My reading trail has taken me from Marjan Kamali’s The Stationery Shop of Tehran to F Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise – a bit of a curve ball this one, as references to other books or authors bar Rumi were few and far between. I have little time for poetry in English let alone Persian (in translation of course) and besides, where could I go to from reading Rumi? I decided on F Scott’s Fitzgerald because the dedication page had a quote from This Side of Paradise; however, I struggled to engage with it so it remains on my bedside unit, probably accruing library fines. I picked up other, quick reads from the library: Sarah Pearse’s The Retreat and John Grisham’s Camino Island the latter ironically sending me straight back to This Side of Paradise (it begins with the original manuscript being stolen from Princeton University). So, I must go labour on and try it again.