Minaret – Leila Aboulela
Leila Aboulela’s American debut is a provocative, timely, and engaging novel about a young Muslim woman – once privileged and secular in her native land and now impoverished in London – gradually embracing her orthodox faith.
With her Muslim hijab and down-turned gaze, Najwa is invisible to most eyes, especially to the rich families whose houses she cleans in London. Twenty years ago, Najwa, then at university in Khartoum, would never have imagined that one day she would be a maid. An upper-class Westernized Sudanese, her dreams were to marry well and raise a family. But a coup forces the young woman and her family into political exile in London. Soon orphaned, she finds solace and companionship within the Muslim community.
Then Najwa meets Tamer, the intense, lonely younger brother of her employer. They find a common bond in faith and slowly, silently, begin to fall in love. Written with directness and force, Minaret is a lyric and insightful novel about Islam and an alluring glimpse into a culture Westerners are only just beginning to understand.
Kelantanese kain songket trader and amateur sleuth Mak Cik Maryam is plunged once again into the shadowy world of murder, hatred and madness when a fellow market woman is killed after a successful main puteri (princess play) curing ceremony. Sorcery is suspected, though Maryam believes there are sufficient human suspects to investigate before considering the supernatural. Solving the crime requires the unravelling of a knot of family secrets, madness and familiar spirits. Once again Mak Cik Maryam brings Kelantan common sense, jewellery and an instinct for truth to shed light on a situation which appears at first to be insoluble. Follow Malaysia’s favourite female detective in Princess Play, the second Kelantanese murder case in the Kain Songket Mysteries series
I am the same too, I’ve made resolutions about the things I want to change about myself this year. So far, so good, but I was wondering if this year will be my breakout year where I actually complete them or as usual, stop before January ends. So I went and researched how I can actually make sure I keep my resolutions for 2017.
Be Realistic: Let’s be honest here, everyone wants to look like the current Ms Universe but someone who is say 120 kgs can’t become 50 kgs in one year, not without resorting to drastic measures. So be realistic about the goals you want to achieve. If you aim to read books this year, maybe you could start with one book a month?
Create regular targets: This is basically breaking down your goals into smaller, bite-sized portions which allow you some successes during the year as well as will not discourage you, especially if the goal is slightly beyond your capabilities. If you aim to save $1000 by the end of the year, then saving slightly less than $100 per month will do the trick.
Keep a diary: A diary, physical or digital will help you document your progress, help you track and celebrate success and also pinpoint failures. This will keep you on track and also once you are documenting your progress, you become inclined to actually go ahead and keep doing what you need to do to achieve the goal.
Celebrate Successes: When you achieve any of your mini goals or are on track to achieving your goals or even keep your resolutions for an extended period, then celebrate it by doing something for yourself, like having a spa day or buying new clothes etc.
Be accountable: Share your goals with family or friends. This will allow you to become accountable for them and when you know people are going to ask you about your goals, you do take extra effort to make them complete.
Don’t give up: Failure is just a stepping stone to success. It’s a very rare individual who will be 100% consistent in achieving his goals through the year. We all are apt to have periods when we slip up. Don’t take these periods of slip-ups as if you are not going to achieve your goals. Get up, dust yourself and go back to the last day you were accountable and then continue from there.
