The 15-Minute Book Club

For many years, Matthew Knott worked as a private tutor for  extremely wealthy and privileged children in the heart of London. In this book, he retells stories from his first three years in this unusual industry.   Instagram: 15minbookclub

Omar El Akkad's book is an urgent and necessary reckoning about what it means to live in the West today. As an immigrant, Omar believed his whole life that the West offered freedom and justice for all. But now, watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, he comes to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie.    Instagram: 15minbookclub   Mohammed El-Kurd Addresses the UN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xuan2uAQg0    Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, This Is Not a Humanising Poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESdDPcKH_KA    Zeyne - 7arrir 3aqlak/Asli Ana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhH6CON3SD8 

Margaret Atwood's iconic novel is set in a dystopian future where world-wide environmental collapse & disease have caused a widespread infertility crisis. This gives rise to a radical fundamentalist group called The Sons of Jacob who stage a coup against the United States government and replace it with the Republic of Gilead. The new regime forces the few fertile women into reproductive servitude as handmaids. The novel is narrated in the first person by a handmaid referred to as Offred.  Instagram: 15minbookclub Mentioned book: The Testaments by Margaret Atwood   Mentioned podcast episode from week 5 (The Red Tent): https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/week-5-the-red-tent/

Alice Walker's classic novel is set in the rural south of America, in the state of Georgia, in the early 20th century. It revolves around two sisters, Celie and Nettie. This is a beautiful epistolary tale of love, forgiveness and the road to strength.    Instagram: 15minbookclub

First published in America in 1937 during The Great Depression, Napoleon Hill's timeless book claims to have uncovered the secret to great wealth. The book outlines a 13-step formula to help the reader identify their goals, master the secret of true lasting success, obtain whatever they want in life and join the ranks of the super-successful.    Instagram: 15minbookclub

Jeanette Winterson's classic coming of age story is a semi-autobiography. She is adopted by strict Pentecostal evangelists in the north of England, and from a young age she’s raised to be a missionary and is immersed in a rigid religious worldview. But as Jeanette gets older, she discovers that she’s a lesbian, which puts her in direct conflict with her church and her adoptive mother.  Instagram: 15minbookclub Mentioned book: Why be Happy When You Can be Normal by Jeanette Winterson.  

Graham Swift's prize winning novel is set in the Fens of eastern England and fluctuates across multiple timelines. The narrator, Tom Crick, is a 52 year old history teacher who recounts stories of his family history and their deeply buried secrets. At its heart, the novel reflects history's purpose, not as simply a record of facts, but a fragile and necessary attempt to give meaning to chaos.  Instagram: 15minbookclub  

Ken Kesey's classic novel is set in a state mental institute in 1950s America. Nurse Ratchet runs the ward like a military operation, weaponising shame, fear, and manipulation to keep the patients compliant. She maintains this façade of politeness and professionalism while emotionally castrating the men in her care, who have internalised the notion that they are deeply broken and can’t survive freedom outside the hospital. All this changes at the arrival of a new patient named Randle Patrick McMurphy. Instagram: 15minbookclub

Lois Lowry's modern classic in young adult literature is a dystopian novel that takes place in a seemingly utopian society that has eliminated pain, fear, war, and hatred by converting to "Sameness"— which is a plan that erases all emotional depth and memories of the past. It follows the main character, Jonas, he’s a 12-year-old boy who lives in this tightly controlled community. Everyone is assigned roles in the community when they turn twelve, and Jonas is given a unique and prestigious role: he’s to become The Receiver of Memory.  Instagram: 15minbookclub  

Khaled Hosseini's critically acclaimed novel follows Amir, a young boy from a wealthy family in Kabul, and his close friendship with Hassan, the son of his father’s servant. Despite their bond, class differences and societal pressures strain their relationship, and a pivotal moment of betrayal by Amir changes both of their lives forever.   A Thousand Splendid Suns Review: https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/week-33-a-thousand-splendid-suns/  Instagram: 15minbookclub

Mark Haddon's novel was first published in 2003. It’s a unique story that’s told from the perspective of a 15-year-old boy Christopher Boone, who describes himself as “a mathematician with some behavioral difficulties." The novel begins with Christopher discovering that his neighbour's dog, Wellington, has been mysteriously killed with a garden fork. Christopher sets out to find the person who killed the dog, and what begins as a simple investigation quickly unfolds into a deeper, more complex journey that reveals secrets about his own family and forces him to step far outside his comfort zone.  Instagram: 15minbookclub  

First published in German in 1915, it's one of Franz Kafka’s most famous and influential works — a blend of the absurd, existential, and psychological. Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up one day to find that he's turned into a “monstrous vermin”.  University of Oxford, Conversation of Kafka: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/conversations-on-kafka/id1750531209?i=1000657947433  Instagram: 15minbookclub  

Kathryn Stockett's novel is set in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s, around the time of The Civil Rights Movement in America. It follows three characters, Skeeter Phelan; a young white aspiring writer who comes back home from college and starts to develop an awareness of racial inequality and the unfair treatment of Black domestic workers, specifically black women who work as maids in white homes. The second character is Aibileen Clark; a black woman who has spent her life raising white children. The third character is Aibileen's best friend, Minny Jackson; a highly skilled cook with a sharp tongue.  If you're looking for an entertaining read that's also shrouded in controversy, this is the one for you.  Instagram: 15minbookclub

Michel Faber's iconic novel is a unique blend of science fiction, horror, and social commentary. It follows a woman named Isserley as she drives around the Scottish Highlands picking up male hitchhikers that she then drugs and takes to a secret farm facility. Over time, it becomes clear that she’s not what she seems—she’s actually an alien working for an extraterrestrial corporation that harvests human meat for consumption on her home planet.      Instagram: 15minbookclub

Avraham Yehoshua's short story follows an unnamed Israeli scholar who takes a job as a forest ranger. He’s stationed in a remote fire-watch tower, and his job is to guard the forest and immediately sound the alarm if he sees it catch fire. As the story progresses, he gradually starts to realise that the forest is prone to fires because the land was never meant to sustain it in the first place —it was planted over the ruins of a Palestinian village, effectively covering up its existence.

Instagram: 15minbookclub Men in the Sun Review: https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/week-9-men-in-the-sun/

Antoine De Saint-Exupery's literary classic, published in 1943 and translated into over 500 languages, is about a pilot who crash lands in the Sahara Desert and meets The Little Prince who tells him all about his adventures visiting different planets. Although this is officially classified as a children’s book, it’s widely considered to be a kind of philosophical fable for adult readers as well.  Instagram: 15minbookclub  

Adania Shibli's groundbreaking novel is divided into two parts. The first half is narrated in the third person from the perspective of an Israeli soldier, and is set in the summer of 1949 in the Negev desert. The second half takes place in the present day, and is narrated in the first person from the perspective of a Palestinian woman living in Ramallah. The novel draws a chilling parallel between past and present, showing that the violence of 1949 is not just a “minor detail” of history—it continues to define Palestinian existence even today.   Instagram: 15minbookclub Adania Shibli at the 2024 Hay Festival: https://www.hayfestival.com/p-21834-hisham-matar-elif-shafak-and-adania-shibli-talk-to-philippe-sands.aspx https://www.hayfestival.com/p-21761-adania-shibli-talks-to-hisham-matar.aspx  Book mentioned: The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Michael J. Sandel examines our current political polarisation, which in many ways is the result of our general attitude towards success and failure, especially in a time of rising inequality. The book looks at the fallacy of being self-made, he argues that there is no such thing as a self-made individual.    Instagram: 15minbookclub Studio B, Unscripted: With Ken Loach and Edouard Louis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J89RTrx1_eM  Week 19: The End of Eddy: https://salmaintb.podbean.com/e/week-19-the-end-of-eddy/ 

Rodman Philbrick's wholesome young adult novel is about two young boys in the seventh grade named Kevin and Max. Max is super tall and strong but can barely read. Kevin on the other hand is extremely intelligent, a kind of child prodigy genius with a physical disability where his organs grow faster than his bones. Both of them are bullied and outcast at school for different reasons. This is a wholesome story about their unlikely friendship. Instagram: 15minbookclub  

F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel is narrated from the perspective of Nick Carraway. Nick looks back at the summer of 1922 when he met Jay Gatsby, a man with an extraordinary gift for hope. Gatsby is in love with Nick's cousin Daisy, who is married to the wealthy and arrogant Tom Buchanan. At its heart, this novel is a love story. But one that explores the role that economic and social class divide plays in love and marriage. Instagram: 15minbookclub