Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a queer, nonbinary, Muslim, immigrant writer who has been reading their whole life and writing for part of it. I learned to write by reading–by devouring all kinds of books across different genres and paying attention to how words create feelings, worlds, and chronologies. I also learned to live by reading–I didn’t grow up with models of how to live a life that was true to my identities and so I read everything I could find about experiences that were adjacent to my own. The emergence of queer Muslim literature has been exciting to follow, and I try to read everything in the field.  


I wrote

Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir

By Lamya H,

Book cover of Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir

What is my book about?

I retell stories from the Quran as queer, brown, immigrant narratives, alongside stories from my own queer, brown immigrant life.…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion

Lamya H Why did I love this book?

I love the way Bushra Rehman writes about immigrant New York in the 80s – in vignettes that thread together to convey a sense of time, place, and geography.

All her characters are portrayed sensitively and complexly: from the main protagonist Razia coming into her queerness, to Pakistani aunties with their own histories and trauma, to friends who grow further apart.

I love how much this story is about women as the cornerstones of community. 

By Bushra Rehman,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Razia Mirza grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friend, Saima, by her side. When a family rift drives the girls apart, Razia's heart is broken. She finds solace in Taslima, a new girl in her close knit Pakistani-American community. They embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing mini skirts, and cutting school to explore the city.

When Razia is accepted to Stuyvesant, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, the gulf between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be, widens.…


Book cover of The Thirty Names of Night

Lamya H Why did I love this book?

At its core, this book is a mystery: a trans Syrian-American’s journey to find out what happened to his mother and how she was connected to an artist whose journal he finds.

But what I loved most about this book is the meditations on gender, on spirituality, and on birds. This book is an ornithologist’s dream. 

By Zeyn Joukhadar,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Thirty Names of Night as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction
Winner of the ALA Stonewall Book Award—Barbara Gittings Literature Award
Named Best Book of the Year by Bustle
Named Most Anticipated Book of the Year by The Millions, Electric Literature, and HuffPost

​​From the award-winning author of The Map of Salt and Stars, a new novel about three generations of Syrian Americans haunted by a mysterious species of bird and the truths they carry close to their hearts—a “vivid exploration of loss, art, queer and trans communities, and the persistence of history. Often tender, always engrossing, The Thirty Names of Night…


Book cover of Guapa

Lamya H Why did I love this book?

This was the first novel I read about immigration, queerness, and Muslimness, the complex reasons why people choose to live in the Global South, and the complex reasons why people choose to leave.

I love the writing: it is lyrical and intimate, and the characters have stayed with me long since.  

By Saleem Haddad,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Guapa as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE POLARI FIRST BOOK PRIZE 2017

"A remarkable debut." - The Huffington Post

"Freewheeling and incendiary." - London Review of Books

"...vibrant, wrenching debut novel...sensuous and caustic, full of smoke and blood." - The New Yorker

A Middle-Eastern capital caught in the revolutionary wave of the Arab Spring. A day in the life of a young man disillusioned with both East and West and struggling to find a place for himself in a society ruled by hypocrisy and contradictions. Rasa works as an interpreter for Western journalists by day and divides his nights between the Guapa, an underground…


Book cover of Him, Me, Muhammad Ali

Lamya H Why did I love this book?

For me, this book of short stories is all about unforgettable characters: queer, Muslim on a spectrum between practicing and not, of various ethnic backgrounds. I love that the characters have complicated lives and make not easily understood decisions.

I love that the characters struggle against, with, and towards their identities. And: it’s really funny!  

By Randa Jarrar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Him, Me, Muhammad Ali as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Award-winning novelist Randa Jarrar's new story collection moves seamlessly between realism and fable, history and the present, capturing the lives of Muslim women and men across myriad geographies and circumstances. With acerbic wit, deep tenderness, and boundless imagination, Jarrar brings to life a memorable cast of characters, many of them "accidental transients"—a term for migratory birds who have gone astray—seeking their circuitous routes back home. Fierce and feeling, Him, Me, Muhammad Ali is a testament to survival in the face of love, loss, and displacement.

Randa Jarrar is the author of a highly successful novel, A Map of Home, which…


Book cover of When We Were Sisters

Lamya H Why did I love this book?

From the first page, Fatimah Asghar’s writing pulled me in. It is poetic, playful, and vulnerable.

The story is about three orphaned sisters living under the care of their uncle and figuring out how to relate to each other and the world. I loved the candid explorations of childhood, gender, and, most of all, sisterhood. 

By Fatimah Asghar,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked When We Were Sisters as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2022
WINNER OF THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION 2023

'A grief-soaked and gorgeous debut novel . . . A poet first, Asghar picks up on the themes of her debut collection If They Come for Us - partition and fragmentation, borders and bodies - and plays with space and silence on the page . . . this fragmentary form has the effect of ephemerality - much like life' Sana Goyal, Guardian

In this heartrending, lyrical debut work of fiction, Fatimah Asghar traces the intense bond of three orphaned siblings who, after…


Explore my book 😀

Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir

By Lamya H,

Book cover of Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir

What is my book about?

I retell stories from the Quran as queer, brown, immigrant narratives, alongside stories from my own queer, brown immigrant life. For example, I juxtapose my (not) coming out story with Musa (Moses) liberating his people from the pharaoh; I ask if Allah, who is neither male nor female, might instead be nonbinary; and, drawing on the faith and hope Nuh (Noah) needed to construct his ark, I begin to build a life of my own. 

This searingly intimate memoir, in essays spanning childhood to arrival in the United States for college through early adult life in New York City, tells a universal story of courage, trust, and love, celebrating what it means to be a seeker and an architect of one’s own life.

Book cover of Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion
Book cover of The Thirty Names of Night
Book cover of Guapa

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Brother. Do. You. Love. Me.

By Manni Coe, Reuben Coe (illustrator),

Book cover of Brother. Do. You. Love. Me.

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Manni's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

Brother. Do. You. Love. Me. is a true story of brotherly love overcoming all. Reuben, who has Down's syndrome, was trapped in a care home during the pandemic, spiralling deeper into a non-verbal depression. From isolation and in desperation, he sent his older brother Manni a text, "brother. do. you. love. me."

This cry for help, this SOS in the sand unleashed a brotherly love that had Manni travelling back to the UK mid-pandemic to rescue his brother from the care home, and together they sheltered from the world in a cottage in deepest, darkest Dorset. There began a journey…

Brother. Do. You. Love. Me.

By Manni Coe, Reuben Coe (illustrator),

What is this book about?


The story of two brothers, one with Down syndrome, and their extraordinary journey of resilience and repair.

"Profoundly moving and hugely uplifting."—Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Reuben, aged 38, was living in a home for adults with learning disabilities. He hadn’t established an independent life in the care system and was still struggling to accept that he had Down syndrome. Depressed and in a fog of antidepressants, he hadn’t spoken for over a year. The only way he expressed himself was by writing poems or drawing felt-tip scenes from his favorite musicals…


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