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A full cup of tea, a blank page and time. Sometimes it’s hard to get the timing right, but I like to celebrate whenever it happens. ☕️🧣🗒 (I realise I’ve used up some of my sacred writing time instagramming so 👋🏼) . . . #bookstagram #writersofinstagram #writingcommunity #writing #books #bookish #readersofinstagram #timetowrite #bookstagrammer #booksandtea

Stormy day in Lahore. Hope everyone can find safe shelter. ⛈☔️ . . . #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #booksofinstagram #rainyday #readersofinstagram #reading #booksandcoffee #booksbooksbooks #readingtime #readeverywhere #bookcommunity #readersofig #readersofinsta #instareads #igreads #instabooks

Between the World and Me is written as a letter by Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son. Coates’s prose is charged with emotion, fear, honesty, and poise as he attempts to share with his son what he knows about being a black man in America. His love for his son jumps up from every page, but also fear on his behalf. Coates does not wish to protect or shield his young son from hard truths about the world they live in and the responsibilities that come with discovering them. To me, this was the perfect book to begin the year. — “I am speaking to you as I always have—as the sober and serious man I have always wanted you to be, who does not apologize for his human feelings, who does not make excuses for his height, his long arms, his beautiful smile. You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable. None of that can change the math anyway. I never wanted you to be twice as good as them, so much as I have always wanted you to attack every day of your brief bright life in struggle. The people who must believe they are white can never be your measuring stick. I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates’s words moved me so much I had to struggle to hold back the lump in my throat as I sat reading in a café. My own words won’t do, so I’ll quote Toni Morrison’s instead: — “I’ve been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates. The language of Between the World and Me, likes Coates’s journey, is visceral, eloquent, and beautifully redemptive. And its examination of the hazards and hopes of black male life is as profound as it is revelatory. This is required reading.” — #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #books #tanehisicoates #betweentheworldandme #bookish #igreads #booksofinstagram #readersofinstagram #reading #bookcommunity

“The last few years have taught me to suspend my desire for a conclusion, to assume that nothing is static and that renegotiation will be perpetual, to hope primarily that little truths will keep emerging in time.” @jiatortellini The events of the last few years have made it seem like the world has gone nuts, and it has. In this collection of essays, Jia Tolentino has managed to still some of the chaos and lay it out with insight and an enviable way with words. A few essays stand out, especially the opening essay on “The I in Internet” – in which she writes about how the internet has swallowed our identities and has come to be seen as an accurate reflection of what the world truly is. Obviously, this isn’t true at all. What we see on our timelines is curated for us by algorithms based on what we like and do, with the result that “all news and culture and interpersonal interaction are filtered… to further reinforce our own sense of identity” and our beliefs. “It’s as if we’ve been placed on a lookout that oversees the entire world and given a pair of binoculars that makes everything look like our own reflection.” . I also loved the part about how the internet “collapses identity, opinion, and action” with the result that “on Twitter, making a righteous political statement has come to seem, for many people, like a political action in itself.” . My other favourite part was Tolentino’s critique of “pop feminism” – the Girl Bosses who are Leaning In, where becoming individually rich and successful is seen as a feminist project (as opposed to a capitalist one). . It was rewarding to see an intelligent person articulate with clarity and confidence all the things you’ve sort of thought about in passing over the last few years – from Silicon Valley scams and Trump’s election to the “Cult of the Difficult Woman” and rape on university campuses. You should read it. #bookstagram #trickmirror #jiatolentino #books #bookstagrammer #igreads #booksofinstagram #bookish #readersofinstagram #instareads

Presenting the best books I DIDN’T read this year (but wanted to). The end of one year and the beginning of another is arbitrary, but it still leaves you with a sense of an ending, and with that comes everything that was left undone — or in this case, unread. I think it’s important to remind myself that December 31st is not a deadline. I would love to know what books you wanted to read this year but couldn’t get to. Write it in the comments below or post your own picture of #bestbooksididntreadin2019. Let’s bond over what still remains to be done/read, and know that it’s okay to carry some of our unfinished business with us into the new year. #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookish #bestreads2019 #booksididntread #tbr #igreads #readersofinstagram #reading #books #booksbooksbooks #booksofinstagram #bookcommunity #readingchallenge #reading2019

Move over Mickey Mouse, and make way for the New Kings of pop culture! One of my most fun reads this year, Fatima Bhutto’s latest book argues that the days of global dominance of American culture have come to an end, overtaken by the “new arbiters of mass culture” from outside the western world: Bollywood, Turkish TV (dizi) and (very briefly) K-Pop. To prove how global they are in their reach and allure, Bhutto reports from Peshawar, Dubai, Beirut, Lima, Seoul, and even a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon. If you grew up in Pakistan in the eighties and had access to cable tv, chances are you grew up watching American cartoons, sitcoms and soap operas like The Bold and the Beautiful (which I used to watch when my parents weren’t home). Fast forward a few decades, I was part of the Turkish TV (dizi) craze in Pakistan that started in 2010 and faithfully followed Behlul’s antics in Ishq e Mamnoon and the epic intrigues and delicious sets and costumes of Mera Sultan. It was interesting to read about my own experience in the context of what’s happening in the world. Among other highlights and interesting tidbits of information/anecdotes, Bhutto interviews Shah Rukh Khan in Dubai, spends time at his annual birthday party celebration by his fans in Lima (my favourite part of the book), and talks to Halit Ergenç (the actor who played Sultan Suleiman), who throws shade at Sex and the City. Weaving together themes of migration, globalisation, representation, of the neoliberal economic world order and the people it left behind, New Kings is a thoughtful and entertaining look at the shifting landscape of global pop culture. I just wish it had been longer and more detailed, and that we heard more from the people she interviewed (the best parts were her interactions with people). It’s worth noting that the book was commissioned by @columbiagr and designed to be a super short read. Sadly it’s not available in Pakistan yet but will be early in 2020! #newkingsoftheworld #fatimabhutto #bookstagram #books #bibliophile #bookstagrammer #readersofinstagram #booksofinstagram #igreads

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