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Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: A Novel
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: A Novel
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: A Novel
Audiobook10 hours

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: A Novel

Written by Balli Kaur Jaswal

Narrated by Meera Syal

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

A lively, sexy, and thought-provoking East-meets-West story about community, friendship, and women’s lives at all ages—a spicy and alluring mix of Together Tea and Calendar Girls.

Every woman has a secret life . . .

Nikki lives in cosmopolitan West London, where she tends bar at the local pub. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she’s spent most of her twenty-odd years distancing herself from the traditional Sikh community of her childhood, preferring a more independent (that is, Western) life. When her father’s death leaves the family financially strapped, Nikki, a law school dropout, impulsively takes a job teaching a "creative writing" course at the community center in the beating heart of London’s close-knit Punjabi community.

Because of a miscommunication, the proper Sikh widows who show up are expecting to learn basic English literacy, not the art of short-story writing. When one of the widows finds a book of sexy stories in English and shares it with the class, Nikki realizes that beneath their white dupattas, her students have a wealth of fantasies and memories. Eager to liberate these modest women, she teaches them how to express their untold stories, unleashing creativity of the most unexpected—and exciting—kind.

As more women are drawn to the class, Nikki warns her students to keep their work secret from the Brotherhood, a group of highly conservative young men who have appointed themselves the community’s "moral police." But when the widows’ gossip offers shocking insights into the death of a young wife—a modern woman like Nikki—and some of the class erotica is shared among friends, it sparks a scandal that threatens them all.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateJun 13, 2017
ISBN9780062680563
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: A Novel
Author

Balli Kaur Jaswal

The daughter of a diplomat, Balli Kaur Jaswal was born in Singapore and grew up in Japan, Russia, and the Philippines. She received a BA in Creative Writing from Hollins University in Virginia and a PhD from Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University. Her essays and op-eds about diaspora, censorship, racism, and sexuality have appeared in the New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29, The South China Morning Post, Harper’s Bazaar, and Salon.com. She lives with her family in Singapore, where she is a professor at Yale-NUS.

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Reviews for Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

Rating: 4.106714664268585 out of 5 stars
4/5

834 ratings79 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the most heartwarming depictions of Punjabi women. Written with a lot of heart and sincerity, this is a revelation.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Loved the character development. The story took a surprising turn, which furthered the character development. I really enjoyed learning a bit about Punjabi and Sikh culture from this author’s perspective: The comparison between traditional culture and modern values; Indian vs London Punjabi.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I did not expect how enjoyable it was. I finished it in one sitting and man, it turns to darker paths way beyond just erotic stories. It is wholesome, heartwarming and letting you into the struggles, challenges of not only the widows but all women in India heritage with their own societies. Seriously, I do not expect to learn about all of this dark and thought-provoking topics in a book titled Erotic Stories lol but it is amazing. Surely I am intrigued to read more of Balli Kaur Jaswal's work.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Lovely story. Enjoyed every world. Highly recommend this one! Thanx
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved it! Had it all you would want in a book!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is simply lovely. A love story interwoven with culture, ageism, cultural sexisms. We read it for book club and I highly recommend it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Just loved it. All the characters felt real, the plot was so good and the erotic stories were sensible. It's so rare to see good heterosexual erotica, I certainly wasn't expecting.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The story in general was very intriguing and interesting, for me also very recognizable which helped me relate to it a lot easier and better.
    The erotic stories in the book were a little too much for me from time to time, but it never bothered me. :)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved every bit of this. Had me belly laughing at some points, now I can't see my local Aunties the same any more. I loved the balance of the funny and the serious parts of the story about Honor Killings and the Women's point of view in the culture.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Hilarious and very naughty. True insights into the community. Enjoyable read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great read fun romp.learned lots about arranged marriages.thx you alot ?
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Not what I was expecting when I searched for romance.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    It was very interesting and inciteful. The perspectives seem very genuine and the accent switches in the audiobook were without reproach. There was an interesting plot, entertaining characters and a sprinkling of raunch without sacrificing any of the former. I really enjoyed it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The first 2/3rds of this book are fantastic but the ending was rushed. I can live with that because the.widows made me laugh out loud on several occasions.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Omg!
    I loved every bit of this book. The way the narrator spoke, the accents and most especially the storyline
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a easy, fun story. A quick read with unexpected kindness and diversity/inclusion messages.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The title is what attracted me to this book. I loved how much was going on in this book. The aunties were surprising and the growth of the community was heart warming. What a great read!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Learning about the history and culture around arranged marriages.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It's a romance novel with erotica and a murder mystery thrown in, and not at all in a bad way. It is a fun read, very charming. The characters seem like real people. The situations are not ridiculous, unlike a lot of romance stories. There is good reason for the lovers to split and then reunite. It is a fun look into a culture not my own, which I found very interesting. I especially liked how the story considered the lives of the widows, who are generally ignored and considered of no worth in their own culture, and gave us a look into the passion that still lives in their hearts. I thought it was well performed. Glad I listened to it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great story that shows a side of Indians living in UK that most people do not hear about.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A pleasantly wonderful book I will recommend to friends far and wide! Looking forward to more from the author.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Erotic Stories For Punjabi Widows lives up to its name. It is entertaining and at times feels like reading parts of steamy romance novels. However, there is a lot more to the book. It is about a group of women finding their voices--after their husbands have died and they are no longer regarded in their society as they once were. They became invisible. The stories definitely changed all that.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    yay! OMG it's funny and keeps me to my toes!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is about Nikki and twenty-something year old who dropped out of law school, wanting to do something meaningful. She never felt passionate towards law, which her dad forced her to do. So, She starts “teaching” a writing class to a group of old, widowed, and conservative group of Punjabi women. Rather than learning to actually write, they start telling stories — really steamy, graphic, sexual stories. (You’d better not listen to this in public!!) I LOVE this book. The sexual scenes are only a small part of it. The book itself is so funny and heart-warming.
    The moral of the story seems to be overcoming cultural clashes (older generation vs. modern generation) and overcoming religious/social/cultural expectations. I learned more about Indian culture. I was kinda frustrated how women live such a limited life so it was a breath of fresh air to meet a character, Nikki who fights it. The difference between the old and modern generation was especially fun to read and I absolutely loved the mystery behind Maya’s death. The narrator does an amazing job with the different accents so I definitely recommend the audiobook! I
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Such an interesting story. I would say is a full package: love, erotism, mystery, culture.Don't miss it!!!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Firstly, thank you to LibraryThing for providing me with a free copy of this book and I'm so sorry I didn't get to it sooner.This is a lovely, fun story that I found to be a very quick read (it's just that I didn't have time to read it! My fault, nobody else's, of course.)I adored the setting, which was mostly in Southall, an area of London predominantly populated by Punjabi people (say that five times fast). I loved learning about Punjabi traditions, like dining in the gurdwara langar hall as a community, how Punjabi women all take on the last name Kaur and Punjabi men take the last name Singh. How the community is tight-knit and protective of their own but, like any community, are uneasy about newcomers and can easily turn on group members with nasty, untrue gossip. Nikki was one of those outsiders. She is a Sikh and Punjabi, yet she was never part of the Southall community, having lived outside of it in Enfield.When she unexpectedly starts teaching a small group of Punjabi widows how to read and write in English initially, her membership into the Southall community is instant but not necessarily welcome. The women are suspicious of Nikki and her modern, millennial ways. She smokes, she doesn't pray at the temple, she doesn't even speak Punjabi that well. But reading and writing in English takes a glorious turn, and I think one can figure out where these lessons lead to...What I was surprised about was the murder mystery-esque quality that the novel took on. I wasn't expecting Nikki to become entangled in the drama of her boss's life and the life of her students. This is not an issue in and of itself, I enjoyed the drama. What I had a problem with was Nikki's pushiness and nosiness into the lives of her students, all of whom were older than her and had lived much longer lives than she had. I think it's possible that the passage of time in this story moves very quickly, and so maybe I've underestimated just how much time had passed since the beginning of Nikki's teaching and her comfort level with her students. It seemed, not sudden, per se, but a little sped up in how quickly she became chummy with the widows, seeing as the start of their relationship was very rocky and lacking in trust, on both sides.I liked Nikki, I really did. I just had some issues with her 'I'm a university graduate so I'm learned in all things' attitude. I thought it was odd how she just chose to show up at Sheena's place of work and demanded to know about the mystery behind Karina. It felt very presumptuous to me that Nikki just expected Sheena would acquiesce to answering her very personal questions immediately. While she was at work! Moreover, how is a 22-year-old telling a widow in her forties how to have a relationship with another man? Why is Nikki so confident about her life skills and relationship-management that she feels she can delve out how-to advice to a woman twice her age? In this sense, Nikki irked me, but overall, I found her to be a lovely girl with a good heart and good intentions. She helped give these lonely, sometimes lost, elderly women a voice and a purpose in a world where they are essentially forgotten about once their husbands are no longer in the picture.I also really enjoyed the romance in the novel, which I think helped cement the 'Nikki pretends to be 45 but really she's 22' sort of vibe she gave off. That's the only reason I'd give this four stars instead of five because I wasn't in love with Nikki's character, but that is obviously just a personal preference and doesn't reflect on the wonderful writing and story line. I highly recommend this book! It was so much fun.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Such a beautiful, beautiful book! It has a perfect balance of culture, family woes, romance, spice, humor, intrigue and real-life problems. I loved it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Arguably the BEST book I've read for 2021. Granted that this is a 2017 novel, I am a bit behind in making this wonderful discovery. This book had everything that a literary fan could want: adventure, excitement, comedy, romance and best of all a plot twist. Nikki takes us on a colourful journey into the life of a modern Sikh girl living in London who is going through her own coming of age story as she learns about the hidden tales of her own culture. It also explores some heavy themes like domestic violence, gender based violence, women's rights, and literacy but at no point did this book feel heavy at all. Instead, the whimsical way in which Nikki's story and those of the other Punjabi women are told, makes it so easy to connect with them.
    After finishing this book, everyone learns something, even Nikki. She learns that regardless of one's perspective, liberal or traditional, the only "right" view is one that allows a woman to have a choice!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to get into this book because I know absolutely nothing about Indian immigrants in the UK especially Punjabis. But I really enjoyed this book because it had everything, mystery, love, comedy, and great erotic writing. This book has become a surprise favorite that I want to get in print!!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was riveting and funny and sexy and mysterious and thrilling. Will definitely recommend.