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Rafia Zakaria

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Rafia Zakaria is an attorney and author of The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan; and Veil. She is a columnist for Dawn in Pakistan and writes regularly for Guardian Books, The Nation, The New Republic, The Baffler, Boston Review and various other places.
11 books on the list
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The Eye of the Beholder book cover
The Eye of the Beholder
Margie Orford - 2022-07-07
Goodreads Rating
Explore the intricate web of secrets and lies that three women must unravel in order to uncover the truth. One violent act sets them on a collision course, and as they confront the people they love, they discover that things are not always what they seem. Get swept up in the suspense of this captivating novel.
Rafia Zakaria
2022-11-11T18:20:03.000Z
This will be great!!! It is a fantastic book!!!      source
Giving Up the Ghost book cover
Giving Up the Ghost
A Memoir (John MacRae Books)
Hilary Mantel - 2004-09-01 (first published in 2003)
Goodreads Rating
This memoir follows author Hilary Mantel's upbringing in postwar rural England and her pursuit of unlikely accomplishments. However, after marriage, she experiences persistent pain and ineffective medical treatment, leading to a life without children. Through it all, she finds solace in writing novels.
Rafia Zakaria
2022-09-23T17:44:57.000Z
@MargieOrford I know I am so awfully sad about it. Her book Giving up the Ghost is what inspired me to start writing about personal things.      source
Recommended by
Lena Dunham
If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal book cover
If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal
What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity
Justin Gregg - 2022-08-09
Goodreads Rating
Explore the fascinating world of animal cognition and its implications for human intelligence in this mind-bending and hilarious book. From language to rationality, morality to consciousness, prepare to be amazed by the remarkable smarts of our animal brethren. As scientist Justin Gregg persuasively argues, humans may not be the superior species after all. Is intelligence more of a curse than a gift? Find out in this extraordinary and thought-provoking read that will change how you look at animals, humans, and the meaning of life itself.
Rafia Zakaria
2022-09-18T16:32:27.000Z
@justindgregg @mexiwriter @thebafflermag @JackNorrisRD I’m just so very delighted. This book really opened my mind and I envy you your knowledge of animal behavior and it’s meanings… I feel like you see the world so much more deeply.      source
Stealing My Religion book cover
Stealing My Religion
Not Just Any Cultural Appropriation
Liz Bucar - 2022-09-13
Goodreads Rating
Explore the murky ethics of religious appropriation with this essential guide. Liz Bucar unpacks the ethical dilemmas of borrowing religious doctrines, rituals, and dress for political, economic, and therapeutic reasons. With three revealing case studies, this book delves into the hijab as a feminist signal, the pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago, and the commodification of yoga. Reflecting on her own missteps, Bucar concludes that the way to avoid religious appropriation isn't to borrow less but to become deeply invested in learning the roots and diverse meanings of our enthusiasms.
Rafia Zakaria
2022-09-14T13:25:37.000Z
This is an excellent book and very pertinent to the issue of orientalism, appropriation! Thank you @BucarLiz for your inspiring work.      source
They Were Her Property book cover
They Were Her Property
Stephanie E Jones-Rogers - 2019-02-19
Goodreads Rating
This groundbreaking book delves into the role of white women in the American slave economy. Author Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers shows that slave-owning women were savvy economic actors who directly benefited from the South's slave market. White women employed the same brutal management techniques as men and often refused to relinquish ownership of their slaves. By examining the lives of enslaved people and slave-owning women, Jones-Rogers presents a narrative that challenges conventional wisdom about the economics and social conventions of slaveholding America.
Rafia Zakaria
2021-10-28T22:43:38.000Z
@jenniferdeseo @sejr_historian Oh goodness that book “they were her property” is a masterpiece.      source
Recommended by
Alexis Isabel
Love Lockdown book cover
Love Lockdown
Dating, Sex, and Marriage in America's Prisons
Elizabeth Greenwood - 2021-07-13
Goodreads Rating
Love Lockdown explores the lives of five couples who fell in love while one partner was in prison, shedding light on the experiences of millions of Americans. Investigative journalist Elizabeth Greenwood takes readers on a fascinating deep-dive into the world of prison relationships, including conjugal visits and weddings. This book offers a unique perspective on the American prison system and the desire and delusion that we all experience in our romantic pairings.
Rafia Zakaria
2021-07-20T15:10:19.000Z
This is SUCH an interesting book... for its humanizing and empathetic exposition of what life is like for people who love a person who is incarcerated! Join us tomorrow to learn more !!!!@PoliticsProse      source
Recommended by
Lena Dunham
The Doctors Blackwell book cover
The Doctors Blackwell
How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine
Janice P. Nimura - 2021-01-19
Goodreads Rating
Experience an inspiring biography that follows the lives of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell, two pioneering sisters who challenged the conventions of their time to become successful medical professionals. Janice P. Nimura presents a gripping narrative that delves into the sisters’ struggles and triumphs, including their founding of the first hospital staffed completely by women. This thoroughly researched book takes you from the streets of Edinburgh to bustling cities of pre-Civil War America, celebrating the sisters’ remarkable achievements that continue to inspire to this day.
Rafia Zakaria
2021-02-02T17:51:20.000Z
Highly recommend this book! What a riveting story and so well-told. If you want to read about strong women who are pioneers this is THE book for you @wwnorton @WWNortonLibrary      source
The Brutish Museums book cover
The Brutish Museums
The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution
Dan Hicks - 2020-11-01
Goodreads Rating
Explore the heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation, and decolonization of museums with this powerful call for the urgent return of stolen objects. The Benin Bronzes, a collection of thousands of brass plaques and carved ivory tusks depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of Benin City, Nigeria, embody the rapacious and extractive colonialism of their time. Discover the history of their pillage, passing through hands like Queen Victoria and the British Museum, and join the wider project of addressing colonialism's outstanding debt.
Rafia Zakaria
2020-11-29T15:10:11.000Z
Cannot emphasize this enough. One of the best non-fiction books this year. @profdanhicks      source
Indian Sex Life book cover
Indian Sex Life
Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought
Durba Mitra - 2020-01-07
Goodreads Rating
Explore how ideas about deviant female sexuality were used to control and organize modern Indian society during the colonial period. Author Durba Mitra showcases how British authorities and Indian intellectuals turned to concepts of prostitution to learn how Indian society worked. Archives of various disciplines reveal fascinating insights on debates around social progress and exclusion, caste domination, marriage, widowhood and inheritance, women's performance, and more. Mitra examines how the intellectual history of modern social thought is built on the control and erasure of women's sexuality, and how these ideologies continue to pervade present-day South Asia and postcolonial world. Indian Sex Life innovatively redefines long-established notions on the history of colonial India's social thought and further opens new approaches for the global history of sexuality.
Rafia Zakaria
2020-07-15T11:55:21.000Z
I have to say @durbakatha “Indian Sex Lives: The Colonial Origins of Social Thought” is the best book I’ve read this year.      source
Empress by Ruby Lal
Georgia by Dawn Tripp