
Cooking and Eating in Renaissance Italy: From Kitchen to Table
Book
Renaissance Italy's art, literature, and culture continue to fascinate. The domestic life has been...

The Book of Circles: Visualizing Spheres of Knowledge
Book
In The Book of Circles, his companion volume to the popular Book of Trees, Manuel Lima takes us on a...

Tourism Imaginaries at the Disciplinary Crossroads: Place, Practice, Media
Dimitri Ioannides, Maria Gravari-Barbas and Nelson H. Graburn
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Maria Gravari-Barbas is Professor of Geography at the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. She...

Biohackers: The Politics of Open Science
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Biohackers explores fundamental changes occuring in the circulation and ownership of scientific...

Decline of Iranshahr: Irrigation and Environment in the Middle East, 500 B.C. - A.D. 1500
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The history of the Middle East is traditionally structured around the rise and fall of dynasties and...

Sean Stone recommended Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) in Movies (curated)

The Birth of Tragedy
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Nietzsche's first published book, The Birth of Tragedy is a compelling argument for the necessity of...

Goddess in the Stacks (553 KP) rated Unmarriageable: A Novel in Books
May 7, 2019
Anyway. Austen. I've read a bunch of retellings but believe it or not, I haven't read the original. I really need to get on that, but instead, I read Unmarriageable, which is Pride and Prejudice set in modern-day Pakistan! It's SO GOOD. The themes of family honor, class structure, and rumors damaging reputations translates incredibly easily into Pakistani society, which is why Soniah Kamal wrote it. In her Afterword, she writes:
"Was there any worry more Pakistani than the concern about what might bring a family honor or dishonor? .... Was there anything more Pakistani than [Charlotte's] calculated, 'arranged' marriage? ... Was there anything more apropos to Pakistan than class issues, snootiness, and double standards?"
She goes on to say she was already reading the book as if it was set in Pakistan, so why not write it that way for other Pakistanis? Kamal explains that Pakistan is very much a mix of Pakistan and English culture, and that the emphasis on learning English and English culture comes at the expense of their own indigenous culture, something forced upon them by colonizers. Unmarriageable is her way of melding the two cultures.
I really enjoyed this version of the classic, and it has me even more interested in other versions, such as Ibi Zoboi's Pride and Sonali Dev's Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors. Book Riot actually ran a short list recently on diverse Austen retellings, and I've added every one of them to my To-Read list!
You can find all my reviews (and links to the things mentioned above) on my blog, http://goddessinthestacks.com

The Jewish Enlightenment
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At the beginning of the eighteenth century most European Jews lived in restricted settlements and...

Frommer's Easyguide to Ireland 2017
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Meant to be carried with you as you travel, this highly portable, concisely-written 288-page book...