Afleveringen
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Winner of the 2024 Booker Prize, Samantha Harvey's novel follows six astronauts onboard a spacecraft that's orbiting the Earth. This is a beautifully written book that puts its readers face-to-face with the obscurity of our existence.
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Daphne Du Maurier's classic novel is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator who marries Maxim De Winter and becomes the new mistress of Manderley. We follow her as she tries to navigate living in his first wife, Rebecca’s, shadow, and ultimately uncovering the mystery of her tragic death.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Emily Bronte's epic novel is set among the Yorkshire moors in the late 18th and early 19th century. Kathy and Heathcliff, two sadistic and unhinged individuals, are madly in love but could never be together in life.
"My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and HE remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it."
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Books mentioned:
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
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Oscar Wilde's only published novel and one of my favourite books of all time.
“"How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrid, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it was only the other way! If it was I who were to be always young, and the picture that were to grow old! For this--for this--I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!"”
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Erich Maria Remarque's classic novel follows a young German soldier named Paul who is sent to the frontline during WWI in Germany’s fight against France. This is one of the most important novels about WWI, not just because of how incredibly well written it is, but because it was one of the first texts to show the true face of WWI, away from the romanticisation of war and patriotism. It’s a true anti-war novel that reflects the brutal realities of trench warfare.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel follows a young Nigerian woman named Ifemelu who, at the age of 19, moves to America from Nigeria for her education. As she tries to navigate the complexities of life as a Black African immigrant, she becomes aware of race and her own blackness more soberly than she ever had before in her life.
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story | TED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg&t=568s
Book mentioned:
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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Khaled Hosseini's novel is set in Afghanistan and opens in the early 1970s. The story takes place over a 30 year period and follows two main characters, Mariam and Laila, co-wives to an extremely abusive man named Rasheed. This is a beautifully written novel that reflects the reality of a life lived in the shadow of shame.
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Books mentioned:
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
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Patrick Grant's book is about the crisis of consumption and quality in fashion. He looks at how we might make ourselves happier by rediscovering the joy of living with fewer, better quality things.
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Community Clothing: https://communityclothing.co.uk/
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Milan Kundera's novel follows a Czech surgeon named Tomas and his wife Tereza between the late 1960s and early 1970s. It takes place mainly in Prague during the Prague Spring of 1968, which was a period of political reform in Czechoslovakia. This is an inherently philosophical novel, the title is a reference to notions of lightness and weight as they relate to human existence. Kundera asserts that life occurs only once, without repetition, making it "light" and fleeting because actions can’t be undone or judged by eternal consequences.
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Book mentioned:
Unbearable Lightness by Portia De Rossi
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The story takes place on Manor Farm, where the animals are subjected to harsh, exploitative treatment by the human owner. One day, the animals have had enough, and through a rebellion manage to overthrow the farmer and take control of Manor Farm, which they rename Animal Farm. George Orwell intended this novel as an allegory of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent rise of Stalinism in the Soviet Union. Through the novel, Orwell was putting forward a critique of Soviet totalitarianism and the betrayal of revolutionary ideals. These were direct responses to the political climate of the time.
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Book mentioned:
1984 by George Orwell
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There are a lot of books about the history of humankind, many of which are written from an evolutionary biological perspective, but Yuval Noah Harari is not a scientist, he's a historian. So he’s not coming up with anything new about the history of humankind, he’s simply observing theories that already exist and putting them under the philosophical microscope. His train of thought and the different tangents he takes you on in order to explain an evolutionary concept is brilliant. He has this uncanny ability of tying evolutionary biology with social science.
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Book mentioned:Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
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This is one of Gibran Khalil Gibran's most famous books, it's composed of 26 prose-poetry fables. A prophet named Al Mustafa has been living in the city of Orphalese for 12 years and he’s about to board a ship that’s taking him home, but just as he’s about to leave, a group of people stop him and ask him to give them some final words of wisdom on matters relating to the human condition.
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Books mentioned:
The Conscious Parent by Dr. Shefali Tsabary
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
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John O’Brien is a sociologist and lecturer at New York University in Abu Dhabi. He spent three and a half years conducting an ethnographic study of a group of Muslim teenagers coming of age in post-9/11 America, and this book is the result of his research. Over the span of three and a half years, he follows 7 boys who were between the ages of 11 and 17 when his research began and he observes how they navigate the complexities of being both American teenagers and good Muslims. Spoiler alert, his main thesis and conclusions are pretty weak.
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Written by Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These follows Bill Furlong in the days leading up to Christmas in 1985. As he's dropping off a delivery of coal at the local convent, he discovers something that haunts him. The convent is essentially a mother and baby home, one of the many notorious laundries run by the Irish Catholic church for decades.
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Conversation with Mary:
https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/june-2024-in-conversation-with-the-wonderful-mary-obrien/
Books mentioned:
Foster by Claire Keegan
The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith
Film mentioned:
Philomena
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A historical realist novel by Nobel Laureate, Naguib Mahfouz. Set in the 1940s, the novel revolves around various characters who live, trade and beg in a bustling alley in the backstreets of Cairo. Through this microcosm of broader society, Mahfouz reflects the changes that were taking place in Egyptian society at the time.
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Film mentioned:
The Alley of Miracles
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Frank McCourt was an Irish-American writer and Teacher. He recounts a childhood of utter destitution and extreme poverty, between the early 1930s until the late 1940s. When they were in New York his family struggled quite a lot as the great depression had just started, but things took a turn for the worse when they moved to Limerick in Ireland.
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Books mentioned:
‘Tis by Frank McCourt
Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
Article about Angela’s Ashes: https://www.irishpost.com/entertainment/angelas-ashes-7-things-may-not-know-pulitzer-prize-winning-memoir-author-169766#:~:text=Paddy%20Malone%2C%20a%20schoolmate%20of,'misery'%20of%20Limerick%20city.
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Dr. Denis Mukwege is a gynaecologist from The Democratic Republic of The Congo, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his incredible services to survivors of rape, and his global campaigns to end the use of rape as a weapon of war. In his book, he recounts his experience in treating women with injuries caused by sexual violence. He named the book The Power of Women as a tribute to the thousands of women he has treated over the years who have confronted some of the darkest circumstances imaginable but still find the courage to carry on and find meaning in life.
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Oprah’s interview with Dr. Mukwege: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dr-mukwege-the-power-of-women/id1264843400?i=1000542177023
Panzi Foundation: https://panzifoundation.org/
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Jonathan Haidth is a sociologist, and in this book he examines the decline in mental health among adolescents around the world. He observes the link between the rise in depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide with the introduction of smart phones in 2010. He offers plenty of evidence and statistics that suggest this rise in mental health issues among people is in large part due to, what he calls, ‘the great rewiring of childhood’.
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Book mentioned:
Stolen Focus by Johan Hari
Further materials:
anxiousgeneration.com The Online Supplement: anxiousgeneration.com/supplementThe After Babel Substack: afterbabel.com -
Educated is Tara Westover's memoir. She grew up in a super conservative Mormon family in Idaho in the United States. She details a very unusual upbringing. Her family had a deeply seeded distrust towards the government, they didn’t believe in modern medicine or the public school system. The book is essentially a story of her metamorphosis, how she leaves the bubble she was brought up in and goes out into the real world, only to have everything she’s ever known challenged. Without a formal education, Tara ends up attending university at the age of 17, and then goes on to attend Harvard University, as well as Cambridge University where she obtains her PhD.
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Tara’s interview with Oprah: https://podcasts.apple.com/jo/podcast/super-soul/id1264843400?i=1000437295457
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Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail is Malika Oufkir's first memoir. It is a full account of her unlawful and unjust political incarceration at the age of 19, along with her mother and five siblings, in various squalid desert prisons across Morocco. For over two decades, they suffered from starvation and diseases in isolation as punishment for their father's attempt to overthrow King Hassan II in 1972.
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Ahmed Marzouki’s ten part interview on Al Jazeera: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFF3C67C9E43201CA
Malika’s interview with Oprah: https://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/after-the-show-with-malika-oufkir-transcript/all
Books mentioned:
Tazmamart: Cellule 10 by Ahmed MarzoukiTazmamart: 18 Years in Morocco’s Secret Prison by Aziz BineBineFreedom: The Story of My Second Life by Malika Oufkir - Laat meer zien
