100 books like You Think You Know Me

This book provided me with the keys to understanding how the authorities' actions could bring racism to life. Arun Kundnani's book shows how the horrific attacks of September 11 gave rise to the construction of ideologies, opinions, theories, and public policies that regarded the domestic Muslim presence, whether immigrants or citizens, as a threat to the highest order, justifying programs of surveillance and repression that were discriminatory and infringed fundamental freedoms. 

It's one thing for the country to protect itself from violent attacks; it's quite another to consider a mass of Muslims, especially the most visible ones, as a threat and a suspect population by associating religious practice with Islamism or radicalization. These two vague notions have helped to spread an Islamophobic culture of suspicion. Arun Kundnani's book sheds much-needed light on this turning point in contemporary history in various Western democracies.

When I arrived in the USA, I particularly appreciated the great freedom granted to religions. Then I was invited by Sahar Aziz to a conference at Rutgers University. Her talk moderated my point of view. The book she published three years later changed my outlook.

In this book, Sahar Aziz chooses an original angle of analysis. She examines the paradox between an official commitment to religious freedom and repeated attacks on it when it comes to Muslims. Dr. Aziz shows that this is possible when Muslims go from being a religious minority to a racial group through the process of racialization that associates them with stereotypes and intangible cultural traits.

Religious discrimination then becomes possible under the guise of security and terrorism prevention measures, as long as the threat is strictly associated with religious faith and practice and not with political or geopolitical motivations. Moreover, according to Sahar Aziz, this… show more.

Like most specialists in Islamophobia, I thought it was mainly a phenomenon that unfolded where Muslims were in the minority. So, for a long time, I ignored racism in Muslim-majority countries.

The book by Enes Bayraklı and Farid Hafez has had the merit of bringing together some astonishing contemporary studies. Many of these texts recall that the societies in question were colonial strongholds that bequeathed patterns of thought, forms of interiorization, and even “self-orientalization” that continue to irrigate representations, social practices, and sometimes public policies. Further reading!

As I'm keen for American readers to learn more about the French situation, I'd also like to suggest this book by Jim Wolfreys, which clearly shows that, unlike in countries where Islamophobia is primarily the result of right-wing and far-right ideologies, the French situation is more complex, as this form of racism often wears the respectable garb of defending the republic, feminism, secularism or tradition.

We owe this expression “respectable racism” to a French-Algerian sociologist and activist, Said Bouamama, whose struggles since the 1980s have been remarkable.

I thought this book was such a heartfelt and tragic story. It’s about a family struggling with their past as the city of Delhi gets taken over by the British as it becomes their new capital. The author paints these beautiful scenes of Delhi, like the traditional pigeon flying and the bustling Chandni Chowk market.

I could really feel his love for the city in those descriptions. To me, the story felt like a lament for the old Delhi that was lost to the British, and you can sense how hard it was for the author to accept that. In the introduction, he talks about how he left India and was never allowed to return, so this goodbye isn’t just part of the story; it’s personal.

I loved Ayo, this book’s fourteen-year-old main character. She’s burnt out on activism, having been raised by a famous activist mom fighting for Black rights in America. All Ayo wants is to take a break and live a normal teen life. This makes so much sense to me—why do people who are at a disadvantage have to spend their time fighting for basic rights—what if they just want to spend their time making art or writing books like selfish white dudes are free to do?

But when something terrible happens at a big march, Ayo skipped, all the education and activist spirit her mom drilled into her no longer feels like a burden. I loved how she figured out she wanted to fight and really came into her own.

I write about Islamophobia in the US but often wonder how it manifests in other countries. I now know where to go for answers.

This book examines Muslim racialization in four countries – the US, the UK, India, and China. It takes readers through the history of Islamophobia in each country, examining the role of media in stereotyping and Othering Muslims. Importantly, the book also explains how anti-Muslim racism has figured in recent ethnonationalist movements and counterterrorism policies.

I love ghost stories. But I am rather tired of old houses with creaky furniture. The strangest and most dangerous monsters lurk in the wilderness, in the remote and inaccessible corners of the natural world. And what is more remote and inaccessible than Kanchenjunga, the third-highest mountain in the world, located on the border between Nepal and India?

I have always admired those mountain climbers of the past who, with inadequate equipment and minimal knowledge, braved the unknown dangers of the heights. Paver’s beautifully written novel is a historical mystery and a ghost story at one, whose final twist is as vertiginous as the pinnacle of the sacred mountain. 

Gavin Lambert adapted the works of D. H. Lawrence and Tennessee Williams for the films Sons and Lovers and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. He directed one interesting, low-budget, Paul Bowles-like movie, Another Sky. His prose work is insightful about the behind-the-scenes world of the movies.

The linked stories in this book memorably spotlight hangers-on and working-class people on the edges of entertainment. Also of interest is Inside Daisy Clover, his novel about a teen tomboy star which became an affected, bombastic, entertaining Natalie Wood movie.

This book is horror for adrenaline fiends, but it has emotional depths and a rich cast of well-developed characters to balance out its fast-paced thrills.

My favorite character in this book, and one of my favorites in the whole horror canon, is Nell Talbot, one half of the brother-sister duo of protagonists. Nell is a 100-proof disaster bisexual, surfing a wave of her own bad choices all the way to shore.

You know how a story is supposed to have an inciting incident? Nell Talbot is the inciting incident.