What are you reading now ?

[Musafira]

I recently read SONGS OF LOVE AND WAR - Afghan Women's Poetry and I must say it was a great waste of money buying this book. The poetry they are referring to in the title is only a very small collection of translated landay many of which are so erotic I felt embarrassed just reading them. Below is a selection of a few of the "clean" landay translations found in the book:

May you perish on the field of honor, my beloved!
So that girls will sing your glory each time they haul water from the spring.

My beloved! If you turn your back upon the enemy, do not come home again!
Go and seek refuge in a distant land!

My beloved, come and sit a moment close to me
Life quickly turns into the dusk of a fleeting winter evening

On my native soil, the martyr's drops of blood
Are the red tulips of freedom's springtime

If you did not know how to love
Why did you awaken my sleeping heart?

My love prefers sky-colored eyes
And I don't know how to change mine that are the color of the night

Heroes are always alive,
Only traitors will perish forever

[tor_khan]

Set in 15th Century Istanbul about the lives and jealousies of Turkish miniaturists. I'm a third the way through.

If anyone has read Bram Stoker's Dracula then you'll know that each chapter takes the perspective of a key character. Written in a similar vein.

[IamDZJ]

read this book for the second time. first time i read it i was 17.
this book is about a troubled young man who kills 11 people two of which are his parents. he is charged, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of the one person he did not kill.

[eyeliner]

i still need to read the alchemist

[Admin Khan]

House Keeping by Marilynne Robinson

[Haider Bangash 2.0]

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
1984 By George Orwell
Fahrenheit 1451

[kandahari ella]

Read "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" by Steig Larsson, and then read this other two books. Its The Millennium Trilogy- its an easy read. But its very addictive and catching. I loved reading Withering Heights, Jane Eyre and Anges Gray. But when it comes to English Literature, I'm not a fan. Maybe it was because we always had to read them in high school or maybe its because I just don't like it. I actually liked Russian Literature, I fell in over with Gogol's "Over Coat". And from that I went into the novels of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and of course Nikolai Gogol. From there I went into Kafka and E.T.A Hoffman. Basically, I like the modern novel. I'll read prior to modernity in relation to other cultures. I've read Chinese and Japaneses literature. I've read Italian, Spanish, Oriental and African novels. And for me, English literature lacks the diversity and unknown. Or maybe, being a Comparative Literature major made me really picky on what I want to read. I think Comparative Literature, showed me that these amazing books exist and I can pick them up anytime. I don't have to rely on what I've learned in English classes or what novels are easily available to me.

I used to be able to pick up any book and read on for days. Little novels that were big for no reason. But now a novel has to be amazing for me to pick it up. I'm honestly, in search for the next greatest American novel. I love fiction. I cannot for the life of me reading anything that's non-fiction for fun unless it relates to Islam. I'll pick up books on Islam no matter where I am. But biographical or non-fiction work about anything else feels boring to me. It honestly, makes me want to sleep.

[ijaz yousafzai]

me, "Talibanisation of Pakistan" by Aamir Mir

[Zayam]

i still need to read the alchemist

Eyeliner-

That is a great book! It is one of those books that is good to read every few years again, which reminds me I haven't read it again for about 6 years now-though I think I have read it 2-3 times. I guess it is time....

Right now most of what I read is spiritual because I am taking a 99-Day Islamic course, concentration is on the Love of Allah.

[Zayam]

I'm reading ... Women in the Quran, Traditions, and Interpretations by Barbara Stowasser and A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani.

Both are for my classes ... well, half for pleasure and half for classes, I can honestly say!

I have one that I have not yet read called: "Believing Women in Islam-Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur'an"

[Janana]

[IMG]http://ni****ak.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/001_gullivers_travels.jpg?w=99&h=150[/IMG]

[Gulbabo]

Jane Austen's: Emma

[Digital Malang]

^ looks super boring :S

[Akherousin]

Try Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

Favorite author btw.

[faye]

'banker to the poor' by mohammad yunus. about micro lending and the battle against world poverty.