#UAEReads: Iman Ben Chaibah: ‘reading helped me to understand life much more quickly and better’

Courtesy Little, Brown and Company

Courtesy Penguin Random House

Courtesy Amber-Allen Publishing

Courtesy Penguin Random House

Courtesy Bloomsbury

Followers of Iman Ben Chaibah’s social-media feeds will know how vital books are in her life.

"Reading is important in every way to me," says the editor-in-chief and founder of Sail magazine. "I can't imagine a childhood where my imagination wasn't expanded through reading, where I didn't make all those new friends in the different stories I read."

Sail magazine began in March 2010 as an online platform designed to connect creatives. It has grown into a forum for discussion, mostly for young Emiratis, about issues of home, education and work. There have also been print editions, with the overall goal of reigniting a love of reading and writing, while also providing a medium where new writers can explore and develop their talents.

“Even as I grew up, reading helped me to understand life much more quickly and better, because I read stories from across the world,” says Ben Chaibah. “I found people living the same as me, or in different ways, and I also learnt from other people’s experiences in my field of work. I benefited from the advice they had to share and that’s why I want everyone to cherish the act of reading, so that they, too, can benefit.”

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

I loved it because it’s like we’re sitting with Morrie [an older man, who is dying] and learning from him all his life lessons. It’s precious in so many ways.

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

This book was my introduction to Sufism, and helped me understand it on a bigger level and how our relationship with God is meant to be a relationship of love, not fear.

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz

This book is like a life manual — it gives the four guidelines that we must follow in our lives to achieve more.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

This book explained to me, and made me understand, that often many of the people we think are so lucky to reach certain places have actually many factors that helped them to get there — and that more often than not, there is an entire group behind each one of these people.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

This is a perfect book for women in their late 20s and early 30s to come to terms with everything that happened in life and to find yourself again.