Most Popular Books by Monica Ali

Nazneen finds herself married off to a man twice her age and moved to London, where she meets a younger man involved in radical politics and begins to wonder if she has a say in her own destiny.

"Yasmin Ghorami is twenty-six, in training to be a doctor (like her Indian-born father) and engaged to the charismatic, upper-class Joe Sangster, whose domineering mother, Helen, is a famous feminist. Though both Yasmin''s parents and Joe''s mother approve of the marriage, the cultural gulf between them is vast as, it turns out, is the gulf in sexual experience between Yasmin and Joe. The novel opens as Yasmin, her parents and her brother pile into their car, packed with Indian food prepared by Yasmin''s mother, to go to dinner to meet Joe''s mother in her elegant townhouse in one of London''s poshest neighborhoods. Contrary to all of Yasmin''s fears, her unsophisticated and somewhat flamboyant mother is embraced and celebrated by Helen and her friends. Many complications ensue when Yasmin discovers that Joe has had an affair with a co-worker, and Yasmin''s ne''er do well brother is banished from the house by her father, and Yasmin''s mother moves to Helen''s house in protest. Love Marriage is a story of emotionally fraught self-discovery and how the secrets people keep hidden affect their most intimate relationships. Joe hides the exact nature of his promiscuous past; Yasmin''s brother and mother keep a monumental secret from their father; Yasmin has a wildly erotic affair of her own; and the story of her parents'' love marriage proves to be a cover-up for a dark, tragic history. In the wake of extreme upheaval, Yasmin finds herself, and her life, transformed"--

Monica Ali, nominated for the Man Booker Prize, theLos Angeles TimesBook Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has written a follow-up toBrick Lanethat will further establish her as one of England''s most compelling and original voices.Gabriel L ightfoot is an enterprising man from a northern E ngland mill town, making good in London. As executive chef at the once-splendid Imperial H otel, he is trying to run a tight kitchen. But his integrity, to say nothing of his sanity, is under constant challenge from the competing demands of an exuberant multinational staff, a gimlet-eyed hotel management, and business partners with whom he is secretly planning a move to a restaurant of his own. D espite the pressures, all his hard work looks set to pay off.Until a worker is found dead in the kitchen''s basement. It is a small death, a lonely death -- but it is enough to disturb the tenuous balance of Gabe''s life.Elsewhere, Gabriel faces other complications. His father is dying of cancer, his girlfriend wants more from their relationship, and the restaurant manager appears to be running an illegal business under Gabe''s nose.Enter L ena, an eerily attractive young woman with mysterious ties to the dead man. U nder her spell, Gabe makes a decision, the consequences of which strip him naked and change the course of the life he knows -- and the future he thought he wanted.Readers and reviewers have been stunned by the breadth of humanity in Monica Ali''s fiction. S he is compared to D ickens and called one of three British novelists who are "the voice of a generation" byTimemagazine.In the Kitchenis utterly contemporary yet has all the drama and heartbreak of a great nineteenth-century novel. Ali is sheer pleasure to read, a truly magnificent writer.

From one of the most versatile and bold writers of our time comes a riveting novel inspired by Princess Diana.

A Portuguese village awaits the return of a prodigal son, which causes various desires and disappointments to collide.

With nationalism and the far right on the rise across Europe and North America, there has never been a more important moment to face up to what we, in Britain, are doing to those who seek sanctuary. Still the UK detains people indefinitely under immigration rules. Bail hearings go unrecorded, people are picked up without notice, individuals feel abandoned in detention centres with no way of knowing when they will be released. In Refugee Tales III we read the stories of people who have been through this process, many of whom have yet to see their cases resolved and who live in fear that at any moment they might be detained again. Poets, novelists and writers have once again collaborated with people who have experienced detention, their tales appearing alongside first-hand accounts by people who themselves have been detained. What we hear in these stories are the realities of the hostile environment, the human costs of a system that disregards rights, that denies freedoms and suspends lives. ‘We hear so many of the wrong words about refugees – ugly, limiting, unimaginative words – that it feels like a gift to find here so many of the right words which allow us to better understand the lives around us, and our own lives too.’ – Kamila Shamsie All profits go to the Gatwick Detainee Welfare Group and Kent Help for Refugees.

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers'' story comprehension and develop vocabulary. Brick Lane, a Level 6 Reader, is B1+ in the CEFR framework. The longer text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing future continuous, reported questions, third conditional, was going to and ellipsis. A small number of illustrations support the text. When Nazneen is 18, she marries a much older man and moves from Bangladesh to England to be with her husband. But Brick Lane in London is very different from Nazneen''s village, and she speaks no English. Nazneen must try to look after her family and get used to a new, and very strange, country. Visit the Penguin Readers website Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock online resources including a digital book, audio edition, lesson plans and answer keys.

Yasmin Ghorami heeft veel om dankbaar voor te zijn: een fijne familie, een veelbelovende carrière als arts en een knappe verloofde, Joe. Als hun trouwdag nadert maken Yasmins ouders kennis met Joe''s moeder, een vrijgevochten feministische medialieveling. Deze door Yasmin gevreesde ontmoeting is het begin van een duizelingwekkende reeks gebeurtenissen waarin al Yasmins verwachtingen – en die van de lezer – op hun kop worden gezet. Rond Yasmin en haar familie bewegen zich allerlei personages, van de briljante jonge advocaat Rania die via halaldating aan de man probeert te komen tot de excentrieke 96-jarige mevrouw Antonova die maar liefst vijf keer getrouwd is geweest. Samen vertellen zij dit met veel humor geschreven, allesomvattende verhaal over immigratie en klassenverschillen, racisme en feminisme, trauma en verslaving, ouders en kinderen, maar toch vooral over liefde en seks, in al hun complexe verschijningsvormen. ''De personages zijn zo levendig dat ze haast van de pagina''s af dansen om de lezer een save-the-datekaartje te overhandigen.'' – The New York Times ''Is liefde genoeg om het te redden? Die vraag moeten Yasmin en haar familie zien te beantwoorden. Onderweg worden ze dierbare vrienden van de lezer.'' – The Times