DUE chiefly to the fact that I have travelled quite a lot this year - and when I travel I read more - this has been a good year for me, reading wise. In non-fiction, my three standout books were Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, Do No Harm by Henry Marsh and If the Oceans were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran by Carla Power.
Gawande and Marsh are both immensely successful surgeons who, writing with rare sensitivity and grace, confront not just that big taboo of our age - death - but also how to prepare oneself for it, both as a doctor (Marsh) and patient (Gawande). Despite the grim subject, both books are an inspiring and moving tribute to the human spirit. An anthropologist by training and half Jewish, half Quaker by birth, Power spends a year reading the Quran with a respected Muslim scholar, Mohammed Akram Nadwi. The book charts not just this modern feminist's attempt to understand the Quran, but also her relationship with her pious, orthodox teacher. This important book is a profound testament to Powers' and Nadwi's attempts to bridge cultural and religious divides and wherever possible, find common ground based on their shared humanity.
In fiction, I was utterly consumed by Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan quartet. Charting the course of a 60-year-old friendship between two girls that starts in a poor neighbourhood of Naples in the 1950s, these four books are profoundly political in nature and also delve into the disappointments of sex, the constraints of motherhood, the inequities of marriage and the everyday challenges that litter the path of women who aspire to anything other than domesticity.
The Blue Between Sky and Water is Susan Abulhawa's tribute to the extraordinary resilience and courage of the Palestinians who inhabit "the world's largest open air prison", Gaza. Abulhawa's novel, though unsparing in its account of the brutality and humiliation inflicted daily on Gazans by Israelis, is a lyrical story of the redemptive quality of love and familial bonds. Finally, The Private Life of Mrs Sharma by Ratika Kapur and The Department of Speculation by Jenny Offill are very different but equally intense examinations of motherhood and modern marriage set in Delhi and New York.
