For those who enjoyed reading "eat,love and pray" finally the trailer out :D
inshala it's gonna be good as the book ;P

Tea, Khalil Gibran and Ink on lips :P

Last Monday meeting, I woke up at 6:00 prayed and dragged Monalisa to the kitchen with me, after we had our steaming hot cups of cappuccino we started working on the Red Velvet Cupcakes -for our "suprise" club bday- that we tried before and fell in love with (the funny thing is last time we did it we didn't have the red food coloring :P so it wasn't even red!)

I was so happy most of you liked the book :D and it was really good to see all of you! *biggest hug to you all* !!

For the Red Velvet Recipe, and pictures of the proccess :

For anyone who wants to read more about Khalil Gibran (it also has all of his writings).

My review on "Broken Wings":

"Although this is the first book I read of Khalil Gibran, I feel it gave me alot of insight into his charachter, I liked his poetic way of relating nature to his feelings, how he said when a person is sad everything around him seems sad, when he is happy everything around is bright and happy. I also loved the way he said that one single thought from a single man or women can change the whole of humanity, and it lives on forever.
What really suprised me also was his open mindedness of religion, he is not rigid with his belief but appericiates the good in all religions - though he himself is a Christian - and he writes in manner that looks into the soul, even love is more about seeing into your loved ones soul, rather than physical beauty."

Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing we see today, made by past generations, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman.

Please don't forget to share your reviews on "Broken Wings".

It was a great meeting that we had today i hope everyone felt the same way & enjoyed discussion about "The Broken Wings"by Khalil Gibran. I Still got Khalil Gibran mood so, definitely gonna read more of his work, life and look for his play :P

Thanks all for coming :D. "M.&M." i hope you enjoyed your first round. "S." wa'7eeran Mabroook and w/b 7ashaaaaaa:P.. lol am kind've emotional and of course u know who to blame (A) .. so anyway here is a pic. i wanted to share from today's meeting!

Saks & Failafoosa here you go with the Rating, go a head decide and plz let us know;

Confession Of A Jane Austen Addict 6

Rude Awakenings of Jane Austen Addict 6

The Forgotten Garden 4

The Prophet 4

A thousand splendid Suns 3

The Lovely Bones 3

Secret Life a water 5

If you could see me now 4

The Girl who chose the Moon 8

The Last Lecture 6

_______________________________________________

oh yea last thing, here u go with Elizabeth Bard Blog;

http://elizabethbard.blogspot.com/

Take care ;)

The long awaited answers I got from Shelina...;)

I'm sorry I didn't post this sooner for all of you, below I pasted the answers to the questions you guys have asked Shelina JanMohammed the writer of "Love in A Headscarf":

YaMi: How were you so sure you would find “The One”?

Shelina: There is something inherently optimistic about human beings. In part I was influenced by the notion of Prince Charming, and falling in love and living happily ever after, and partly I was influenced by the Islamic idea that we are all created in pairs. So I wondered who the pair for me was. 'The One' has a deeper significance in English too, as it refers to the Divine, The Truth,The Eternal, and so in my heart I was searching for that One without even knowing the name.

Failafoosa: What was so hard about writing your first novel?

Shelina: You can read a couple of good pieces on this subject here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/feb/13/valentines-day-religion-islamhttp://theasianwriter.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/finding-the-one-with-shelina-janmohammed/

PonderingImprints: Do you feel that as a Muslim it is more preferable to write non-fiction –real factual information that has happened as in it’s not a lie – as to writing fiction – not real information - ?

Shelina: I started out on my writing career with my blog, and it was natural for me to focus on non-fiction, and so this is my foundation as a writer. However, my writing does have a certain creativity in the book which has often been mistaken for a novel. However, I believe it was important to write this book as non-fiction because otherwise I dont think people would really have believed the stories could be true! When you are writing, with some notion that you want to convey an idea of message, you have to see which medium will convey your story best. Sometimes this will be non-fiction - such as the case of my book. Sometimes this may in fact be fiction, because it is a more appropriate way to touch people with a different perspective. I don't see fiction as 'lying', rather just a different mechanism for storytelling and meaning.

Saks: As a Muslim women living in the West do you ever feel that you sometimes face situations where you feel that want to take the easy way out?

Shelina: Is there ever such a thing as an easy way out? Everything in life is about perspective. In London I can practice my faith with as much vigour as i wish - i can wear hijab, (or niqab if i wanted!), I can work, I can be educated, I could have an islamic mortgage etc etc. I lived in Bahrain for a year for work, and found that some challenges are harder to 'Muslim' countries, and some are harder in 'the West'. What I concluded is that people have the same preoccupations wherever they are, they are just expressed in different ways. What it comes down to is who you are, and what you do with your resources - your time, effort, energy and enthusiasm.

She added in the end :

"Good luck with the book club meeting - and let me know what was discussed!with warmest wishes shelina"

When I went to the book fair, in the midst of the stalls with bestsellers, children's books, standing crowds I saw at the very back in a corner of the Al Mutanabi stall a pile of purple books that perked my interest and when I read Khalil Gibran's name on the cover I was like "That's the one I was looking for!"

I am loving the poetic mood of the book and I hope all of you feel the same, can't wait to see you all on Monday, 22nd March at 6:00...


And here's a pic to share from last meeting, since it was a weekend it wasn't a suprise not many could make it ! But we had loads of fun nonetheless nibbling on chocolate covered strawberries and talking about the love story in "Thanks for the Memories" with the members who did make it (and for next time don't you guys dare tell me you want the meeting in the weekend ! :P)

Mystical Glow I really like the books you recommended! I was also going to ask when are we going to bring books from the other genres, autobiography, and arabic? I was thinking of choosing the arabic version of one of Gibran's books and we compare it with the translation we read, but that depends on how much his writings was enjoyed.

Let us make the final decision all of us next meeting InshAllah...;D

I qoute the following from "The Broken Wings", I loved the way the narrator described his beloved Selma:

"The beauty of Selma's face was not classic; it was like a dream of revelation which cannot be measured or bound, or copied by the brush of a painter or the chisel of a sculptor. Selma's beauty was not in her golden hair, but in the virtue of purity which surronded it; not in her large eyes, but in the light which emanated from them; not in her red lips, but in the sweetness of her words; not in her ivory neck, but in it's slight bow to the front. Nor was it in her perfect figure, but in the nobility of her spirit, burning like a white torch between earth and sky.

Her beauty was like a gift of poetry."