An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
On the first of January each year, Aaliya begins a translation of one of her many books, not Arabic. Once finished, she packs it away, never to be read. The blurb, for once, echoed my own thoughts after reading this book – ‘A sublime novel, a love letter to literature and an acclamation of its power to define who we are.’
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
I dream of libraries and bookshops where the narrow corridors between crowded shelves lead you, like a maze, to worlds you can barely imagine. How could I resist a story about a cemetery for forgotten books? Once I started, I could not find my way out. It was a kind of heaven.
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
The Sarajevo Haggadah as a beautifully illuminated Hebrew manuscript created in fifteenth-century Spain. Geraldine Brooks imagines it’s journey through time and honours the people who protected it – Hebrew, Christian and Muslim.
Books About the Oxford English Dictionary
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester
The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester
Lost for Words by Lynda Mugglestone
Caught in the Web of Words by KM Elizabeth Murray
