just descriptions. My reaction to the events and characters in this novel were stronger than for the others. I would even call this novel a sort of tear jerker if you are inclined to react emotionally to what you read.

Note: I recommend all three of her novels. They are entertaining, well written, and an excellent way to learn a lot about the last 80 or so years of Iranian history that still affects all of us.

Book 32 for 2026: “Together Tea”, Marjan Kamali

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The previous book I read is the author’s most recent novel. This one is her first novel published in 2013. Like the Lion Women novel, this one tells the story of Iranian families. When the novel begins in 1996, an Iranian couple who have lived in NYC for decades are trying to find a man for their daughter to marry. Well, the mother is, not so much the father, who is a successful doctor. He has adapted very well to the US, is into self help books, optimistic and enthusiastic. Although she has a job she likes, she misses Iran.

Part II begins in 1978 when their children are younger–they have two older sons and a younger daughter–and the Shah’s power is crumbling but its sequence is in question. Some of their relatives suddenly become so religious that they hardly recognize them. Then the revolution occurs, their daughter’s school has become all girls with mandatory hijab. Then the Iran/Iraq war occurs and the grandmother is killed by an Iraqi bomb while out buying pomegranates. They cover their windows with aluminum foil so Iraqi pilots cannot see the lights in houses. Finally, in desperation they leave for NYC after medical colleagues the father knows in NYC help them find a place there. While studying to take the test for his US medical license the dad works in a pizza parlor making pizza.

Then back to 1996, the daughter, Mina, decides she needs to visit Iran even though her father does everything he can to dissuade her. Mother, who still misses Iran and her family there, decides it is ok if she goes too. This part of the novel relates their visit to Iran, Mina’s reconnecting to her best friend who never left, how people there manage to live double lives with parties, Western clothes, and alcohol at home, but hijab and conservative behavior in public, including avoiding the morality police.

Like her other novel, this one is a good way to learn recent Iranian history while learning about Iranian food, family, friendship, love, and every day life.

Book 31 for 2026: “The Lion Women of Tehran”, Marjan Kamali

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This novel narrates the lives of two women who became best friends in elementary school in Tehran in the 1950s. One, Elaheh, who has lived in luxury until the death of her father forces her and her mother to move to a poor part of the city. Two, Homa, a rambunctious seven year old who lives nearby. Elaheh’s mother has no choice but to enroll her in the nearby public school where they meet and become best friends against the objection of Elaheh’s mother who thinks the people there are tacky and beneath her. Because Elaheh’s (Ellie) prefers to spend time at Homa’s house where there is an entire family–father, mother, children, who are warm and loving, her mother does various things to keep her from Homa’s family. It does not work and Homa’s mother teaches Ellie how to cook and they treat her as one of the own.

Their happy friendship is disrupted when Ellie’s mother marries her former husband’s brother and they move back to the wealthy part of town and Ellie is enrolled in one of the best schools in Tehran. Ellie works hard at her studies and becoming popular and succeeds. She is very embarrassed when Homa gets a scholarship to this school and shows up. Nevertheless, they reestablish their friendship and everything seems to go well until political turmoil occurs. They finish high school and enroll in the University of Tehran. Then betrayal and disaster ensues.

I could not stop reading because of the story. For those who know little of Iranian history in the last 100 years, through the events in the novel, the reader not only learns how difficult life can be in Iran but also a lot of recent Iranian history. It reveals the determination of Iranians to live the best they can regardless of the circumstances and how life can change instantly because of someone’s misguided words. After I finished this novel, I went to the library and requested Kamali’s other two novels.

Book 30 for 2026: “A Rift in Time”, Raja Shehadeh

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Written in 2010 this nonfiction work follows the author on a journey as he attempts to reenact the journey his great-great uncle made to escape the police of the Ottoman Empire as it was disintegrating in the early 1900s. Unlike now when the countries of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Israel have borders and you have to have permission to cross, then they were all part of the Ottoman Empire with no borders. The only countries at the time that were not part of the Ottoman Empire were Iran and a lot of the peninsula of what is now Saudi Arabia. The fact that all these new countries have borders made it difficult for the author to exactly follow his ancestor’s travels.

The author, a Palestinian Christian who is also a leading Palestinian lawyer, lived in the West Bank when he wrote this memoir. The uncle was a journalist in the late 1800s and died just before the existence of Israel occurred. As Shehadeh travels, he notes how the landscape has changed. Israeli authorities have destroyed most of the old Palestinian villages. Where their small farms, olive groves, etc. existed, the Israelis have created large, mechanized farms. He notes that these farms use a lot of irrigation and have caused the water table to go down and made changes to the Jordan River and Dead Sea.

While visiting the old places and people he can find that might know of his relative, he also discusses Palestinian history and the history of the creation of Israel. Britain wanted the help of Zionist Jews to help defeat the Ottoman Turks who had allied themselves with the Germans in WWI. To get their help they created the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which promised the Zionists that they would help them create a homeland of their own in what was then Palestine. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, what was Palestine and now Israel was ruled for decades by the British–the British Mandate (1920-1948). The author’s uncle predicted much of what occurred and actually wanted the Ottomans to continues ruling but differently, giving each group of people more self-governing power. Instead we now have countries many of whose borders were created by the British and French.

Book 29 for 2026: “The God of Small Things”, Arundhati Roy

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The Booker Prize winner from decades ago, I decided to reread it (I read it when it was first published) after reading the author’s recent memoir. It is1969 in the southern Indian state of Kerala where a substantial proportion of the population belong to the Syrian Christian church. Does this keep them from adhering to the Indian caste system? No. Caste, wealth, social status, property–they all still matter.

The main characters are one family: Ammu and her twin children who love the wrong man according to their society, the blind grandmother who plays Handel on her violin, their uncle who was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and married and then divorced an English woman, their child, and an ex-nun grandaunt who is not a nice person and cannot get over her love for a priest. And then there are their servants and the man, an Untouchable, who is the brilliant carpenter, mechanic, fixer of everything. When the half English child and her mother come to visit after her new husband’s untimely death, everything changes in a day.

Even though written decades ago, the novel is definitely worth the read. Although the details and cultural representations are true to one particular area of India and its culture, the novel’s themes ring true for all cultures and countries, themes of Love, Joy, Hate, Prejudice, Hope.

Note: I also decided to research how much the caste system has changed life in the decades since it was written. In urban areas with new laws there is more leniency regarding rights especially for work and education, but people still usually marry those from the same caste. Rural areas have not changed much to the point that many villages still have a specific area where the Dalits (Untouchables) have to live.

Book 28 for 2026: “One Amazing Thing”, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

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One afternoon nine people are in a passport and visa office in a US city–a teenager and her Chinese grandmother, an elderly white couple, an African American with a military past, a young Muslim still struggling with the aftermath of 9/11, a young Indian graduate student. Suddenly, an earthquake traps them together with two workers from this office. There is little water and little food. They argue about what is the best strategy to survive. The two young men almost come to blows. Finally, they agree on some strategies on how to share the meager supplies. After a bit they notice a water leak and that the water is slowly rising. They stack chairs on tables as the water rises higher and higher. As tensions increase, the graduate student suggests they tell one amazing thing from their lives to distract them as the water keeps rising.

The novel then relates each person’s story and the reactions of the others to the stories. Some stories are quite heart wrenching of cruel families, others endearing and joyful. The stories enable them to quit most of the bickering and work on their survival