FABClub (Female Authors Book Club) discussion

This month we'll be reading Minaret by Leila Aboulela. Who will be reading this with us this month?

I'm in! Probably mid month.

I haven't got to this yet as I've had more pressing books that I have to return to the library sooner! Has anyone else started? Thoughts?

I'll probably still try to read it, but it might not be til the end of the month/beginning of September.

I'm definitely going to read it, but like you it will be towards the end of the month for me. Annoying the way libraries schedule our reading for us sometimes! :)

I just now started this - and I love it! The very first page just grabbed me and made it clear this was definitely the book for me! It's both beautifully written and has a plot that instantly grabbed me. Now I'm feeling guilty I left it for so late in the month.

I love the atmosphere this creates! Here are the first two sentences: "I've come down in the world. I've slid to a place where the ceiling is low and there isn't much room to move." I find that to be such an evocative image!

And then later, still in the first paragraph: "London is at its most beautiful in autumn. In summer it is seedy and swollen, in winter it is overwhelmed by Christmas lights and in spring, the season of birth, there is always disappointment. Now it is at its best, now it is poised like a mature woman whose beauty is no longer fresh but still surprisingly potent." I've never been to London, but I can still identify with that!

Or another great line: "they had come back with eccentric English habits. They went for walks, invited people to dinner with cards and kept a puppy."

This is taking an interesting twist that I didn't see coming (although if I'd been paying closer attention it would have been obvious!). Early on the main character runs across a line of poetry, "I've lived to bury my desires," that speaks to her, without her knowing why. Looking at her life from the outside I saw a clear lack, but she has identified a completely different lack in her life.

This is an amazingly thought provoking novel! She flirts with all sorts of issues, gender roles, loneliness, family, and religion. She has a fascinating way of giving us all of the most mundane details of daily life, while letting all the major events happen off-screen. If anyone else is or has or will be reading this - there is so much here to talk about!