The 15-Minute Book Club

Mark Haddon's novel was first published in 2003. It’s a unique story that’s told from the perspective of a 15-year-old boy Christopher Boone, who describes himself as “a mathematician with some behavioral difficulties." The novel begins with Christopher discovering that his neighbour's dog, Wellington, has been mysteriously killed with a garden fork. Christopher sets out to find the person who killed the dog, and what begins as a simple investigation quickly unfolds into a deeper, more complex journey that reveals secrets about his own family and forces him to step far outside his comfort zone. 
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First published in German in 1915, it's one of Franz Kafka’s most famous and influential works — a blend of the absurd, existential, and psychological. Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up one day to find that he's turned into a “monstrous vermin”. 
University of Oxford, Conversation of Kafka:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/conversations-on-kafka/id1750531209?i=1000657947433 
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Kathryn Stockett's novel is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s, around the time of The Civil Rights Movement in America. It follows three characters, Skeeter Phelan; a young white aspiring writer who comes back home from college and starts to develop an awareness of racial inequality and the unfair treatment of Black domestic workers, specifically black women who work as maids in white homes. The second character is Aibileen Clark; a black woman who has spent her life raising white children. The third character is Aibileen's best friend, Minny Jackson; a highly skilled cook with a sharp tongue. If you're looking for an entertaining read that's also shrouded in controversy, this is the one for you. 
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Michel Faber's iconic novel is a unique blend of science fiction, horror, and social commentary. It follows a woman named Isserley as she drives around the Scottish Highlands picking up male hitchhikers that she then drugs and takes to a secret farm facility. Over time, it becomes clear that she’s not what she seems—she’s actually an alien working for an extraterrestrial corporation that harvests human meat for consumption on her home planet.      Instagram: 15minbookclub    

Avraham Yehoshua's short story follows an unnamed Israeli scholar who takes a job as a forest ranger. He’s stationed in a remote fire-watch tower, and his job is to guard the forest and immediately sound the alarm if he sees it catch fire. As the story progresses, he gradually starts to realise that the forest is prone to fires because the land was never meant to sustain it in the first place —it was planted over the ruins of a Palestinian village, effectively covering up its existence.

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Men in the Sun Review: https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/week-9-men-in-the-sun/ 
 

Antoine De Saint-Exupery's literary classic, published in 1943 and translated into over 500 languages, is about a pilot who crash lands in the Sahara Desert and meets The Little Prince who tells him all about his adventures visiting different planets. Although this is officially classified as a children’s book, it’s widely considered to be a kind of philosophical fable for adult readers as well. 
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Adania Shibli's groundbreaking novel is divided into two parts. The first half is narrated in the third person from the perspective of an Israeli soldier, and is set in the summer of 1949 in the Negev desert. The second half takes place in the present day, and is narrated in the first person from the perspective of a Palestinian woman living in Ramallah. The novel draws a chilling parallel between past and present, showing that the violence of 1949 is not just a “minor detail” of history—it continues to define Palestinian existence even today.
 
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Adania Shibli at the 2024 Hay Festival:
https://www.hayfestival.com/p-21834-hisham-matar-elif-shafak-and-adania-shibli-talk-to-philippe-sands.aspx
https://www.hayfestival.com/p-21761-adania-shibli-talks-to-hisham-matar.aspx 
Book mentioned:
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Michael J. Sandel examines our current political polarisation, which in many ways is the result of our general attitude towards success and failure, especially in a time of rising inequality. The book looks at the fallacy of being self-made, he argues that there is no such thing as a self-made individual. 
 
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Studio B, Unscripted: With Ken Loach and Edouard Louis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J89RTrx1_eM 
Week 19: The End of Eddy:https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/week-19-the-end-of-eddy/ 

Rodman Philbrick's wholesome young adult novel is about two young boys in the seventh grade named Kevin and Max. Max is super tall and strong but can barely read. Kevin on the other hand is extremely intelligent, a kind of child prodigy genius with a physical disability where his organs grow faster than his bones. Both of them are bullied and outcast at school for different reasons. This is a wholesome story about their unlikely friendship.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel is narrated from the perspective of Nick Carraway. Nick looks back at the summer of 1922 when he met Jay Gatsby, a man with an extraordinary gift for hope. Gatsby is in love with Nick's cousin Daisy, who is married to the wealthy and arrogant Tom Buchanan. At its heart, this novel is a love story. But one that explores the role that economic and social class divide plays in love and marriage.
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