Book Review: Erotic Tales for Punjabi Widows and Night Soldiers

Ever since I remember, I've had my nose in a book. I'm never going to share a list of each and every title I read, but I will try to share some of the novels I've enjoyed. And since I prefer to keep things positive, you won't find many bad reviews here.

Everyone's reading taste is different, and the things I enjoy might not be your cup of tea.

Two of the books I enjoyed during May 2022:

EROTIC STORIES for PUNJABI WIDOWS, by Balli Kaur Jaswal

This was not what you'd expect from the title, not really.

Nikki, the daughter of traditional Sikh immigrants to West London, is decidedly not traditional. She tends bar, dresses in western-style clothes, and hasn't been the model daughter. But she still loves her family.

To help out, she takes a job teaching an English class at a temple in the most traditional Punjabi neighborhood in London. She expects to teach creative writing, the woman who hired her expects her to teach basic literacy, and the widows in her class? They have been shut out of an active life for too long, so when they discover a book of "naughty stories" one day, they take matters into their own hands. One by one, the widows dictate erotic stories to one of their literate classmates, delighting in their new freedoms.

Over the course of their class, the widows come into their own, reveal some of the truly dirty secrets of their community--including the death of a young woman under suspicious circumstances, and draw the unwelcome attention of a group of ultra-conservative young men, the self-appointed morals police of the community.

This book stuck with me for its cultural detail, which was so rich that the story was utterly immersive. It also stood out as a book that just could not be categorized. It's part mystery, part morality play, part commentary on women's roles in both traditional and modern societies, part a story of the solidarity of women standing together, part a story about finding a way to balance heritage and familial obligation with personal desires.

Truly Unique.

NIGHT SOLDIERS by Alan Furst

Everyone has their guilty pleasures: TV shows we shouldn't like, genre books (as opposed to literary novels), sweets or fried foods. This book was a venture into a friend's preferred guilty reading pleasure: the spy novel.

Alan Furst is widely praised as a master of the historic spy novel. Set just before and during World War II, this book follows a young Bulgarian man is recruited to join the Soviet Union's NKVD and the other young men he trains with. Khristo, our hero, is sent to Spain during the civil war, and barely escapes a Stalinist purge. He spends time in Paris, ends up in the French resistance, gets sent by the US on a mission to Prague, and eventually rescues one of his old classmates after an incredible journey down the Danube during wartime.

The writing and research are top notch. At times, I found the story confusing, but I'm not an avid reader of spy novels, nor am I particularly well versed in Europe during the second world war. I suspect readers with a strong background in the time period or the genre might find it easier to follow the ins and outs of the plot and historic situation.

And my friend convinced me. This is an author worth reading. When I'm looking for a break from my usual reading, I'll try another of Alan Furst's novels. There are a lot to choose from.