Adil Najam
We at ATP like books. Over the last many months we have featured and discussed a number of books that relate to Pakistan in various ways.
I must confess that I had always hoped that we would talk more about books than we have. I hope we will be able to do so in the future. As a step towards that goal, we would like to invite our readers to share with us your suggestions of books on Pakistan that are worth reading.
This is not a popularity contest. We have no awards to give. We merely want to collate a list of books on Pakistan that people consider to be interesting reads. Specially those that you would consider recommending to others for whatever reason.
We have only two criteria:
- First, that the books you suggest must be about Pakistan, and significantly so. We, of course, realize that many Pakistanis read many books that are not about Pakistan, but the focus of this blog is not only on ‘All’ Things Pakistan, but also ‘Only’ things about Pakistan.
- Second, for the purpose of this first exercise please restrict your suggestions to books in the English language. This is a pragmatic, and not an ideological, criteria. The universe of books in Urdu is much larger – especially when one includes works of fiction and poetry – and hopefully we will have a separate exercise on those. For now, we wish to start small by focusing only on English language books.
The plan right now is to make this post and list a standing feature and to keep adding to it as readers share their suggestions and ideas. Hopefully this will be a useful service to those interested in Pakistan and Pakistaniat.
By the way, its already up on your list but I recently finished Charlie Wilson’s War. An extremely gripping story that was more captivating even than any novel. A must read.
A Journey to Disillusionment by Sherbaz Khan Mazari. Perhaps a little biased but a great book to read about the post partition history of Pakistan.
Nice effort. But your assumption seems to be that we Pakistanis actually READ books. I am not sure they do. Many, in fact, talk about books as if they know everything in it because they know a title and who wrote it!
Lahore: The City Within by Samina Quraeshi with an essay by Annemarie Schimmel.
Published by Concept Media, Private, Limited.
1 Grange Road, #05-11/12 Orchard Building
Singapore 0923
First printing: September 1088
ISBN:981-00-055-3
Speeches of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, 1947-1948, Oxford University Press (may only be available in Pakistan).
“From Purdah to Parliament” by Shaista Suhrawardy (available at Amazon).
Michael Palin has written a travelogue and a companion picture book (coffee table worthy) called “Himalaya” and “Inside Himalaya”. (Available at Amazon.)
A new book that’s out: “City of Sin & Splendour: Writings on Lahore” (at Amazon).
Are you including fiction?