Welcome to Litsy!

I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description and providing no reason for wanting to read it, I just do. Some will be old, some will be new. Don‘t judge me - I have a lot of books. Join in if you want!

#ABookADay2023

I usually love Pride & Prejudice adaptations. Add in a different culture and I‘m IN!

The main character is a great modern-day Elizabeth, but the book didn‘t do it for me. 😞

I really loved this version of Pride and Prejudice set in early 2000‘s Pakistan. I thought the comparison of modern Pakistan to Jane Austen‘s time really worked. Recommend. #FoodAndLit #ReadingAsia2021

In the first chapter students are given the assignment of re-writing the opening sentence of Pride & Prejudice which I just love.

It is a truth universally acknowledged…

Pride & prejudice story set in Pakistan

As a retelling, I kind of felt it was too alike. Now I haven't actually read P&P yet, it's on my list, but I have watched the movie, and let me tell you beat for it beat it followed everything. There's nothing wrong with following the formula, but it was more that I didn't think you needed to make the names as similar as they were.

Overall I did enjoy the book but wished it wasn't so obvious. Kamal is an excellent writer.

I finished this, my December #bookspin book! You know, I liked it, but I think I‘m going to take a break on Austen retellings. This one was good and I loved the window into Pakistani culture. At the same time, I think I‘ll enjoy others more if I wait a while. @TheAromaofBooks

One of the best P&P retellings I‘ve read. Kamal did a brilliant job translating the story to present-day Pakistan and it was a complete delight to get lost in the story.

Last day of vacation.... it‘s a bit cool for balcony reading but the sun is out and there won‘t be many more days that I can read out here before the snow flies.

Log Kya Kahenge - What would people say?
A Pride and Prejudice retelling through a Pakistani retelling. I loved the injection of the Pakistani culture into this novel - this helped to keep it fresh considering that the plot is such a well known one.
#pemberlittens

#werklyforcast #Pemberlittens #sundaybuddyread #eqitycommittee #memoir #audiomystery #buddyread

This book collage looks daunting but I will be finishing up Jane, but Kendi‘s book, a long term buddy read, A Matter of Loyalty, audiobook, should be finished up soon. Started A Fifty Years of Silence; can‘t put it down, so should be done. The other 3 books on left do not start until 10/1.

This ode to Jane Austen‘s Pride & Prejudice is set at the beginning of the 21st century in Pakistan, and is full of culturally-specific recipes, fashions, and language, as well as tons of references to contemporary women‘s literature. The storytelling is smart, humorous, decorative, and totally lacking in subtlety - making it addictively jaw-dropping, eye-rolling, and fun to read.

“Keep your distance without keeping your distance. Let him caress you without coming anywhere near you. Coo sweet somethings into his ears without opening your mouth. Before he even realizes there is a trap, he will have proposed. Do you understand?” - Mrs. Binat, mother of Alys, Jena, Mari, Qitty, and Lady. #fishingforhusbands #prideandprejudice

I‘ve really enjoyed all the Jane Austen Festival talks online this weekend, especially this one with Sonia Kamal. This virtual festival, by the Louisville chapter of JASNA, is available on YouTube for the next few weeks. https://youtu.be/TDhHx1ud0fg

? Tea: Earl grey crème; Coffee: Pumpkin spice ☕️
? H.E.R. ?
? “”You‘re planning to write a novel but you don‘t read them?” “How hard can it be?” Wickaam said. “We all jot down words. Just a matter of finding time.” “Since we all have a brain, I plan to perform brain surgery as soon as I have a spare moment.”” ?
#thoughtfulthursday @MoonWitch94

“They say blood is thicker than water. I say to hell with that. If blood mistreats you, better water.” I love the awakening of Mr. Binat!

Beautiful homage to Austen‘s classic. 4.5/5⭐️ I‘ve not read much that‘s set in Pakistan or India, so this was a wonderful cultural introduction for me.

Current knitting project and book, both well suited for an overcast day. It's been ages since I read Pride and Prejudice, bit I still remember enough to have an idea of what's coming.

#knittersoflitsy

I have to admit that I‘m going to bail for now because I think it would be better to read Pride & Prejudice first! On to the next book for #bookspinbonanza

Current reads: Unmarriageable, Ayesha Dean and the Seville Secret, Indigo Girl

Last short story I read: Junkshop
https://www.asymptotejournal.com/fiction/junkshop-or-everything-thrown-in-the-tr...

Longest book read so far this year: Poppy War (644 pages)

#weekendreads

3.5/5

This was alright. Now I am by no means it's target audience: I'm not married and have never felt pressure from friends or family to do so nor am I someone who liked Pride & Prejudice--the book or movies (at me but I haven't liked any of the adaptations). I found the cultural information more interesting and didn't really connect to any of the characters.

I just finished Unmarriageable, which means I have only one to go in my Djeran section of #booked2020 . Only #bookclubworthy to go... I‘m reading The Lady‘s Guide to Celestial Mechanics next before I listen to the relevant Book Thingo podcast - that is sort of like a book club, isn‘t it? Other ideas: Know My Name, The Old Lie, Salt, This is How We Change the Ending... no shortage of ideas.

Loved this one. I stayed up hours past my bedtime savoring this Pride and Prejudice retelling set in early 2000s upper class Pakistan.

Oh Wickham.

Just started Unmarriageable. Alysba Binat is an English Literature teacher in a girls‘ school in Dilipabad. When she and her four sisters are invited to the wedding of the year, their mother believes this may finally be the opportunity she has been waiting for to marry them off.

#booked2020 prompt "set in India or south Asia "

Listening to this pride & prejudice #retelling while coloring. #audiobook

Genius book. Adapts Pride and Prejudice to Pakistan, which works beautifully. Funny, pointed and with characters to remember. A familiar story told at an angle, which made me look at it all over again.

Recommended!

#Austen #Janeite

It was a truth universally acknowledged, Alys suddenly thought with a smile, that people enter our lives in order to recommend reads.

(Photo: Kalk Bay books, Cape Town)

This book is so clever.
I'd not realised re Anne until Kamal gives the Pakistani "Annie" a voice of her own. What were her choices or views?

Ooh, Alys (Elizabeth) gets her own back...

Cast your nets wide, reel it in, grab it, grab it. But do not come across as too fast or forward... Keep your distance without keeping your distance. Let him caress you without coming anywhere near you. Coo sweet somethings into his ears without opening your mouth. Before he even realises there is a trap, he will have proposed.
Do you understand?

(Mrs Bennett, Pakistan style)

There is a vast difference between remaining unmarried and choosing to stay single...

(I think it's semantics, myself.)

At this rate I‘ll never finish. Too cute to move.

So much for finishing, Mads is book-blocking again.

Sherry was looking very nice. Gone was her thin braid. Her new chin-length style suited her bony angles. Her skin had cleared up. She was clad in a well-tailored lawn shalwar kameez from one of the better brands and black ballet flats. #Amethyst drops shone in her ears. #QuotsyFeb20

#PrideAndPrejudiceRetelling

Finishing this book was a wonderful way to end my holiday break. I thoroughly enjoyed this reimagined story of a literary classic in present day Pakistan.

This was a good, very faithful to Austen, Pride and Prejudice retelling that takes place in early 2000s Pakistan. It's always particularly interesting in an Austen retelling to see what women's position is in the society of the retelling.

I really liked Alys as well as the focus on the interactions amongst the various women.

#romantsy

4⭐

This was awesome! A Pakistani retelling of Pride and Prejudice *very* faithful to the original. I've read my fair share of retellings and none of them so closely followed Austen's plot and characters so that at times I felt almost like I was reading the original. But I also felt like Kamal put her own fascinating spin on the story with its setting in contemporary Pakistan with a Muslim family. One brilliant change: making Colonel Fitzwilliam gay!

This is fantastic so far! I've laughed out loud a few times already. #AwesomeAudiobooks

With countless retellings of Jane Austen's P&P most totally miss the mark for me. While Kamal's Unmarriageable does follow it a bit too closely in parts, she captures the spirit and wit of Austen and communicates on multiple levels to the reader. There is much beneath the surface as she examines class and the choices women have (and do not have) in modern Pakistan with her commentary on culture and society. Proof that Austen is truly timeless!

"It was a truth universally acknowledged, Alys suddenly thought with a smile, that people enter our lives in order to recommend reads."

Alys binat has found happiness teaching English literature to schoolgirls. Although she knows that many of her students won‘t finish their education before dropping out to marry, alys still hopes to inspire them to dream of more than what‘s expected. When an invitation arrives for the biggest wedding their town has seen in years, Mrs binat excitedly prepares her five unmarried daughters to hunt for prospective husbands.

I loved the concept of this book...to mirror the characters and storyline of Pride and Prejudice into early 2000‘s Pakistan. It‘s amazing how well Jane Austen‘s themes could be updated for another century and adapted by another culture. This book was a study of humanity, of our cultural similarities, of how the human condition has the same basic victories and struggles no matter when or where you live. Loved it.

https://wellreadneck.wordpress.com/2019/09/13/unmarriageable-soniah-kamal/

The silver lining in insomnia? Why, reading, of course! #BonBonCat is out for the count, though. #catsofLitsy

It took me a while to get into this, which was surprising as a retelling of Pride & Prejudice set in modern day Pakistan. At first I found it too exact a copy of P&P, and then the themes seemed repeated incessantly. Eventually it picked up, but it was never fully redeemed for me. The author really focused on the females relationships, and the love stories seemed like afterthoughts. I wish there was more “showing” and less “telling.”

⭐️⭐️⭐️

It takes a lot for a Austenesque to
earn a spot on my All Things Austen Bookshelf. Unmarriageable I read Library copy earlier this year. Loved it so much I had to have Print copy. Ayesha at Last I had heard good things about so I bought a copy to start with. It's definitely a keeper! 📚
#bestaustenesque #austeninaugust2019

Soniah Kamal's Unmarriageable opens with protagonist Alys teaching a class of girls in Pakistan about a key phrase from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. From that moment, I loved this book. Kamal retells Austen's classic story, set in the early 2000s in Pakistan. (continued in comments)

Marriage should be a part of life and not life

“Internal misogyny has made a mockery of female solidarity,” Alys said, forlorn.

#BonBonCat guards the stack of library books I picked up today. First library visit after returning from our trip. #CatsofLitsy