Update from Kia
Hello,
Winter is over! There is light! There is sunshine! There is hope!
I never used to be the sort of person who had to go out every day to stay mentally healthy. In fact, I had such a strict upbringing, I was never allowed anywhere except school and my local library. The concept of going for a walk or hanging out with friends might as well have been getting on a rocket ship and flying to the moon. As such, I became used to living my life at home.
Thankfully, this changed in my mid-20s. I finally had financial independence, which meant I could go anywhere – which I sort of did. These days, I’m more rooted, but I still need to go out every day even if it’s just to the local shop. I find winter hard because going out is not appealing, but if I stay in, I feel gloomy and irritable by the time evening hits.
This is why I’m so glad that spring is finally here. There are worries on my mind – not least my Book 5 edits which need to be done by the end of March, plus the mortgage rate rises which have gobbled up my disposable income – but, without sounding twee, going out costs nothing. With the days getting brighter, I’m feeling duly positive. I hope you are too.
Until next time.
Kia x
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New books by British-Asian authors
7 March 2024
The Feminist Killjoy Handbook
We have to keep saying it because they keep doing it. Do colleagues roll their eyes in a meeting when you use words like sexism or racism? Do you refuse to laugh at jokes that aren't funny? Have you been called divisive for pointing out a division? Then you are a feminist killjoy, and this handbook is for you. The term killjoy has been used to dismiss feminism by claiming that it causes misery […]
14 March 2024
Death of a Lesser God
Can a white man receive justice in post-colonial India? Bombay, 1950. James Whitby, sentenced to death for the murder of prominent lawyer and former Quit India activist Fareed Mazumdar, is less than two weeks from a date with the gallows. In a last-ditch attempt to save his son, Whitby’s father, arch-colonialist Charles Whitby, forces a new investigation into the killing […]
14 March 2024
Finding Sophie
Sophie King is missing. Her parents, Harry and Zara, are distraught. For the last seventeen years, they've done everything for their only daughter. The police have no leads, and Harry and Zara are growing increasingly frantic – and increasingly obsessed with their highly suspicious neighbour. He won't open the door, he won't answer any questions […]
14 March 2024
I cannot be good until you say it
Intricately weaving Quranic verse, psychology, and the hip-hop soundtrack of their childhood, Sanah Ahsan’s poems traverse emotional and physical landscapes, whiteness, islamophobia, homophobia and intergenerational suffering. In these pages, belief and unbelief, goodness and badness, the material and spiritual are intertwined, reclaiming queer love and desire as holy […]
21 March 2024
Hotel Arcadia
A high-octane thriller capturing the extraordinary capacity of humans to retain compassion in extreme circumstances. Sam is a war photographer, famous for her hauntingly beautiful pictures of the dead. After a particularly gruelling assignment she checks into a luxury hotel, hoping to unwind with a few days of solitude. Abhi, the hotel manager, never wanted to be a hero […]
28 March 2024
Power Up: An Engineer’s Adventures into Sustainable Energy
We rarely think about the energy systems that prop up our existence. With hot water, lighting and digital entertainment all available at the flick of a switch, it's easy to underestimate the vast global network that makes these things possible. Growing up in Iraq, Yasmin Ali regularly experienced power cuts – ironic for a country rich in oil and sunshine. Now as an engineer working in energy […]
Books out last month
1 February 2024
Winter Animals
In one of America's Happiest Cities, Elen is trapped under the shadow of the snow-capped Cascade Mountains. Elen is alone, and unmoored. Her husband has left her. Her belongings are in the boot of her car. Her days are filled mostly with silence and drinking. When she meets four English teenagers in a decaying bar, she is enamoured. The teenagers are wealthy squatters, drifting between ski resorts and breaking into […]
1 February 2024
Victory City
In the wake of an insignificant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in fourteenth-century southern India, a nine-year-old girl has a divine encounter that will change the course of history. After witnessing the death of her mother, the grief-stricken Pampa Kampana becomes a vessel for a goddess, who tells her that she will be instrumental in the rise of a great city called Bisnaga - literally 'victory city' […]
1 February 2024
Dr Roopa's Body Books: The Brilliant Brain
A new series on a hugely popular topic – the human body! First up, award-winning writer Dr Roopa Farooki explores the wonderful workings of the brain. Every second of every day, something is happening in every tiny bit of your body, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet… And if you think of your body as a machine, your brain would be the control room […]
8 February 2024
Uncivilised: Ten Lies that Made the West
Knowledge is power. Time is money. Justice is blind. Western civilisation is a powerful brand, and full of accepted wisdoms that we rarely question. Taking cues from Greek philosophy and honed in the Enlightenment, certain notions about humanity and society grew into the tenets many of us still live by today. But if we take a closer look at these ideas, it seems they are not all they are cracked up to be […]
8 February 2024
Nuts and Bolts: How Tiny Inventions Make Our World Work
Smartphones, skyscrapers, spacecraft. Modern technology seems mind-bogglingly complex. But beneath the surface, it can be beautifully simple. In Nuts and Bolts, award-winning Shard engineer and broadcaster Roma Agrawal deconstructs our most complex feats of engineering into seven fundamental inventions: the nail, spring, wheel, lens, magnet, string and pump […]
8 February 2024
How to Find a Rainbow
Reena hates rainy days. She hates the way the dark clouds make everything look so dull. Rekha loves rainy days. She loves the way the rain makes the earth smell. When Rekha spots a rainbow, she rushes indoors to tell her sister about it. Reena will want to paint it, for sure! But when the sisters go outside to find it, the rainbow disappears. Where could it have gone? […]
13 February 2024
Sona Sharma, Looking After Planet Earth
Sona is determined to get her whole suburban Indian neighborhood to help fight climate change in this heartwarming story. When Sona learns about the climate crisis at school, she worries nobody is doing enough to combat it. So she takes up the challenge herself! But her family isn't amused when Sona suddenly gets rid of her sister's diapers and turns off Thatha and Paatti's cooling fan during their nap […]
13 February 2024
Closer to Love: How to Attract the Right Relationships and Deepen Your Connections
Bestselling author of Good Vibes, Good Life and Healing is the New High, Vex King is back with Closer to Love, a life-changing guide to strengthening your relationships by honouring and nurturing the one you have with yourself. Do you love your partner but want to rekindle that ‘in love’ feeling? Do you go on plenty of dates but can’t seem to click with the right person? […]
29 February 2024
Western Lane
A deeply moving novel about grief, sisterhood, squash and a teenage girl's struggle to transcend herself. Eleven-year-old Gopi has been playing squash since she was old enough to hold a racket. When her mother dies, her father enlists her in a quietly brutal training regimen, and the game becomes her world. Slowly, she grows apart from her sisters. Her life is reduced to the sport, guided by its rhythms […]
29 February 2024
Mister, Mister
An exuberantly imaginative novel of Britishness and unbelonging from the prizewinning author of In Our Mad and Furious City. When Yahya Bas finds himself in a UK detention centre after fleeing the conflict in Syria, he has many questions to face. What was he doing in the desert? Why does he hate this country? Why did he write the incendiary verses which turned him into an online sensation […]
29 February 2024
Grimwood: Attack of the Stink Monster!
A Bigfoot is on the loose! Ted, Nancy, Willow and the rest of the Grimwood gang must embark on their greatest adventure yet to save their home from a nasty, thieving stink monster. Monster hunters are GO! Fully illustrated throughout and full of heart, laughs and surprises, this is the must-read third title in the bestselling and fantastically funny Grimwood series […]
Editor’s choice
The book I’m most excited about…
I’ll be honest: I’m not entirely convinced that we can reclaim the term ‘killjoy’, but I’m willing to give it a try. As someone who studied a very male-dominated subject at university and later worked in a very male-dominated industry (Computer Science and tech respectively), I learnt early on about the contempt reserved for feminist killjoys.
At university, I inured myself to locker room talk and later, in the workplace, dismissed inappropriate comments as harmless banter. It’s why my interest was piqued by author and scholar Sara Ahmed’s claim that we can – and should – reclaim this epithet.
In The Feminist Killjoy Handbook, Sara draws on her own stories and those of others, including Black and brown feminists and queer thinkers, to make the case that by naming ourselves feminist killjoys, we can recover a feminist history and turn it into a source of strength as well as an inspiration. She sets out to unpick the lies our culture tells us and provide a form of solidarity that we can return to over a lifetime.
Order it now from Amazon, Waterstones or your local independent bookshop.
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