Books to gift during Eid

Reading lists

12 books that make great gifts for Eid

How to Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia

A sharp, fresh satire for the ruthless modern world - for fans of Dave Eggers, Ben Lerner and Gary Shtenygart 
 
'Mohsin Hamid is one of the best writers in the world, period. Only a master could have written this propulsive tale of a striver living on the knife's edge, a noir Horatio Alger story for our frenetic, violent times' Ben Fountain 
 
This book is a self-help book. Its objective, as it says on the cover, is to show you how to get filthy rich in rising Asia. And to do that it has to find you, huddled, shivering, on the packed earth under your mother's cot one cold, dewy morning. Your anguish is the anguish of a boy whose chocolate has been thrown away, whose remote controls are out of batteries, whose scooter is busted, whose new sneakers have been stolen. This is all the more remarkable since you've never in your life seen any of these things . . . 
 
'Even more intriguing, compelling and moving than The Reluctant Fundamentalist. A marvellous book' Philip Pullman 
 
'Brilliantly structured, deeply felt [and] written with the confidence and bravura of a man born to write. Hamid is at the peak of his considerable powers here, and delivers a tightly paced, preternaturally wise book about a thoroughly likable, thoroughly troubled striver in the messiest, most chaotic ring of global economy. Completely unforgettable' Dave Eggers, author of The Circle

Dazzling, addictive, tremendous. A writer at the height of his powers with a hell of a story to tell

Beautifully conceived and exquisitely executed

The new voice of a changing continent. A writer at the top of his game

No story could be more of our time than this one. Conceptually brilliant and truly empathic

An ultra-intelligent and knowing account of life in the developing world. Simply brilliant

Isn't this the definition of great fiction, that even when it begins with a character . . . who's nothing like you, by the end you are convinced that it really is about you? That's a kind of miracle

Even more intriguing, compelling and moving than The Reluctant Fundamentalist. A marvellous book

A dazzling stylistic tour de force; a love story disguised as a self help parody freighted with sly social satire. As timely and timeless a novel as I've read in years

This book is a self-help book. Its objective, as it says on the cover, is to show you how to get filthy rich in rising Asia. And to do that it has to find you, huddled, shivering, on the packed earth under your mother's cot one cold, dewy morning. Your anguish is the anguish of a boy whose chocolate has been thrown away, whose remote controls are out of batteries, whose scooter is busted, whose new sneakers have been stolen. This is all the more remarkable since you've never in your life seen any of these things . . .

Moth Smoke

Discover this surprising gem - the sharp, funny and irresistible debut novel from the bestselling author of Exit West and The Reluctant Fundamentalist 
 
'Subtly audacious . . . A steamy and often darkly amusing book about sex, drugs, and class warfare in postcolonial Asia' Village Voice 
 
'You know you're in trouble when you can't meet a woman's eye, particularly if the woman happens to be your best friend's wife...' 
 
In Lahore, Daru Shezad is a junior banker with a hashish habit. When his old friend Ozi moves back to Pakistan, Daru wants to be happy for him. Ozi has everything: a beautiful wife and child, an expensive foreign education - and a corrupt father who bankrolls his lavish lifestyle. 
 
As jealousy sets in, Daru's life slowly unravels. He loses his job. Starts lacing his joints with heroin. Becomes involved with a criminally-minded rickshaw driver. And falls in love with Ozi's lonely wife. 
 
But how low can Daru sink? Is he guilty of the crime he finds himself on trial for?

A first novel of remarkable wit, poise and profundity. A treat

A vivid portrait of contemporary young Pakistani life, where frustration and insecurity feed not only the snobbery, decadence and aspirations of the rich, but also the resentment of the poor

A rare glimpse into modern-day Pakistan . . . The voices that emerge are sarcastic and sad, a lively lament . . . reminiscent of V. S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie

Not often does one find a first novel that has the power of imagination and skill to orchestrate personal and public themes of these consequences and achieve a chord that reverberates in one's mind. Moth Smoke is one of the best novels I have read this year

Stunning . . . [Hamid] has created a hip page-turner

In Lahore, Daru Shezad is a junior banker with a hashish habit. When his old friend Ozi moves back to Pakistan, Daru wants to be happy for him. Ozi has everything: a beautiful wife and child, an expensive foreign education - and a corrupt father who bankrolls his lavish lifestyle. 
 
As jealousy sets in, Daru's life slowly unravels. He loses his job. Starts lacing his joints with heroin. Becomes involved with a criminally-minded rickshaw driver. And falls in love with Ozi's lonely wife. 
 
But how low can Daru sink? Is he guilty of the crime he finds himself on trial for?

A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick – Booker Prize Gems

Exit West

A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick - Booker Gems 
 
THE NEW YORK TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017 
 WINNER OF THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE 
 
 'Astonishing' Zadie Smith 
 'Stunning' Spectator 
 'Extraordinary' TLS 
 
 An extraordinary story of love and hope from the bestselling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist 
 
 All over the world, doors are appearing. 
 They lead to other cities, other countries, other lives. 
 
 And in a city gripped by war, Nadia and Saeed are newly in love. 
 Hardly more than strangers, desperate to survive, they open a door and step through. 
 
 But the doors only go one way. 
 Once you leave, there is no going back. 
 
*Coming soon as a major Netflix film - produced by Michelle and Barack Obama and starring Riz Ahmed* 
 
 'One of the year's most significant literary works' The New York Times 
 'A masterpiece' Michael Chabon 
 'Addictively readable and brilliantly written. Fantastic' Mail on Sunday

As with the very best literature, its crystalline readability fast eclipses its topicality

[A] devastating portrait of victims of war, creating a singular parable about modernity, migration and the individual's place in the world

A deceptively simple conceit turns a timely novel about a couple fleeing a civil war into a profound meditation on the psychology of exile. A novel that fuses the real with the surreal - perhaps the most faithful way to convey the tremulous political fault lines of our interconnected planet

No conventional love story. [An] exceptionally moving and powerful novel

Publisher's description. In an unnamed city swollen by refugees, two young people fall in love. One day soon they will have to leave their homeland, running for their lives, searching for their place in the world.

Powerful, vivid, poignant... Hamid is the master

Writing in spare, crystalline prose, Hamid conveys the experience of living in a city under siege with sharp, stabbing immediacy

A love story as spare, haunting and spiritually powerful as a haiku. All my life I will remember Nadia and Saeed, their humanity against a surreal, broken landscape. Exit West is Hamid's finest book

Imaginative, inventive, graceful... Hamid exploits fiction's capacity to elicit empathy and imagine a better world

A subtle and moving examination of how human relationships endure and falter under unimaginable pressures. Exit West is an instant classic

Impressive... Exit West confirms Hamid's reputation as a brilliant ventriloquist who is deeply engaged with the most pressing issues of our time

Part pared-down romance, part 21st-century fable, Exit West is a thought experiment that pivots on the crucial figure of this century: the migrant

Exit West packs such an emotional wallop you will be thinking about it for days afterwards. For Hamid is not only telling a story, he is asking what sort of a world we want to live in.

It's a terrific, beautifully constructed, important novel of our time.  This is what we expect fiction to do: to examine our age but also to cast an eye on the past and - very brilliantly in this case - on the future too.  I love it.

Exit West is a masterpiece. It stretches the boundaries of the real just enough to make a point about the state of immigrants and refugees in the contemporary world. But it's very much grounded in reality. It's a beautiful book.

Mohsin Hamid is one of the most talented and formally audacious writers of his generation

The voice of a changing continent. A writer at the top of his game

Mohsin Hamid writes regularly for the New York Times, the Guardian and the New York Review of Books, and is the author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize), Moth Smoke, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia and Discontents and Its Civilizations. Born and raised mostly in Lahore, he has since also lived in London and New York.

This is Nadia. She is fiercely independent with an excellent sense of humour and a love of smoking alone on her balcony late at night. 
 
This is Saeed. He is sweet and shy and kind to strangers. He also has a balcony but he uses his for stargazing. 
 
This is their story: a love story, but also a story about how we live now and how we might live tomorrow. Saeed and Nadia are falling in love, and their city is falling apart. Here is a world in crisis and two human beings travelling through it. 
 
Exit West is a heartfelt and radical act of hope - a novel to restore your faith in humanity and in the power of imagination.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2007

The internationally bestselling, Man Booker-shortlisted portrait of a man caught between conflicting identities and betrayed by the world he has embraced - from the author of Exit West 
 
Adapted as a major film starring Kate Hudson and Kiefer Sutherland 
 
'Masterful . . . A poignant love story and a thriller that subtly ratchets up the nerve-jangling tension towards an explosive ending' Metro 
 
'Excuse me, sir, but may I be of assistance? Ah, I see I have alarmed you. Do not be frightened by my beard. I am a lover of America . . . ' 
 
So speaks the mysterious stranger at a Lahore cafe as dusk settles. Invited to join him for tea, you learn his name and what led this speaker of immaculate English to seek you out. For he is more worldy than you might expect; better travelled and better educated. He knows the West better than you do. And as he tells you his story, of how he embraced the Western dream -- and a Western woman -- and how both betrayed him, so the night darkens. Then the true reason for your meeting becomes abundantly clear . . . 
 
Challenging, mysterious and thrillingly tense, Mohsin Hamid's masterly The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a vital read teeming with questions and ideas about some of the most pressing issues of today's globalised, fractured world.

A profoundly contemporary story about civil wars, unstable countries and refugees pouring to the cities of the West... beautifully written, with the ghost of Camus hovering at the edge of the frame

At a caf&eacute; table in Lahore, a Pakistani man converses with a stranger. As dusk deepens to dark, he begins the tale that has brought him to this fateful meeting... 
 
Among the brightest and best of his graduating class at Princeton, Changez is snapped up by an elite firm and thrives on New York and the intensity of his work. And his infatuation with fragile Erica promises entree into Manhattan society on the exalted footing his own family once held back in Lahore. For a time, it seems as though nothing will stand in the way of Changez's meteoric rise to personal and professional success: the fulfilment of the immigrant's dream. But in the wake of September 11, he finds his position in the city he loves suddenly overturned, and his budding relationship with Erica eclipsed by the reawakened ghosts of her past. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and perhaps even love.

Dispatches from Lahore, New York and London

Discontent and Its Civilizations

Discontent and its Civilizations collects the best of Mohsin Hamid's writing on subjects as diverse and wide-ranging as Pakistan; fatherhood; the death of Osama Bin Laden and the writing of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. 
 
Unified by the author's humane, clear-headed and witty voice, the book makes a compelling case for recognizing our common humanity while relishing our diversity - both as readers and citizens; for resisting the artificial mono-identities of religion or nationality or race; and for always judging a country or nation by how it treats its minorities, as 'Each individual human being is, after all, a minority of one'.

Mohsin Hamid is reasonable, intelligent...in short, just the sort of commentator the world could do with right now

Smart doesn't begin to describe Hamid; he is the sort of thinker that could change hearts and minds

In contrast with the debased language of extremism, militarism and nationalism, his is a humane and rational voice demanding a better future

Lucid, informative and drily funny, these essays show that Hamid is one of the most perceptive commentators on contemporary global politics

One of the most talented writers of his generation

Mohsin Hamid is a master critic of the modern global condition, using humanization, wit, parody and other devices to examine how the fast pace of social and economic change has affected the individual

Elegantly crafted . . . will delight devotees of his work, and intrigue newcomers. Hamid makes a compelling case for pushing back against the mono-identities of religion, nationality and race and for embracing the things that all human beings share.

Mohsin Hamid

Mohsin Hamid's The Last White Man is a visionary novel exploring race and identity... it's another bracing achievement from a consummate master, its silken prose breathing fresh air into fusty debates about race and identity

A hypnotic race fable . . . In the hands of such a deft and humane writer as Hamid, a bizarre construct is moved far beyond any mere 'what if'

The electric premise, borrowed from Kafka's The Metamorphosis, looks set to update a classic to make it urgently relevant

[A] powerful contemporary update of Kafka's The Metamorphosis

One morning, Anders wakes to find that his skin has turned dark, his reflection a stranger to him. At first he tells only Oona, an old friend, newly a lover. Soon, reports of similar occurrences surface across the land. 
 
Some see in the transformations the long-dreaded overturning of an established order, to be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders's father and Oona's mother, a sense of profound loss wars with profound love. 
 
As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different shading: a chance to see one another, face to face, anew.

Mohsin Hamid

Books by Mohsin Hamid

Articles featuring Mohsin Hamid

12 books that make great gifts for Eid

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