The screen in Piccadilly Circus, London, celebrates the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne. AP
The screen in Piccadilly Circus, London, celebrates the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne. AP
The screen in Piccadilly Circus, London, celebrates the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne. AP
The screen in Piccadilly Circus, London, celebrates the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession to the throne. AP

Big Jubilee Read: the list of 70 books that celebrates Queen Elizabeth's platinum jubilee


Razmig Bedirian
  • English
  • Arabic

Seventy books from across the Commonwealth have been selected to make up a reading list commemorating Queen Elizabeth II’s platinum jubilee.

The Big Jubilee Read was created by BBC Arts and The Reading Agency. It was compiled by librarians, booksellers and literature experts based on readers' recommendations from 31 countries.

The list incorporates 10 books that represent each of the seven decades of the queen's rule. It includes novels as well as short story and poetry collections published since 1952. Some featured works are Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, and Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

Booker Prize winners from the past three years, including Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain and The Promise by Damon Galgut are also on the list.

There are a few glaring omissions, however.

Among them are J K Rowling’s Harry Potter books.

Susheila Nasta, emeritus professor of modern and contemporary literature at Queen Mary University of London, said there were discussions on whether to include Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Ultimately, the committee omitted the book as it pared down the 152 recommendations.

“Lots of fantastic books were suggested for the list," Nasta told BBC Radio 4. But the feeling was that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone "was primarily a children’s book”.

“In terms of the space over that decade, which was the '90s when more and more books were coming out across the Commonwealth, it was decided to make space for a book that was good and equally well received,” Nasta said.

Rowling has come under criticism in the past two years over controversial comments she has made regarding transgender issues.

Other books that didn’t make the final list include The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien and Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook.

“The Golden Notebook … was a huge influence on me, but we had to drop some … there were two books for every place.”

The complete Big Jubilee Read list

From 1952 to 1961

  • The Palm-Wine Drinkard – Amos Tutuola (1952, Nigeria)
  • The Hills Were Joyful Together – Roger Mais (1953, Jamaica)
  • In the Castle of My Skin – George Lamming (1953, Barbados)
  • My Bones and My Flute – Edgar Mittelholzer (1955, Guyana)
  • The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon (1956, Trinidad and Tobago/England)
  • The Guide – RK Narayan (1958, India)
  • To Sir, With Love – ER Braithwaite (1959, Guyana)
  • One Moonlit Night – Caradog Prichard (1961, Wales)
  • A House for Mr Biswas – VS Naipaul (1961, Trinidad and Tobago/England)
  • Sunlight on a Broken Column – Attia Hosain (1961, India)

From 1962 to 1971

  • A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess (1962, England)
  • The Interrogation – JMG Le Clezio (1963, France/Mauritius)
  • The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark (1963, Scotland)
  • Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe (1964, Nigeria)
  • Death of a Naturalist – Seamus Heaney (1966, Northern Ireland)
  • Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys (1966, Dominica/Wales)
  • A Grain of Wheat – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1967, Kenya)
  • Picnic at Hanging Rock – Joan Lindsay (1967, Australia)
  • The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born – Ayi Kwei Armah (1968, Ghana)
  • When Rain Clouds Gather – Bessie Head (1968, Botswana/South Africa)

From 1972 to 1981

  • The Nowhere Man – Kamala Markandaya (1972, India)
  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carre (1974, England)
  • The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCullough (1977, Australia)
  • The Crow Eaters – Bapsi Sidhwa (1978, Pakistan)
  • The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch (1978, England)
  • Who Do You think You Are? – Alice Munro (1978, Canada)
  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (1979, England)
  • Tsotsi – Athol Fugard (1980, South Africa)
  • Clear Light of Day – Anita Desai (1980, India)
  • Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie (1981, England/India)

From 1982 to 1991

  • Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally (1982, Australia)
  • Beka Lamb – Zee Edgell (1982, Belize)
  • The Bone People – Keri Hulme (1984, New Zealand)
  • The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (1985, Canada)
  • Summer Lightning – Olive Senior (1986, Jamaica)
  • The Whale Rider – Witi Ihimaera (1987, New Zealand)
  • The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (1989, England)
  • Omeros – Derek Walcott (1990, Saint Lucia)
  • The Adoption Papers – Jackie Kay (1991, Scotland)
  • Cloudstreet – Tim Winton (1991, Australia)

From 1992 to 2001

  • The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje (1992, Canada/Sri Lanka)
  • The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields (1993, Canada)
  • Paradise – Abdulrazak Gurnah (1994, Tanzania/England)
  • A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry (1995, India/Canada)
  • Salt – Earl Lovelace (1996, Trinidad and Tobago)
  • The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy (1997, India)
  • The Blue Bedspread – Raj Kamal Jha (1999, India)
  • Disgrace – J M Coetzee (1999, South Africa/Australia)
  • White Teeth – Zadie Smith (2000, England)
  • Life of Pi – Yann Martel (2001, Canada)

From 2002 to 2011

  • Small Island – Andrea Levy (2004, England)
  • The Secret River – Kate Grenville (2005, Australia)
  • The Book Thief – Markus Zusak (2005, Australia)
  • Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006, Nigeria)
  • A Golden Age – Tahmima Anam (2007, Bangladesh)
  • The Boat – Nam Le (2008, Australia)
  • Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel (2009, England)
  • The Book of Night Women – Marlon James (2009, Jamaica)
  • The Memory of Love – Aminatta Forna (2010, Sierra Leone/Scotland)
  • Chinaman – Shehan Karunatilaka (2010, Sri Lanka)

From 2012 to 2021

  • Our Lady of the Nile – Scholastique Mukasonga (2012, Rwanda)
  • The Luminaries – Eleanor Catton (2013, New Zealand)
  • Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue (2016, Cameroon)
  • The Bone Readers – Jacob Ross (2016, Grenada)
  • How We Disappeared – Jing-Jing Lee (2019, Singapore)
  • Girl, Woman, Other – Bernardine Evaristo (2019, England)
  • The Night Tiger – Yangsze Choo (2019, Malaysia)
  • Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart (2020, Scotland)
  • A Passage North – Anuk Arudpragasam (2021, Sri Lanka)
  • The Promise – Damon Galgut (2021, South Africa)
The permutations for UAE going to the 2018 World Cup finals

To qualify automatically

UAE must beat Iraq.

Australia must lose in Japan and at home to Thailand, with their losing margins and the UAE's winning margin over Iraq being enough to overturn a goal difference gap of eight.

Saudi Arabia must lose to Japan, with their losing margin and the UAE's winning margin over Iraq being enough to overturn a goal difference gap of eight.

 

To finish third and go into a play-off with the other third-placed AFC side for a chance to reach the inter-confederation play-off match

UAE must beat Iraq.

Saudi Arabia must lose to Japan, with their losing margin and the UAE's winning margin over Iraq being enough to overturn a goal difference gap of eight.

$1,000 award for 1,000 days on madrasa portal

Daily cash awards of $1,000 dollars will sweeten the Madrasa e-learning project by tempting more pupils to an education portal to deepen their understanding of math and sciences.

School children are required to watch an educational video each day and answer a question related to it. They then enter into a raffle draw for the $1,000 prize.

“We are targeting everyone who wants to learn. This will be $1,000 for 1,000 days so there will be a winner every day for 1,000 days,” said Sara Al Nuaimi, project manager of the Madrasa e-learning platform that was launched on Tuesday by the Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, to reach Arab pupils from kindergarten to grade 12 with educational videos.  

“The objective of the Madrasa is to become the number one reference for all Arab students in the world. The 5,000 videos we have online is just the beginning, we have big ambitions. Today in the Arab world there are 50 million students. We want to reach everyone who is willing to learn.”

COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The biog

Name: Sarah Al Senaani

Age: 35

Martial status: Married with three children - aged 8, 6 and 2

Education: Masters of arts in cultural communication and tourism

Favourite movie: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

Favourite hobbies: Art and horseback ridding

Occupation: Communication specialist at a government agency and the owner of Atelier

Favourite cuisine: Definitely Emirati - harees is my favourite dish

Company%20profile
%3Cp%3EName%3A%20Tabby%3Cbr%3EFounded%3A%20August%202019%3B%20platform%20went%20live%20in%20February%202020%3Cbr%3EFounder%2FCEO%3A%20Hosam%20Arab%2C%20co-founder%3A%20Daniil%20Barkalov%3Cbr%3EBased%3A%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%3Cbr%3ESector%3A%20Payments%3Cbr%3ESize%3A%2040-50%20employees%3Cbr%3EStage%3A%20Series%20A%3Cbr%3EInvestors%3A%20Arbor%20Ventures%2C%20Mubadala%20Capital%2C%20Wamda%20Capital%2C%20STV%2C%20Raed%20Ventures%2C%20Global%20Founders%20Capital%2C%20JIMCO%2C%20Global%20Ventures%2C%20Venture%20Souq%2C%20Outliers%20VC%2C%20MSA%20Capital%2C%20HOF%20and%20AB%20Accelerator.%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
THE BIO

Favourite author - Paulo Coelho 

Favourite holiday destination - Cuba 

New York Times or Jordan Times? NYT is a school and JT was my practice field

Role model - My Grandfather 

Dream interviewee - Che Guevara

Fight Night

FIGHT NIGHT

Four title fights:

Amir Khan v Billy Dib - WBC International title
Hughie Fury v Samuel Peter - Heavyweight co-main event  
Dave Penalosa v Lerato Dlamini - WBC Silver title
Prince Patel v Michell Banquiz - IBO World title

Six undercard bouts:

Michael Hennessy Jr v Abdul Julaidan Fatah
Amandeep Singh v Shakhobidin Zoirov
Zuhayr Al Qahtani v Farhad Hazratzada
Lolito Sonsona v Isack Junior
Rodrigo Caraballo v Sajid Abid
Ali Kiydin v Hemi Ahio

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
THE BIO

Favourite car: Koenigsegg Agera RS or Renault Trezor concept car.

Favourite book: I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes or Red Notice by Bill Browder.

Biggest inspiration: My husband Nik. He really got me through a lot with his positivity.

Favourite holiday destination: Being at home in Australia, as I travel all over the world for work. It’s great to just hang out with my husband and family.

 

 

'Ashkal'
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Youssef%20Chebbi%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Fatma%20Oussaifi%20and%20Mohamed%20Houcine%20Grayaa%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%204%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Fasset%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2019%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Mohammad%20Raafi%20Hossain%2C%20Daniel%20Ahmed%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinTech%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInitial%20investment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%242.45%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2086%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Pre-series%20B%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Investcorp%2C%20Liberty%20City%20Ventures%2C%20Fatima%20Gobi%20Ventures%2C%20Primal%20Capital%2C%20Wealthwell%20Ventures%2C%20FHS%20Capital%2C%20VN2%20Capital%2C%20local%20family%20offices%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs

Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo

Power: 258hp from 5,000-6,500rpm

Torque: 400Nm from 1,550-4,000rpm

Transmission: Eight-speed auto

Fuel consumption: 6.1L/100km

Price: from Dh362,500

On sale: now

Roll%20of%20Honour%2C%20men%E2%80%99s%20domestic%20rugby%20season
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EWest%20Asia%20Premiership%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EChampions%3A%20Dubai%20Tigers%0D%3Cbr%3ERunners%20up%3A%20Bahrain%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EUAE%20Premiership%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EChampions%3A%20Jebel%20Ali%20Dragons%0D%3Cbr%3ERunners%20up%3A%20Dubai%20Hurricanes%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EUAE%20Division%201%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EChampions%3A%20Dubai%20Sharks%0D%3Cbr%3ERunners%20up%3A%20Abu%20Dhabi%20Harlequins%20II%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EUAE%20Division%202%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EChampions%3A%20Dubai%20Tigers%20III%0D%3Cbr%3ERunners%20up%3A%20Dubai%20Sharks%20II%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDubai%20Sevens%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EChampions%3A%20Dubai%20Tigers%0D%3Cbr%3ERunners%20up%3A%20Dubai%20Hurricanes%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
SQUADS

South Africa:
Faf du Plessis (capt), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Farhaan Behardien, Quinton de Kock (wkt), AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Imran Tahir, David Miller, Wayne Parnell, Dane Paterson, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada
Coach: Ottis Gibson

Bangladesh:
Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), Imrul Kayes, Liton Das (wkt), Mahmudullah, Mehidy Hasan, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim (wkt), Mustafizur Rahman, Nasir Hossain, Rubel Hossain, Sabbir Rahman, Shakib Al Hasan, Soumya Sarkar, Tamim Iqbal, Taskin Ahmed.
Coach: Chandika Hathurusingha

England 12-man squad for second Test

v West Indies which starts Thursday: Rory Burns, Joe Denly, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root (captain), Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Ben Foakes, Sam Curran, Stuart Broad, Jimmy Anderson, Jack Leach

UK's plans to cut net migration

Under the UK government’s proposals, migrants will have to spend 10 years in the UK before being able to apply for citizenship.

Skilled worker visas will require a university degree, and there will be tighter restrictions on recruitment for jobs with skills shortages.

But what are described as "high-contributing" individuals such as doctors and nurses could be fast-tracked through the system.

Language requirements will be increased for all immigration routes to ensure a higher level of English.

Rules will also be laid out for adult dependants, meaning they will have to demonstrate a basic understanding of the language.

The plans also call for stricter tests for colleges and universities offering places to foreign students and a reduction in the time graduates can remain in the UK after their studies from two years to 18 months.

Updated: May 20, 2022, 6:48 AM