Tag: blogging

Literary visits: Oxford and the Bodleian Library

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Hi!

Hope everyone is well 🙂

I spent a lovely few days in Oxford soaking up the history and architecture. Having never been, it’s always been on my UK bucket list of cities to visit and I am so glad I was able to finally make it, but actually spend a relaxing few days there.

I spent my days wandering and meandering through the streets just soaking up all of the architecture…and going into as many bookshops as I could obviously😅 Oxford is gorgeous!  Beautiful architecture, and it definitely gave me the Harry Potter vibes! Obviously, they filed a few scenes here and took inspiration from the buildings which is so clear to see when you walk around.

Going to the Bodleian Libraries has been on my bucket list for YEARS. So obviously I had to do this whilst I was there. If you sre interested in going, there are a few options you can choose from:

  • 30 minute tour (£10pp) – this will grant you access to the Divinity School and Duke Humfrey’s Library
  • 60 minute tour (£15pp) – this will grant you access to the Divinity School, Convocation House, Chancellor’s Court, and Duke Humfrey’s Library.
  • 90 minute tour (£20pp) – this will grant you access to the Divinity School, Convocation House, Chancellor’s Court, Duke Humfrey’s Library, Gladstone Link and the iconic Radcliffe Camera.

A word of warning – even through the website says some tickets are available online this is really not the case! Tickets must be brought on the day – you cannot buy tickets in advance. Also, tickets sell out fast and are limited, it’s on a first come first served basis and there are about 20 places per tour! I would recommend getting to Weston Library for 8:30/9am to start lining up as the library opens at 10am as during peak times it can get very busy. Bring a book with you whilst you wait!

Sadly, the 90 minute tour sold out, but I was able to get tickets for the 60 minute tour and for Duke Humfrey’s Library alone, this was so worth it. Ornate, splendour and opulent – it is what you imagine a

Breathtaking. I was so taken aback by the splendour and beauty of this library – and it’s an actual working library! Students can work here and read the books – incredible. Founded in 1488 and opened in 1602, Duke Humfrey donated 300 books to the University of Oxford. Did you know that before this, there were only 20 books on record?! In order to store the 300 books he donated, a library needed to be built, and thus, this gorgeous room was borne. I could have spent hours in here.

I also went to the Divinity School which was used in the Harry Potter films as the Infirmiry In Philosophers Stone and the Yule ball dance scenes in Goblet of Fire. How stunning!

The Divinity School

I then spent the afternoon meandering through different book shops – including the BIGGEST Blackwell’s I have been in, and will ever be in again. The reading room on the bottom floor was INSANE! I walked down the stairs and was completely taken aback by the sheer size and depth, and no matter how far in I went, there was always more to see and find.

But my favourite bookstore was this gorgoeus independent bookshop called Last Bookshop Jehrico. All the books were £5 and under, and there were so many amazing titles – I lost myself in there and even went back a second time because I regretted not buying something. 😅

It was a lovely few days away, filled woth history, books and gorgeous architecture. Definitely worth a trip.

xo

Literary visits: Chatsworth House

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Hello!

I spent such a wholesome Saturday visiting one of the most beautiful country houses: Chatsworth House, used as Pemberly in the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. I mean, look at it!

Chatsworth House

My friends and I paid for the house and garden ticket, which was £32. This includes house entry (you do have to book for a specific time) and unlimited time in the gardens. The house inside is gorgeous, if you’re into stately homes you would love this, just look at one of the bookshelves 😍 Of course the library was my favourite room, seeing all of the books, and I could envision myself sat there with a pot of tea for hours on end.

Pride and Prejudice is my favourite Jane Austen novel, and I actually re-read it earlier this year. I adore the unravelling of both Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy and their prejudices against each other as individuals and the societies and communities they come from. Austen artfully encapsulates how pride can affect everyone.

Lizzie Bennet is a strong female character who has strongnopinions and isn’t afraid to voice them, whether it be about marriage, society, or her own family dynamics. Her integrity is both her strength and flaws, but watching her unpick her own judgements and understand that the world and people around her have more depth than she realises is sublime. Austen’s prose beautifully unfolds through the slow burn romance between Lizzie and Mr. Darcy, and it’s so much sweeter when it all comes together. I love that Darcy falls fast and hard for Lizzie but has no clue how to tell her, so he basically says that even though she’s poor, he is willing to overlook this because he loves her. Oh Darcy! Im not surprised she rejected you after that proposal 😅

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

After having read Sense and Sensibility earlier this year, you can tell that Austen’s prose, plot and character development has improved. The dialogue is witty and sharp. She critiques the society around her through the characters and offers the reader life long lessons of what it means to be loved, to self develop and grow and how, if we don’t do this, our prejudices will be our downfall.

There are so many beautiful quotes from the story, but I’ve somehow managed to narrow it down to my top 3″

  • “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will no longer be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
  • “Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.”
  • “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
Mr. Darcy bust

This has always been a 5 star read for me, and each time I have re-read this, i fall more in love with the prose, characters, and messages. I always unearth something new in every read. This is why I love re-reading, because each time you glean something new from it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

xo

Palestinian book recommendations: fiction

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Hello all.

I wanted to share some fictional books written by Palestianian authors. I won’t spend time talking about all the horror that is happening in Gaza right now because I want to shine a light on the gorgeous words that have come from the people of Gaza.

There are NO spoilers below, but I urge you to read as many of these as you can. The prose is lyrical, beautiful and heartbreaking.

Mornings in Jenin

Starting off with a gut-wrenghing novel. Amal is born into the refugee camp of Jenin after her family was forced to flee Palestine in 1948. But here’s the kicker – her brother, a baby at the time, is stolen away by an Israeli soldier.

The vivid imagery that runs through this really immersed the reader and keeps you engaged and hooked until the very end. She really does get across feelings of hopelessness and grief, which can make it difficult to read, but it’s so necessary.

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

Against The Loveless World

Another by Susan Abulhawa – I really do enjoy reading her work!

This novel. Where do I even begin? Following a young Palestinian refugee, Nahr, we listen to her story, which is being told from solitary confinement, as she becomes more and more radicalised.

Abulhawa blends fact with fiction and it haunts me to this day. It’s a book I think about every couple of days to be honest. The rawness of the prose, the gritty nature of what it means to be a women who is dealt a hand and has to make do in a world that is not meant for her at all.

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

The Sea Cloak & Other Stories

A collection of short stories from Nayrouz that are drawn from her experience of growing up in Gaza. This is a short book, only 100 pages, with 11 stories.

Quick snippets and insights into a range of different characters and a real focus on what it is like to live in Gaza – forcing the reader to envision life there. Short stories are always so much hard hitting I find, because of their length. The message hits harder, the words are more scathing and the prose is more sharp.

I think my favourite short story from the collection was ‘Pen and Notebook’, but they were all gorgeous.

If you are a fan of Susan Abulhawa, then I think you’d really enjoy this!

The Sea Cloak by Nayrouz Qarmout

Minor Detail

Don’t be fooled by the length. Whilst this is very small, 112 pages, it packs a massive punch in feels. I was gifted this by a friend last year and it has stayed with me ever since. If you can’t commit to something longer, this is a great, but impactful, one to start with.

Shibli intertwines the modern with the past. A Palestinian writer risks her life to find out more information about a young Palestinain girl who is raped, killed and buried by Israeli soldiers in 1948.

The story is hauntingly beautiful. The title encapsulates life – how one minor detail can strike any one of us and change our entire trajectory in life. Shibli’s narrative is sharp and gets to the point – there is no hiding.

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

Returning to Haifa

Another short read and a play! I have to read the novella, but the play packs a punch. I read this and feeling more and more deflated and desolate as I got towards the end because I knew how it was going to end, but that didn’t take away from the story.

Two families – one Palestinian, one Israeli – are forced to live out their stories side by side. Starting in 1948, after the Nakba, the plot travels through to 1967, the Six days war, where Said and Saffiya dare to travel back to their home in Haifa and the memories that dome with it.

Returning to Haifa by Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace

A Woman Is No Man

Set in America, Rum tells the stories of three generations of one family of Palestinian American women and their struggle to find their place in this world, in this society and within their own culture. We go through their struggles, desires and shameful family secrets that threaten to tear apart the whole family through the three women – Deya, Isra and Fareeda.

The women, and men, in the novel adhere to and break stereotypes that are forced upon them, and so many others around the world.

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

I can never do these stories justice. They’re meant to be read. Meant to be cried over. Meant to stir anger and passion.

All of these books were 5 stars for me. They were achingly, heartbreakingly beautiful reads. The imagery, the pain that is at the heart of each story, connecting it. They were all sublime.

Happy reading!

🇵🇸🤍🍉

xo

I feel sick.

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I’m currently in my 10th week of lockdown, and to be honest quarantine life hasn’t really made me want to write about anything.

But yesterday, another innocent black man was murdered in America by the police. This is the third black person to have their life cruelly taken away from them in the space of a few months because of police brutality.

Because of inherent racism in a country that calls itself openly ‘the land of the free.’

Because of a systematic and biased system that is supposed to be there for the people, not just a small selection of people they deem worthy of their protection.

It is disgusting and sickening for me to see this. And I’m tired. Tired of seeing black people mercilessly black listed, oppressed and denied their human rights. How many more innocent lives will be claimed and taken before they should be? How many more families will lose loved ones? How many more children will be scared to step outside of their own homes?

Staying silent, knowing that what is happening is wrong, is just as complicit as doing nothing. We need to use of platforms to show solidarity, to show our support and to make noise loud enough the world over to show that we will not stand for these injustices. I am reminded of this poem from 1946 as I type this out and I would urge you all to read it.

Just because you are not black does not mean that you cannot empathise with their plight. You can make yourself an ally and show your support:

  • Educate yourself – don’t just take what you read and watch on TV and social media as fact. Research it for yourself.
  • Ask someone – if you don’t feel like you know enough, or you need help understanding or clarification don’t be afraid to ask.
  • Promise to listen – give people a platform and your ear. Listen to their grievances.
  • Step in – if you see racial injustice, no matter how uncomfortable you may feel, step in and help.

For too long we have sat back and watched as people from different races and backgrounds have been persecuted and killed, made to feel worthless and scared of living in the countries they’re born in and done nothing. We need to do more and we need to do it now. The time for change is here.

I am here and I am an ally. I will stand up for you and I will not back down from your fight.

George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbery.

Say their names✊🏽

xo

Deeds not words.

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Happy International Women’s Day to all!

In 2018 I wrote about a badass woman Princess Sophia Duleep Singh who led an incredible life. If you don’t know who she is please give it a read!

This IWD I want to pay homage to one of the original suffragettes – Emmeline Pankhurst.

Emmeline Pankhurst statue in Manchester.

Seen by many as a radical and a threat, Emmeline was a woman who refused to back down and allow women to be mistreated after seeing the dire conditions that many worked in in Manchester’s workhouses. Her methods may have been extreme, and their effectiveness has been disputed, but there is no denying that her work was crucial and seminal in leading the movement and gaining votes for women.

Born and raised in Manchester, it’s amazing to see this statue everytime I make my way into the city centre. It genuinely brings a smile to my face watching and seeing people young and old surrounding the statue. It gives people, especially young boys and girls, a chance and an opportunity to discover a part of Manchester’s history that went on to change the entire UK.

Feminists don’t wear pink

“Feminists Don’t Wear Pink” is a collection of short stories and essays from women across Hollywood from actresses to teenage activists. They l tell their story of their personal relationship with feminism and what it means to be a woman. For me, it shows is how far we have come as women and a society, but still how far we have yet to go.

There are still 31 million girls in the world not in school and 17 million of them probably never will. 1 in 5 women in the UK have experienced sexual assault – but these are just from the brave women who have come forward to report it. And at the rate the word is going it will take over 100 years just to close the gender parity gap.

Emmeline Pankhurt fought over 100 years ago for the rights for women, but in order to make the world a fairer and just place we must all come together to create it.

Let us all incite this meeting to rebellion.

xo.

Book subscriptions🤗

Hi😁

One of the (many) things that I love about books is that book subscriptions exist! For me, nothing beats wandering around a book store, but receiving a monthly book parcel in the post is just😌 A little gift from me to me🤗

I currently have a monthly book subscription to Reposed and did also have one with Bookishly if you would like to check them out.

What I love about the Reposed subscription is that it’s not just about the book you receive. They take the time to include handmade chocolates, teas, beauty products and/or stationary. All made independently and to the highest standards. So you dont just pay for a novel, which is great in itself, but you’re also paying to help local and independent businesses.

The novels that are sent in the Reposed subscription are modern literary fiction if that’s your jam. Or if you’d like to start reading more modern fiction then definitely give this a go! They handpick the newest, inspiring and insightful novels to send and I’ve enjoyed every single one.

February’s box of goodies!

If modern fiction isn’t your thing, not to worry, Bookishly is there for you! They will send out classic novels that they have beautifully re-created the cover to in house. And if classics aren’t your thing, there are so many different types or book subscriptions out there from Crime and Detective to YA to Women led/feminist literature to just receiving a completely random book, there’s a subscription box for you!

xo

Booktour of LDN: Persephone Books

Hi!

I spent a couple of days in the good ol’ UK capital this week and decided to pay a visit to one of my favourite book stores – Persephone Books.


Persephone Books reprints neglected fiction and non-fiction by mid 20th Century (mostly) women writers. There are around 132 books that they publish that range from novels to stories to diaries to memoirs to cookbooks!


This is a must for any book lover or bookstore lover to add to their list. If you get the chance whilst you’re in London, definitely give it a visit! The books range from around £12-£13 or you can grab 3 for £33, and a lovely  little extra is you get individually crafted bookmarks for each if the books you buy!

I picked up 2 novels and a book of poems – The World that was Ours by Hilda Bernstein, It’s Hard to be Over Thirty by Judith Viorst and A Lady and her Husband by Amber Reeves. Can’t wait to get stuck into these so keep an eye out for my reviews🙂

If you would like to check out their catalogue, head on over to the website!

xo

Placement level…complete!

Hello everyone 🙂

Hope January is treating you all well. I know it can be a difficult time for a lot of people, but bigger and brighter things are around the corner for you!

What’s new with everyone?

For me, I finally completed my first placement of my teaching training course which means I’m more than halfway through! Gosh. I didn’t think this would come around so quickly. It felt like it was dragging its heels😅 but in the best way. I enjoyed it completely and gained so much from it that really cemented that teaching is the career for me.

I bawled like a baby (in private – can’t let the kids see that!) when one of my classes gave me a notebook filled with lovely comments about my teaching. Urgh😭

With teaching there’s that constant feeling that looms over you that you’re not good enough or that you’re not doing enough. And boy did I feel that on an hourly, never mind on a daily, basis. There is always something more you could be doing. Even right now, writing this, there is something that I probably could be doing to enhance my teaching career. But where is the stop sign? Where are the boundaries? There aren’t. It’s as simple as that. The main thing I learnt on my first section of this journey is the need to switch off and to separate myself from my teaching and my teaching persona. It’s hard and I’m still navigating through the currents, but I’m slowly starting to get there. Waking up in a panic at 3am most nights thinking about things I hadn’t completed, or even started, was not the one. Everything I watched or heard, or conversations I took part in made me think about how I could use it in my lessons. Pages upon pages of notes of ideas…have I used any of them? Big fat nope.

It’s definitely an all encompassing career and one that 100% will take over your life if you let it. Yet, I’m thriving and crossing everything that my next placement goes just as well.

xo

You’ll be the prince and I’ll be the princess. It’s a love story, baby just say yes.

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Hello 🙂

I love love. I love romance. Give me heart wrenching, tear jerking couples pushing and pulling at each other, not realising they’re made for each other only to recognise it at the last moment to love happily ever after. Give me couples who shouldn’t be together or are enemies who fall in love, along with all the other soppy clichés. I’m a sucker for it. Ahhh ❤

But that’s not to say I enjoy reading romance novels where that becomes the only plotline and everything else redundant. For me, I like to have romance in novels/literature as an added bonus rather than being the main plot. I don’t want characters to be reduced to being love interests, I want their love to add to a story, to enhance it further, to be a driving force. More often than not however, that’s the case. Whether it be women thrown into a narrative, reduced to being nothing more than a one dimensional sexual character, or a male character being written purely to enhance a female’s story – to give her story purpose – because she can’t have a purpose without a man surely(!) I want flawed characters. I want them to fall in love with the person and the not the idea of romance. I know that it might be a little hypocritical to say that given that the first thing I said was I love romance. I mean the whole idea of romance is to sell an idyllic version of it right? To allow us to fulfil our fantasies and escape to a world where everything is easier and simpler, where a boy would come in and sweep you off your feet or a girl would give everything up for you in a heartbeat, you take one look at the movie industry in the 90’s and you can see that, it distorts or perceptions and our ideas of what love and romance should be and more often than not, the reality never lives up to the fantasy.

But. When you think of the best fictional couples, or when I think of my favourites, the ones that instantly spring to mind aren’t the perfect couples where everything goes right. My favourite literary couples are the ones where actually, everything goes pretty wrong. Where they butt heads and clash. Where they have a difference of opinions but compliment each other, making each other whole. Love is imperfect so why shouldn’t the couples be imperfect with it? Love is blind and romance is a fantasy, but what I love about my favourite fictional couples is their resilience, their strength and their fight for one another. Give me Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy with their different stances on pretty much everything. Give me Ron and Hermione who are imperfectly perfect for each other (no matter what JK says!) and give me Oliver and Jennifer who show that romance will never die.

“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays.

xo

I didn’t know I was a feminist until…

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I’d like to think that I was always a feminist, or that I’m able to pinpoint the exact epiphinising moment that I realised “I am a feminist,” but the truth is I can’t. It’s a feeling and a power that’s grown within me over the years, be it through my expansion of reading different genres and authors, meeting amazing women and men, and having been surrounded from a very early age by independent and strong women, but also men in touch with their emotions. I’ve always known and felt what I believe to be right in my core when witnessing injustice, but I was never able to put a label on it. I didn’t even know the term feminism existed until I was in my early teens and I came accross the term whilst researching Emmeline Pankhurst for a school project. Ridiculous I know. Or is it? Are we taught enough about the movement or it’s meanings enough when at school? I don’t think so. For something that is so fundamental and integral to society, it needs to be. Maybe this is part of the reason I want to become a teacher – to educate and provide young people of the future with all the knowledge they need to make up their own minds. Or maybe it’s just to push the feminist agenda 😉

God. The femenist agenda. There’s still the ‘bra burning, man hating’ stigma attached to the term that even as we go in 2019 many people hear the term and immediately turn away from the conversation, refusing to partake or even listen. Or they scoff, ‘pssh feminism. What do you even need that for any more? You can do what you want and vote right? Don’t you have everything you wanted, what more do you women want?” Weeeelll…actually no. I mean it’s great that I can vote and own property and have control of my own body, cheers guys, but there is still so much we need to achieve.

What even is feminism? I’ve spoken about it and the term has probably been mentioned thousands of times this year alone, but what is it exactly?

FEMINISM (noun)

fem•i•nism

– The political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.

Does that sound horrifying? Totalitarian? Matricarchal over rule? Women wanting out to stamp out men? Nope. Sounds pretty normal right. Equality. What a profound idea and notion. And for different people and socities it means different thing. Women want to be awarded the exact same opportunities and accolades as their male counterparts, to not be boxed in to an ideal, to be shunned or laughed at or not taken seriously. For girls all around the world to have an education, to end child marriages, sex slavery. To allow every single woman and girl on this planet the chance to fulfil their potential. How can we affect change and make a difference when millions around the world are unable to partake?

When you haven’t, and are not, seeing yourself represented in the world around you, it has repercussions. It serves to keep us down and dampen our strength and resolve, and in turn our ambition and potential. I say this as a woman and British born Pakistani woman. The entwining of my two cultures, both of which I adore, is a difficult one. The ideals of what a women should do and how they should behave are paramount to society within each, and at the core are the same. Women are lauded and demonised for their sexuality, openness and for speaking their mind.

And before anyone says but what about men? I thought you said it was about equality for both! 100% yes. Men and boys need to partake in the conversation as well. It’s not just women who are boxed into societal gender stereotypes. It’s time to break the glass ceiling on men being unable to get in touch with their emotions, for men to be viewed differently if they decided to be a stay at home parent, for boys to express themselves with makeup or the clothing they decide to wear. We as a society, and a world, can only move forwards if we all partake in the conversation. Smash that ceiling and smash it to millions of teeny tiny pieces.

I didn’t know I was a feminist until I decided I was, but you better believe that I’m not stopping or slowing down for anyone.

xo