It can be difficult to transition from the comfort of home back to uni life. We stick up photos of home friends and call our parents once a week in an effort to soften the blow. Alongside these, I personally also find myself reaching for books that might quell the homesickness for a bit.
I love to read stories set in the UK, specifically around the London area as that is where I grew up. Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train is set on the commute into London, a train journey I know incredibly well. Although a rather flawed story – with an even worse film adaptation that is set in the US, for some reason – the world-building Hawkins creates is phenomenal. As I’m writing this, I can visualise the exact train I use (shoutout Thameslink) and the view outside, rows of houses backing onto the tracks that is a key plot point within the story. That classic grey weather, although incredibly miserable to experience, is so quintessentially British that I can’t help but feel warmth towards it. Everyone will connect to different locations; I wouldn’t feel a connection to a book set in Rome as much as someone who lives there would, for example.
Whatever connects you with your childhood home is what you should reach for. There is no set formula or recommendation list for this, as we all hold unique relationships with what we call home. For me, it is a story that I can picture my hometown within and replace their world-building with locations from my childhood, essentially morphing the story into my own personalised read.
Words by Kitty Connolly
Living at home for university, I don’t experience homesickness the same way students do when they miss their family and the comfort of their own bed. However, I do feel homesick when I’m away from my homeland and a country that is so deeply rooted in my identity. But I’ve never visited. How can I be homesick for a home I’ve never been to? It’s the longing that makes me feel homesick, the memories I missed out on with my cousins and the mystery of what life is like there. It’s the small things I long for, like the language, food and music that make me feel like I could truly be at peace there.
When homesickness for Pakistan reappears, the imaginations I have about the bustling bazaars, delicious street food, and the warmth of family gatherings are evoked. A Stranger to History by Aatish Taseer helped me relate to these feelings of loss. This memoir follows Taseer, who is estranged from his Pakistani father, as he embarks on a raw quest to travel to Pakistan to grasp his Muslim heritage and paternal ties. In Lahore, he confronts his father amid family tensions, partition scars, and confusion about religion, questioning if he can ever truly belong.
Taseer’s raw account of feeling like an outsider in Lahore, caught between his British upbringing and Pakistani heritage, mirrors the push-pull of diaspora life. He grapples with rejection, and his Westernised identity clashes with expectations of piety and loyalty, while witnessing the partition’s lingering scars that alienate him further.
The book’s portrayal of that search for belonging offers validation that soothes isolation from my struggles to fit into Pakistani circles here in the UK. It echoes an important reminder that you’re not alone in missing your homeland, and reclaiming it starts with an honest reckoning.
As a British Pakistani living in the UK, Taseer’s memoir reminded me of how important it is to remember my family history and reconnect with my culture. Readers often find comfort in sensory recollections, like the smell of chai between family conversations, grounding vague nostalgia in tangible memories. For anyone adrift between worlds, this book transforms voids into vivid, hopeful memories worth bridging.
Words by Alicia Tariq
