The 15-Minute Book Club

Week 35: All Quiet on the Western Front

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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Week 34: Americanah

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

Week 33: A Thousand Splendid Suns

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

Week 32: Less

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/ 

Week 31: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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

Week 30: Animal Farm

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

Week 29: Sapiens

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

Week 28: The Prophet

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 

Week 27: Keeping it Halal

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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Week 26: Small Things Like These

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