religion Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books

Search: A Novel

Catherine — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 07:43:14 +0000

I don’t read a lot of fiction with religion at its core, but Search by Michelle Huneven was recommended to me after a spate of heavy, challenging nonfiction. I knew nothing about the story, but was initially apprehensive about the premise of a woman joining the search committee for a new minister at her church. Thankfully, […]

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The Book of Everlasting Things

Catherine — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 08:03:40 +0000

The Book of Everlasting Things is a multigenerational debut spanning the globe from India to Europe. Initially set in Lahore, India in the 1930s and 40s the novel encompasses 70 years in the lives of one Hindu boy and one Muslim girl. Two children, who despite different backgrounds, grow into love only to have it, […]

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God Spare the Girls

Catherine — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 04:28:09 +0000

What do you do when your entire family is perfect, but you’re 18 and confused? For Caroline Nolan, in God Spare the Girls, it’s an especially complicated question because her father is Luke Nolan, pastor of a megachurch in Texas. Her mother Ruthie is the perfect matriarch, calm and always perfectly coiffed. Worst of all, […]

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The Bad Muslim Discount

Catherine — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 05:15:31 +0000

The blurb for The Bad Muslim Discount calls it “hilarious” so I was ready for some kind of satirical, light, comedic look at Muslim culture in America told from the Middle Eastern perspective. I was deliciously mistaken in that what I got was a thoughtful, nuanced portrayal of two immigrants, one from Pakistan and one […]

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Mothers’ Week: A Woman is No Man

Catherine — Wed, 08 May 2019 07:29:49 +0000

It’s easy to become outraged about the treatment of women in the Muslim world when it takes place far away, as in the memoir Daring to Drive or fiction like Song of a Captive Bird or The Pearl that Broke its Shell. It’s ingrained through centuries of custom and dogma, but debut author Etaf Rum shreds any […]

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Women Talking: A Novel by Miriam Toews

Catherine — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 07:12:58 +0000

In the Mennonite community of Molotschna eight women gather in a barn to talk. Their meeting is a secret, made possible only because the men have gone into the city to bail out eight men who have been accused of a heinous crime: that of drugging and raping over 100 of the community’s women and […]

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What I’m Reading This Week

Catherine — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 07:28:32 +0000

I’m not sure I remember a time when it was so hard to think about reading, but the past two weeks have been hectic enough that I’m mentally and physically frazzled. Last week was my first trip to Ann Arbor—touring neighborhoods and looking at houses. While parts of it were fun (so much good food!) […]

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A Place for Us: A Novel

Catherine — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 07:14:08 +0000

A Place for Us opens just before the beginning of an Indian family wedding in California. The bride, Hadia, is hoping that her brother, Amar, will show up. No one in the family has seen him for three years, but Hadia hopes their bond is strong enough to bring him back, despite the problems with their […]

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The Book of Essie: A Novel

Catherine — Wed, 20 Jun 2018 07:04:29 +0000

For most young girls, being seventeen and pregnant is not a good place to be. For Esther Hicks it’s even worse because she is the youngest daughter of a fundamentalist pastor and part of a reality TV show about their family. With a life played out in front of the camera and the nation, how […]

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American Radical: Inside the World of an Undercover Muslim FBI Agent

Catherine — Fri, 04 May 2018 07:15:16 +0000

Like some of the other non-fiction books I read last month (Educated, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark), American Radical by Tamer Elnoury reads like fiction. High-wire tension, thriller kind of reading. Tamer Elnoury (not his real name) is an undercover FBI agent. He was brought here from Egypt by his parents when he […]

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