Tag Archives: Nadia Tariq

How To Keep House While Drowning: A gentle approach to cleaning and organising, by KC Davis. Reviewed by Nadia Tariq

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With the laundry baskets overflowing, three children at home creating chaos faster than I could possibly manage – and a handful of Audible credits that needed used up – I made what turned out to be the best spontaneous book choice.

Forget your typical summer reads (I wouldn’t be making it to the beach in any case). This book is exactly what I needed. Self help isn’t my usual genre, but the title alone – How to Keep House While Drowning – spoke to me, and with a listening time of only 3 hours, I’d be stupid not to give it a go.

Indeed, the key aspect of this book for me was its accessibility – it was very easy to engage with, very easy to understand, and very easy to finish (and I do have a problem with finishing audiobooks – difficulty concentrating through constant interruption can make them seem like more of a chore than a pleasure).

Crucially, author KC Davis is a licenced therapist, as well as having active experience ‘drowning’ while keeping house herself. She shares her struggles and her techniques for keeping afloat, which are all relatable, doable, adaptable and centred around caring for the self above all else.

I did not come away from this with a rigorous new game plan for tackling my home. I did not and still do not harbour dreams of becoming a domestic goddess. Instead – which in my view is far more valuable – I came away with the ability to not feel guilty about the state of my home.

Here are a few choice lessons that have stayed with me after listening (paraphrased):

Try not to think of it as ‘housework’ or ‘chores’. These are ‘care tasks’.

Anything that is worth doing is worth doing partially.

Momentum breeds momentum.

It is not tidying. It is ‘resetting your space’.

Your space exists to serve you. You do not exist to serve your space.

For the full experience, I thoroughly recommend giving this wonderful book a read or a listen. If your home doesn’t thank you, your mental health probably will.

Reviewed by Nadia Tariq

Bird Summons: Light, Lyrical Lockdown Reading

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I’m almost ashamed to say that I had never heard of the multi-award-winning author Leila Aboulela. Bird Summons – her fifth novel – can be described as both Scottish and Muslim fiction; and yet, as a Scottish Muslim who loves to read, she had not been on my radar at all.

What a treat I had in store.

Bird Summons hinges upon a simple enough premise. Three beautifully, realistically flawed Arab-Scottish women embark upon a journey – a pilgrimage, of sorts – to the remote Highlands, ostensibly to visit the grave of Lady Evelyn Cobbold: “the first British woman to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, to educate themselves about the history of Islam in Britain, to integrate better by following the example of those who were of this soil and of their faith”.

Ostensibly is a good word. Bird Summons is so much than first presents itself. What begins as a nuanced bildungsroman of three immigrant women spanning their forties, thirties and twenties – Salma, Moni and Iman – soon becomes something much more. Into this blend Aboulela seamlessly incorporates ancient folklore stemming from the storytelling traditions of Scotland, India and the Arab world, creating something altogether more enchanting and thoroughly unique. As the threads of the three friends’ lives began to unravel, it was this new thread of allegory and parable that heightened the intrigue for me.

Be prepared: what starts as a story pleasantly grounded in realism, becomes increasingly, thoroughly and enjoyably weird. And yet it never jars. Aboulela makes it easy to embrace the fantastical.

Bird Summons also reads as a sort of love letter to Scotland, and the Highlands in particular. Aboulela’s sympathetic descriptions of the physical landscape her characters traverse certainly evoked a nostalgic, somewhat patriotic twinge for my homeland.

Special thanks to my childhood best friend for gifting me this novel and introducing me to this ‘new’ canon of work. You always promised you’d take me to Stonehaven, and I consider this a promise fulfilled. When they all converged on Dunnottar castle, I thought of you.

Bird Summons, by Leila Aboulela, was published in 2019 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. It was a Guardian Best Book of 2019; shortlisted for the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year 2019; and longlisted for the Highland Book prize 2019.

Reviewed by Nadia Tariq

 

The Doll Factory: Historical Fiction for the ‘Me Too’ Era

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‘The Doll Factory’, by Elizabeth Macneal, is published by Pan Macmillan.

I’ve never really considered myself the jealous type. And yet, yesterday – having finished the altogether best book I have read in possibly years – I found myself to be unequivocally, admittedly just that. Jealous. But, also awed, inspired and (isn’t it always so with a favourite book?) almost satisfied.

Because, well, this. This is the kind of book I’d want to write. Because it’s exactly the book I wanted to read.

We follow Iris: twin, shop girl, would-be artist. Dreaming of escape from the drudgery of working-class respectability she feels imprisoned in. Enter Louis, a spirited young painter who could offer just that. But is that all she has to contend with? Silas, a taxidermist with an obsession, has developed other ideas. It is a tale of possession, power and intrigue, with just the right measure of romantic relief.

Set in the possibilities of 1850, smack bang in the time of the Great Exhibition, The Doll Factory captures all of the aspects of Victorian London that we are most familiar with. The poverty, the degradation, the prostitution. Charity, ingenuity, opportunity. The constant framework of class. And art. Lots of art. The nothingness and the excess.

Aside from personal penchant – as a long-time fan of neo-Victorian literature, this romantic thriller was bound to appeal to me – Elizabeth Macneal’s debut boasts all the ingredients of a stunning success. Compelling characterisation, clever plot lines, and the seamless blending of historical accuracy with imaginary detail. Macneal’s world comes vividly alive and the thrill is deliciously real.

And a success it is proving to be. Macneal’s novel won the 2018 Caledonia Novel Award, is a Sunday Times top ten bestseller, and the TV rights have already been sold. And it’s not even out in paperback yet.

But more than that. There is a very modern edge to this story. At its heart, it is a story of womanhood, it is a story of breaking bonds and forging new ones, and it is a story of escape. And of course, the universal themes; life, and death.

And it is perfectly on point for the post ‘Me Too’ consciousness that we are living in. One particularly poignant passage conveys the male power that Iris feels threatened by, the paradoxical standard that women are held to; one that women are pushing against even now, two centuries later:

 ‘… all her life she has been careful not to encourage men, but not to slight them either… an arm around her waist is nothing more than friendly, a whisper in her ear and a forced kiss on the cheek is flattering, something for which she should be grateful. She should appreciate the attentions of men more, but she should resist them too, subtly, in a way both to encourage and discourage, so as not lead to doubts of her purity and goodness but not to make the men feel snubbed.’

Macneal’s Doll Factory. It is romantic, it is considered, and it is thrilling. I’d go as far as to employ that feminist buzzword, ‘empowering’.

Yes. Must read.

Reviewed by Nadia Tariq