Spring is in full swing, and so is Brunch Book Club! This May, we’re diving into a bold and brilliant read: Fundamentally by Nussaibah Yousin, which has just been longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction. This razor-sharp, darkly funny, and deeply moving novel explores love, faith, and belonging through the unexpected friendship between an East London teenager who joined ISIS and the academic tasked with rehabilitating her. It’s a book that promises to spark some seriously thought-provoking conversations.
As always, we’ll kick things off with our Online Discussion from 10:30am - 12:30pm, where we’ll unpack the novel’s themes, characters, and its audacious take on contemporary issues. Then, in true Brunch Book Club fashion, we’ll head to Paradise Green in Bishopsgate (3:00 - 4:30pm) for a stunning Aussie-inspired brunch in one of the most artful and vibrant dining spaces in London. Expect top-tier coffee, Mediterranean-meets-Asian flavours, and an atmosphere that brings the Gold Coast straight to the City.
Join us for a book that dares to challenge and a brunch that’s nothing short of indulgent. Save your spot now!
See you at brunch! 🥂📚🥑
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PLEASE NOTE: This is an all day event starting with our online book discussion at 10:30am followed by brunch in the afternoon. To ensure you have all details please sign up to our mailing list where you'll receive a full itinerary, discussion questions, Online Discussion link and much more.
PREORDER & PREPAYMENT POLICY: To confirm your place, we require a full preorder and prepayment one week in advance of the event. If these aren’t received by the deadline, your ticket will be forfeited. A preorder form will be sent to attendees via email two weeks before the event. Please note, tickets are non-refundable.
Paradise Green, Bishopsgate
The Daisy Green Collection brings relaxed and buzzing Australian food and coffee culture to London. Through individually designed cafes and restaurants, we create iconic spaces that become local destinations and meeting points for our surrounding residents, workers and visitors.
Our food is carefully sourced and cooked in house from scratch. Menus are inspired by my childhood at home on our sheep farm and hot summers on the beach. Food combines simple fresh Mediterranean ingredients with POPs of Asian flavours and textures. There is an overriding sense of freshness, quality and simplicity.
Paradise Green is our most ambitious and largest restaurant to date. Three years in the making, the 10,000 sq ft space in the heart of the City (opposite the Heron Tower) has been stunningly designed to bring together art, design and food on an epic scale in an art gallery style restaurant.
Playfully inspired by Surfers Paradise on Queensland's Gold Coast, it features a 'sunrise' room - the perfect spot for healthy mornings with green juices, killer house coffee and lazy brunches set in bright, airy interiors contrasted with the 'sunset' 3D light bar & restaurant ideal for long dinners with friends. A very special Private Dining Room sits on the first floor set in its own felt Bank Heist art installation. There will be a takeaway bar catering to a substantial outdoor terrace space.
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis
‘By normal, you mean like you? A slag with a saviour complex?’
Nadia is an academic who’s been disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, Rosy. She decides to make a getaway, accepting a UN job in Iraq. Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues.
Sara is a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just fifteen.
Nadia is struck by how similar they are: both feisty and opinionated, from a Muslim background, with a shared love of Dairy Milk and rude pick-up lines. A powerful friendship forms between the two women, until a secret confession from Sara threatens everything Nadia has been working for.
A bitingly original, wildly funny and razor-sharp exploration of love, family, religion and the decisions we make in pursuit of belonging, Fundamentally upends and explores a defining controversy of our age with heart, complexity and humour.