Recommendations based on "The Queue"

A rich, magical new novel on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World.Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he’s searching for lost love.Years later, a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited - her only connection to her family’s troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world.A moving, beautifully written and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak’s best work yet.

An intensely powerful new novel from the best-selling author of The Bastard of Istanbul and Honour'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which the women use to wax their legs while the men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that Leila shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her. . .

Many of us know how the partition of India and Pakistan came about. However, there are several other stories that took place during that time that we need to be aware of. There are several tragedies which have not received as much importance as the partition itself.The book is a collection of unforgettable stories put together as Saadat Hasan Manto s most powerful pieces. It is based on the Partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan in the year 1947. The book contains many stories like Toba Tek Singh, The Return, The Assignment, Colder Than Ice and many more. All these stories come alive to put forward the most tragic events in the history of the subcontinent.

The new novel from the Booker-shortlisted, internationally bestselling author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World ***** There Are Rivers in the Sky is a rich, sweeping novel set between the 19th century and modern times, about love and loss, memory and erasure, hurt and healing, centred around three enchanting characters living on the banks of the River Thames and the River Tigris - their lives all curiously touched by the epic of Gilgamesh. ***** 'Elif Shafak is a unique and powerful voice in world literature' Ian McEwan 'Shafak makes a new home for us in words' Colum McCann 'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi

A masterful, intensely moving novel about three friends living in political exile and the emotional homeland that deep friendships can provide - from the Booker-shortlisted, Pulitzer prize-winning author of THE RETURNKhaled and Mustafa meet at university in two Libyan eighteen-year-olds expecting to return home after their studies. In a moment of recklessness and courage, they travel to London to join a demonstration in front of the Libyan embassy. When government officials open fire on protestors in broad daylight, both friends are wounded, and their lives forever changed.Over the years that follow, Khaled, Mustafa and their friend Hosam, a writer, are bound together by their shared history. If friendship is a space to inhabit, theirs becomes small and inhospitable when a revolution in Libya forces them to choose between the lives they have created in London and the lives they left behind.'I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice' Elif Shafak

*The international bestseller* "Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough..." Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love. So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, her world is turned upside down. She embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author of this work. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into an exotic world where faith and love are heartbreakingly explored. . . 'Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love' Metro 'Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent' Daily Telegraph 'The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself' The Times

As a boy Younes' life is irrevocably changed when he leaves his broken home in the Algerian countryside for the colourful and affluent European district of Río Salado. Renamed Jonas, he begins a new life and forges a unique friendship with a group of boys, an enduring bond that nothing – not even the Algerian Revolt – will shake.Yet with the return to Río Salado of Emilie – a beautiful, beguiling girl who captures the hearts of all who see her – an epic love story is set in motion that will challenge the bond between the four friends and force Jonas to choose between two worlds: Algerian or European; past or present; and at last decide if he will surrender to fate or take control of his own destiny.

From Booker-shortlisted author Elif Shafak, Honour is a gripping tale of love, betrayal and clashing cultures.'My mother died twice. I promised myself I would not let her story be forgotten' Pembe and Adem Toprak leave Turkey for London. There they make new lives for their family. Yet the traditions and beliefs of their home come with them - carried in the blood of their children, Iskender and Esma. Trapped by past mistakes, the Toprak children find their lives torn apart and transformed by a brutal and chilling crime. Set in Turkey and London in the 1970s, Honour explores pain and loss, loyalty and betrayal, the clash of tradition and modernity, as well as the love and heartbreak that can tear any family apart. 'One of the best writers in the world today' Hanif Kureishi 'Vivid storytelling... that explores the darkest aspects of faith and love' Sunday Telegraph Elif Shafak's latest novel The Island of Missing Trees is available for pre-order now

The assassin Daoud ibn Abdallah strides amid his throngs of enemies, vowing to have Sophia Paloides as a slave to his wishes and fighting another powerful warrior for control of civilization

This beautiful graphic-novel adaptation of The Breadwinner animated film tells the story of eleven-year-old Parvana who must disguise herself as a boy to support her family during the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan.Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital city. Parvana's father - a history teacher until his school was bombed and his health destroyed - works from a blanket on the ground in the marketplace, reading letters for people who cannotread or write. One day, he is arrested for having forbidden books, and the family is left without someone who can earn money or even shop for food.As conditions for the family grow desperate, only one solution emerges. Forbidden to earn money as a girl, Parvana must transform herself into a boy, and become the breadwinner.Deborah Ellis's beloved novel has been adapted for film by Aircraft Pictures, Cartoon Saloon and Melusine Productions in association with Angelina Jolie's production company, jolie pas productions. The animated feature film, directed by Nora Twomey, will launch in the UK in 2018.