Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Book of Fate, Parinoush Saniee, ISBN 9781408704172 (Little Brown). BD7.800 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members
Topical, gripping and deeply interesting, this masterful tale has everything it takes for a magnificent read.
Spanning five turbulent decades of Iranian history, from just before the 1979 revolution to the present day, it is a powerful story of friendship and passion and a rare insider’s view of Iranian society.
I read an advance copy of this book some months ago and couldn’t put it down – so far it is without doubt my favourite read of the year.
The story starts when a teenager in pre-revolutionary Tehran meets a local man and falls in love – but when her family discovers his letters they accuse her of bringing them dishonour. Badly beaten by her brother, her parents hastily arrange a marriage to another man she has never met.
Facing a life without love, and taken out of school, Massoumeh is distraught – but a female neighbour urges her to comply.
The years that follow her wedding prove transformative for both Iran and Massoumeh as we journey with her in the shadows of the Iranian secret police and later the Revolutionary Guard as her own personal history and that of the country unfold.
* Read it now in paperback
Sycamore Row (John Grisham) ISBN 9781444765601 (Hodder). BD4.500 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members .
For those of you waiting for the sequel to A Time to Kill to be published in paperback, the wait is over.
Jake Brigance has never met Seth Hubbard, or even heard of him, until the old man’s suicide note names him attorney for his estate. The will is dynamite. Seth has left 90 per cent of his vast, secret fortune to his housemaid.
As the relatives contest the will, and unscrupulous lawyers hasten to benefit, Jake searches for answers to the many questions left by Seth’s death: What made him write that last-minute will leaving everything to a poor woman named Lettie Lang? Why did he choose to kill himself on the desolate piece of land known as Sycamore Row? And, what was it that Seth and his brother witnessed as children that, in his words, ‘no human should ever see?’
In the long-awaited successor to the novel that launched his phenomenal career, John Grisham brings us this powerful sequel.
As filled with page-turning twists as it is with legal mastery, Sycamore Row proves beyond doubt that John Grisham is in a league of his own.
* My favourite read-of-the-week
The Longest Ride (Nicholas Sparks) ISBN 9780751549966 (Little Brown). BD4.500 for Gulf Weekly Book Club members.
The lives of two couples, separated by years and experience, are about to converge in the most unexpected of ways to bring you a great poolside read for this month.
Ninety-one-year-old Ira Levinson is in trouble. Struggling to stay conscious after a car crash, an image of his long-dead wife Ruth appears. Urging him to hang on, she lovingly recounts the joys and sorrows of their life together.
A few miles away, college student Sophia Danko’s life is about to change. Recovering from a break-up, she meets the young, rugged Luke and is thrown into a world far removed from her privileged school life. But Luke is keeping a secret that could destroy it all.
