It's not just that I have read both books and share the approving sentiments. But I can claim that the authors of both books are friends of mine, and it's pleasant to know your historian friends are the smart ones writing the good books.
And, to switch to books that are not exactly histories, and by an author I do not know at all: Are there some good historical takes on Muslim communities and cultures in Canada, locally or nationally? I don't know. Suggestions?
In the meantime there is a novelist who offers a pretty good substitute -- and a decent beach/cottage read as well. Usma Jalaluddin, sometime teacher, sometime columnist for the Toronto Star, has written three lively novels set among Muslims and in Toronto. These are all essentially rom-coms of young Muslims in love, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the target readership at all. But when I happened across her first book, Ayesha At Last, a few years ago, it told me more than I'd ever known about daily life among my Toronto Muslim neighbours. And her reimagining of Pride and Prejudice in the Toronto suburbs was pretty clever and funny.
I'm not the first person to admire these novels. The actor Mindy Kaling is associated with a project to film one of them. Anyway, Jalaluddin's third novel Much Ado about Nada is now out.
