Writer Within

The reluctant e-book reader

2012-01-05T01:00:00.029+01:00

I have managed to read three books in the last month. I was afraid I had become a bookworm who doesn't read, then I downloaded the Kindle App on my iPad and suddenly I am going through a book a week. I have become an e-book reader.
For most people who discovered the convenience of e-readers some time back this is not worthy of a blog post, but I resisted for the longest time to turn to the dark side - clearly I am still not entirely won over- and only in the last month have I begun to appreciate the convenience offered by technology.

I was quite happy to download my issues of Vanity Fair, National Geographic and a few other junk reads we won't mention. After all, this is how these publications were meant to be read. They are called glossies for a reason. Then I downloaded Breaking Dawn for my daughter (Ok, I sneaked a peak and according to my daughter that now makes me a a Twi-Hard). Suddenly I have ploughed through three books in a month. Given my constraints with time - or at least that had been the excuse up until now, I am thrilled.
But now I am back to paperback.

My e-reading high is down and once again I want to feel the weight of a book in my hand and smell the pages - although they really have no smell because we are not talking about books kept in musty libraries anymore. I have yet to learn to cuddle up with my iPad; Not really inviting, it's cold and hard.
My husband suggested I subscribe to one of our newspapers online and that was probably what brought my high down. I really do like the rustle of the newspaper on Sunday mornings, when it's cold out and you're savouring a slow morning of coffee and croissants. I take great joy in reading the paper through to the last page, without the distraction of side articles and further readings which end up in my reading close to four newspapers at a time.

So now I am bookmarking - with an actual bookmark, and enjoying a book that Amazon has gone to great pains to remind me that, people who ordered The Finkler Question also liked The Remains of the Day and The Sense of an Ending. Those two I downloaded - I didn't say I was completing off my new drug, just in rehab. I am not about to initiate a discourse on the demise of the paper book, but I am wondering, Will reading bedtime stories to my kids on an iPad make them lovers of reading and books? Or should some things like the 'traditional' bedtime story remain sacred - without links and backlit screens?

What are your thoughts?

Novel Notation: THE MARRIAGE PLOT by Jeffrey Eugenides

2012-01-03T08:46:00.007+01:00

Title: THE MARRIAGE PLOT

Genre: Novel

Author: Jeffrey Eugenides

Published: 2011

The Virgin Suicides, Eugenides' first book and Middlesex, his second were both mysterious. The Virgin Suicides in its depiction of a family of three daughters growing up under the severely strict parenting of a Catholic domineering father- who all ultimately commit suicide left me with an unanswered- Why? A great review here. Middlesex was fairly straightforward, as the historical elements of the novel woven around the history of a Greek family leaving Greece, settling in the US and the discovery of the daughter that she is a hermaphrodite. This in itself a mysterious subject. I dare say this is my very abridged version of a book that won Jeffrey Eugenides the Pullitzer Prize for Fiction.

The Marriage Plot was different. A story of a love triangle between friends about to embark on their lives and futures after their graduation from college. A story of the unrequited love of Mitchell Grammaticus, a religious studies graduate for Madeleine, the central figure. Madeleine Hanna, an english language major and great lover of Jane Austen, is in love with and goes on to marry Leonard Bankhead, an intelligent science major and manic-depressive whose steady decline into his mania courses throughout the entire book.
The Marriage Plot is a journey into the intellect of these three people, who are intellectuals and debate ad nauseum in some cases the angst in their lives whilst relating it to some of the intellectual works they read in their various majors. I enjoyed that constant diversion, but tended to also find it distracting before it always inevitably led me to exploring the sub plots and related reading a lot more. I admit to loving the ending where Eugenides crafts an unpredictable yet realistic finale where they all end up going their separate ways rather than force a happily-ever-after ending.

What I enjoyed: The constantly shifting perspectives of the protagonists gave a sense of reading stories within the story, where each of the three characters is alloted their own chapters and their stories developed almost independently of the others.

The Reviews: The Good and the Bad.
The Interview.

Reading Rumination: THE THING AROUND YOUR NECK by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2011-12-22T19:24:00.002+01:00

Title: THE THING AROUND YOUR NECK

Genre: Short Stories

Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Published: 2009

I read this book in two days...I do enjoy short stories at times, it makes the progress faster and there is always the next story to look forward to if you are not particularly engrossed by one story. I first read Purple Hibiscus three years ago and fell in love with Adichie's writing. The Thing Around Your Neck is a collection of stories previously published in various publications. It tells of immigrant Nigerians, professionals, students, wives carving their way in the land of opportunity, America.

The collection is filled with everything from the wife in a long-distance marriage realising that she is surely losing her husband to another woman in another country. 'The Shivering' is story of a post-graduate student still pining after a lost love or the idea of her lost love, while sharing her woes with her Nigerian neighbour. 'The Arrangers of Marriage' and 'The Thing Around Your Neck' were reminiscent of some of the stories written by Jhumpa Lahiri in Interpreter of Maladies- the unease in a new culture, the desperation to fit in and the stories of immigrants clutching at their identity in the New World. 'The Headstrong Historian' had real similarities with Arthur Japin's 'Two hearts of Kwasi Boachi'- a historical fiction that told of the conflicts of the Slave Trade.

I will be reading more of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for as long as she keeps weaving the tales that she does.

Novel Notation: THE TIGER'S WIFE by Téa Obreht

2011-12-06T15:23:00.004+01:00

Title: THE TIGER'S WIFE
Genre: Novel
Author: Téa Obreht
Published: 2011

In the Tiger's Wife, Téa Obreht retells the story of a tiger that escapes from a zoo during the Balkans war. Told through the protagonist, Natalia the story is both allegorical and entertaining enough. The sudden and strange circumstances surrounding the news of her grandfather's death, a medical doctor like herself, leave Natalia following the path her grandfather may have taken in the latter days of his life as a way to try and uncover answers to the mystery around his death.

Téa Obrecht weaves a tale that takes the reader from current day to the war in the Balkans, yet it does not overwhelm as the history is melded well with the plot. With the use of narration that is from her grandfather's perspective, combining both present day and past the book recounts the story of a tiger in a small village, Galina , the village in which her grandfather grew up, and that became central to the lives of the people in the small village. Belief in both superstition and the inexplicable presence of the tiger in their lives leaves a town united in their fear of the inexplicable as they try to find meaning in the looming presence of the animal. The Tiger's wife is a young, recently widowed deaf-mute child-bride, who becomes the target of the town's curiosity, suspicion and gossip due to her attachment to the tiger, which ventures frequently in to the village- feared by the entire village yet obviously attached to the young girl.

Central to the plot is the deathless man, which to Natalia had been a myth until her realisation that her grandfather, had not only been seeking this deathless man, with whom he had had numerous encounters, but may well have been in his presence in his last days. Superstition and ritual are ever-present in the book, a uniting theme for the people of the village. It is a theme that the educated, medical doctor Natalia- very much like her grandfather, the man of science, finds herself turning to, in the quest for answers and is unwittingly a part of, in her visits to the zoo with her grandfather as a young girl; when she makes the journey to the place of her grandfather's death as an adult, to find answers as well as return the items of the loved one as part of the forty days mourning period.

I would normally not have picked this book up, not being such a huge fan of fantastical/magic realism in fiction, but I read an interview with the author and my interest was piqued, and to some extend, the award-winning tag got me. It was the 2011 Orange Prize Winner for Fiction.

Reviews: Good and Bad.

Novel Notation: LYRICS ALLEY by Leila Aboulela

2011-11-01T14:51:00.006+01:00

Title: LYRICS ALLEY
Genre: Novel
Author: Leila Aboulela
Published: 2011

I am going to come across sounding unimaginative I know, but Lyrics Alley is lyrical. A slow-paced introduction to the extended dynastic Abuzeid family leads one to identifying with the characters almost immediately. Slow-paced as the introduction is, the turn of events as the plot gives way is anything but. Lyrics Alley reads both like historical fiction - which it is not, and the dramatic work of fiction you want to sink your teeth into.
The plot centres around Mahmoud Abuzeid, a Sudanese whose life is a mélange of cultures, traditional Sudanese and modern Egyptian. Torn between the two worlds, he remains unavoidably and staunchly tied to his origins and his family in Sudan yet socially ambitious and yearning for acceptance in his new world. It is a story of families, love and heartbreak.

Central to the book is the story of Nur, Mahmoud's youngest son from his first marriage and the one hope has left that of an heir to take over the family business following the disappointment that is his eldest son. All hope and dreams are dashed however when Nur is in an accident that results in his becoming a paraplegic and therefore unable to take his place at the helm of his father's businesses. His dreams of going to study in London; of marrying his cousin, Soraya to whom he is betrothed have to change.

Leila Aboulela treats this family tragedy gently, with perspectives from all family members brought to the fore - and the subsequent changes in relationships as a result of Nur's accident detailed extensively.
In all this Mahmoud finds himself drawn more to his life in Sudan, both out of the guilt of wanting to leave but also being unable to; his second wife Nabilah, who for many years has tried to find her place in this family, finds herself drawing even further away, leaving Mahmoud's first Sudanese wife, Waheeba to handle the family issues and in the process try to win Mahmoud's affections.

Halfway through the book when Nabilah comes home to find her daughter having undergone a procedure she did not approve of, at the instruction of Waheeba - I went from feeling ambivalent about her presence and role in the family to taking sides with a strength made possible only by Aboulela's subtle, nuanced writing.
Nur's fate changes to now accommodate aspirations that he'd first hidden from his family of becoming a poet - he goes on to become a celebrated poet, making his family reluctantly proud and unsure of how this all fits into the traditional society in which they live. A complex plot that finds its way to its ultimate conclusion in a rhythmic manner without losing the reader.

It made me curious about the Sudanese-Egyptian historical ties, Britain's colonial past in this region given recent political uprisings and left me wanting more of writers coming out of this region, namely, the two Sudans.

Reviews: The Good, The Average.

Reading Rumination: SHANGHAI TANGO - A Memoir by Jin Xing

2011-06-28T01:00:00.013+02:00

Title: SHANGHAI TANGO

Genre: Memoir
Author: Jin Xing
Published: 2005

This was a quick read in between the flurry of activity typical of this time of the year. Wishing I had an e-reader given all the books I want to read this Summer...Shanghai Tango is the memoir of a prima ballerina; Jin Xing who danced for the Shanghai Ballet and other prestigious Ballet Companies both in the US and Europe. It is a story told from a very detached voice about a young boy, who is recruited into the People's Liberation Army Dance Corps as a soldier and a dancer at the age of nine.
This celebrated, internationally-acclaimed dancer went on to become the first person in China to undergo a full sex-change operation. The narrative is factual even though the subject matter is potentially tragic. It tells of the emotional challenges the writer experiences as both a young man in the Chinese Ballet Corps, not yet fully aware of how different he is from his fellow dancers; to his transformation into a female ballerina and mother. It is retold very objectively, almost too much so, as it skims over the real emotions about her post operation experience and fails to sufficiently delve into what life was like away from the glamour of the stage for her.

There is an innocence to Jin Xing in his early years that is the result of being shielded from the harsher realities of being transgender; either because he is was the Army's brightest star or because he himself did not fully understand what he was. Only in his twenties does he fully comprehend that his attraction to men is not because he is gay, but because he is a woman. Shanghai Tango is the first book I have read that deals sufficiently with the disambiguation around the term transgender. It is a good read if you have ever been curious about the topic. It follows closely on a recent Book Club read; Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, historical fiction that deals with gender and identity.
The more sinister side of China's Ballet Corps is revealed in Shanghai Tango, in a non-judgemental manner by the writer. For all its faults - the stymied creativity and propaganda agenda- he credits his ballet technique, which opened up doors to his international career, to the rigorous training the People's Liberation Army Corps put him through.

The Reviews: The Good; The Bad.

Novel Notation: THE MADONNA OF EXCELSIOR by Zakes Mda

2011-06-07T01:00:00.003+02:00

Title: THE MADONNA OF EXCELSIOR

Genre: Novel
Author: Zakes Mda
Published: 2002

I read this again right after I finished Chicago, and had just started on The Immigrant by Manju Kapur - which I have yet to finish. I often find myself in a reading rut where I tend to read books with similar themes and in the same genre at intervals that are too close together. After Chicago, The Immigrant started off feeling similar, which is the reason I have put it down for a while.

The Madonna of Excelsior is a novel set in pre-democratic South Africa,in the early 1970s, when the then South African government's apartheid state and all its accompanying discriminatory laws were in full force. The Immorality Act, was one such law that forbade sexual relationships between black and white people. Set in the small town of Excelsior in the Free State - and based on a real-life trial in which nineteen citizens of the small town; from upstanding white leaders and pillars of the tightly-knit Afrikaans community to the black domestic workers that worked for them, were charged with contravening the Immorality Act.

The story is told from Niki's perspective, the domestic worker that went on to have the blue-eyed, brown-skinned Popi with Stephanus Cronje, a white farmer. Zakes Mda's book is intriguing and well-written. He incorporates elements of the real-life trial, which adds to historical theme yet does not detract from the intrigue. The books tells of a South Africa of a different time, when the majority black population was beginning to find its voice and spans to the early 70s following the characters to post-democratic South Africa. Race and identity form the backdrop to the story - the first part of the book being told by the down-trodden Niki, while the second part is related by her children - Viliki and Popi, together with the perspective of Tjaart; Stephanus' legitimate son. All now faced with a changed South Africa. Viliki is still angry about the oppression black people went through, Tjaart is bitter about the plight of the Afrikaner in the New South Africa and Popi laments the fact that she was 'too black for the old South Africa and is now too white for the new one'.
A good telling of the effects of institutionalised racism on the psyche of South Africans; both the oppressed and the oppressor and the effects on the generation that were a result of interactions deemed illegal at the time.

The Reviews: The Good.

Novel Notation: CHICAGO by Alaa Al Aswany

2011-05-26T00:56:00.008+02:00

Title: CHICAGO

Genre: Novel
Author: Alaa Al Aswany
Published: 2008

In the aftermath of the recent uprisings in the Arab world, this was an informative read. One of the members of my Book Club made a comment recently about Egypt that I found to be accurate- especially regarding the World's perception of the Arab states that have just experienced the uprisings referred by some media as the 'Arab Spring'. "I feel like we have been lied to." She was referring to Egypt and I could not have agreed more. No, I do not live under a rock and yes, I was aware of the fragility of Egypt's democracy before the uprisings, but in relation to seemingly more despotic states, Egypt was at the periphery of wider political discussion. Or so I thought until the uprisings and subsequent resignation of Hosni Mubarak in February.

Chicago tells of a group of people living in Chicago post-911. It is a series of interrelated stories of both Egyptian émigrés and American citizens. Their interactions are woven around politics, race relations and sexual politics in a plot that reads like a potentially explosive political drama - but one that does not culminate in the ending I was anticipating.

The book deals with the characters' respective crises of identity - being foreign and straddling two worlds; of embracing all that is fully American and western as well as that which still feels familiar and therefore 'right'. It touches on issues of identity and culture of people going about their everyday lives - from Carol, an African-American woman dating a white Histology professor and dealing with unemployment and racism; to the spousal abuse and disintegrating marriages experienced by Marwa and Chris respectively; to Dr Salah's guilt in having abandoned the country of his birth; a country that did not want him - all interspersed with the regret he feels for the life he left behind. The grief that torments Rafat, the All-American Egyptian who loses his daughter to drugs and to what he deems as corrupt western values - the same values he had whole-heartedly embraced; Nagi's romantic political notions for a democratic Egypt and his revolutionary sentiments , to the blind political ambition of Danana who is a caricature of a politically ambitious and sycophantic bully with ambitions beyond that of his lowly Egyptian Student coordinator role.

It took me a while to get through the book - I was a bit overwhelmed by the plethora of characters introduced in the first part, but it has made me curious about his other book - The Yacoubian Building, which by a number of accounts, has had better reviews.

The Reviews: The Good.

On being well read

2011-04-26T08:47:00.012+02:00

I came across this post on one of my favourite blogs and it roused something in me about, what truly makes one well read. I have always grappled with this even more so because in my formative years, high school and all though my undergraduate years I was exposed more to the Classics; from Shakespeare, Brontë and Austen, to the Huxleys, Wells' and Orwells of the literary world.

My foray into African literature came late in life - call it the result of a purely British school curricula and a lack of awareness of the literary treasures just beyond the borders of my country, but it was only in graduate school that my eyes were opened to a whole new world.
To many, with respect to what can be defined strictly within the confines of African literature - I am not well read, but I can hold my own when it is Western classics under discussion.

These days I favour the new writers; Jhumpa Lahiri, Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - not to say I still will not revert to Yeats or Keats or Whitman, or pick up Toni Morrisson, or James Baldwin when the mood strikes. I am still partial to Faulkner, Dahl, and have even dabbled in Kafka. My infatuation with Rohinton Mistry has been replaced with Khaled Hosseini and I still think Salman Rushdie weaves a good tale. Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee and lately Marlene van Niekerk inspire. As my reading list will confirm - these days it is everything I can get my hands on. Prolific reader? Absolutely. Well read? Am I?

So what does make one well read?

Reading Rumination: THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD by Elyn R. Saks

2011-04-14T07:00:00.028+02:00

Title: THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD - A memoir of my schizophrenia
Genre: Memoir
Author: Elyn R. Saks
Published: 2007

I enjoyed this book tremendously and was also completely horrified by some aspects of it. Why horrified? The thought that one can go through the experiences that she went through; the misdiagnosis of her illness, the forced admission into mental hospitals and subsequent forced drug treatment - and all due to the fragile definition of what is defined as mentally stable. Mild depression or complete psychosis can, if there is no one there to speak up for you, earn you the type of treatment reserved solely for mentally 'unstable' people. Every time I gather with family and friends around a dinner table, I always insist that we all have a gratitude moment...the one constant for me is always 'I am grateful for my sanity'. I always either manage to elicit chuckles or curiously-raised eyebrows. And such is the reaction that mental health issues elicit wherever you are in the world. Elyn Saks takes the reader through a process of explaining what 'losing one's mind' truly means.

The Centre Cannot Hold delves into the life of someone living with schizophrenia. Elyn's journey to a point where where she is finally accepting of her illness and comes to terms with the fact that her mind in not 'broken' is a painful one, and even as I was reading it, there were some moments when I felt some frustration and thought; 'it has been such a rough ride for you to this point, you know what works and what does not - STAY ON YOUR MEDS!' She takes the reader though the harrowing journey of her life that consists of complete lucidity interspersed with episodes of complete psychosis; all in a calm, and almost self-deprecating manner. I could not help but be drawn to her strength through it all.

Although the subject matter is frightening, it is an inspiring story because throughout her life dealing with her schizophrenia and always struggling to 'keep the demons at bay' she accomplishes more than most people do without the added hampering health issues. Her belief in what she thought for a long time could be accomplished with a simple mind over matter attitude regarding her illness, is shaken when she questions how she is meant to achieve this if the mind is 'broken'.
The book made me curious about the different ways that mental health is treated both in the US and in the UK, where as a student at Oxford she experienced the reality of the mental health institutions when she was admitted during one of her psychotic breaks.

The reviews: The good.

Novel Notation: THE SHAPE OF WATER by Andrea Camilleri

2011-04-07T09:00:00.003+02:00

Title: The shape of water
Author: Andrea Camilleri
Genre: Fiction
Published: 2002

The shape of water is one in a series of Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano Mystery books. This was a book club read that I would not have ordinarily chosen on my own. It's a quick, simple read that is humorous throughout - some parts of which I attribute to a loss in translation of initial intended meanings. I also found some parts of the writing somewhat stilted, again attributable to the translation issue. I most definitely did not enjoy any of the jokes, which I found quite juvenile, even in what is the realm of detective stories - which in their own right are meant to be entertaining.
Inspector Salvo Montalbano is a no-nonsense, efficient (in both speech and action) police inspector who is all business when it comes to dealings both professional and personal. Faced with a probe into the death of a prominent figure in Vigata - which he updates from accidental to homicide, The Shape of Water has a somewhat convoluted plot around the detective's attempt at solving the mystery which in true detective-style mystery genre concludes with a neat ending.
A light caper, curiously entertaining but I do not seeing myself reading any more of the books from the series. One which comes highly recommended is the Terra-Cotta dog. The Shape of Water did make me curious about some of the artists mentioned - Renato Guttuso (1911 - 1987); Roberto Melli (1885 - 1958); Antonio Donghi (1897 - 1963); Fausto Pirandello (1889 - 1975); Ugo Attardi (1923 - 2006).

The reviews: The good .

Does award-winning always mean good?

2011-03-31T09:00:00.003+02:00

Twice in the last month I have had discussions around the issue of whether ‘award-winning’ necessarily equates to good. Different audiences, different situations. The discussions were around books and what enhances or detracts from their enjoyment; more concisely, does the fact that a book is listed as an award-winning work mean that, after we all rush off to buy our respective copies, due to its elevated status as a literary work, we will necessarily find it a good read?
Yes, the enjoyment or lack of, of literary works, appreciation of art, theatre or similar such pursuits is subjective and therefore cannot be generalized; but are the many award lists out there that some of these works find themselves on not a way of affirming that the book has passed judgement and is therefore 'good', that it will be liked, irrespective of readers' diverse tastes? Being an award-winning book, work of art or theatre production does affirm the 'stamp of approval' already garnered from the publication, exhibition or production or that work.

Which brings up an interesting issue – what if after reading a “great literary work” as affirmed by whatever latest award it has been endowed, you find yourself unmoved and failing to find an interpretation that makes sense – assuming that you were able to finish the book in the first place – can you confidently ”trash” the book without suffering the wrath of the literary gods? Most of us tend not to do this, at the risk of being labelled cultural or literary philistines. Why?

Ben Okri’s The Famished Road was a part of this discussion and in a room of nine intelligent, educated, well-read women there was not a single voice that affirmed that The Famished Road was as good as the judges of the Man Booker Prize of 1991 and the rest of the world thought it to be. The magic realism in this particular work did not appeal to any of our tastes.

Comments ranged from “ I did not finish that book”, “I tried, but I did not get it”, “that was a difficult read” to worse. After a extended discussion of The Famished Road we all felt vilified in some small way because we were indeed not the literary philistines we may have secretly thought we were. Whatever secret feelings of literary obtuseness that we may have harboured were all discredited by a group of people that all somehow felt that perhaps the 1991 Man Booker judges could have done better in their selection; or perhaps it was slim pickings that year from African entrants or that whatever criteria used could have been revised. What are your thought's on Ben Okri's book? A book that has widely come to be regarded as a literary masterpiece.

Two days later a book club member mentioned that she was in the middle of a book which she had bought because, amongst other reasons, it had been shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. She was struggling to get through it, but she was determined to finish it because ‘it was shortlisted…’

Once again the 'award-winning spectre' rears its ugly head. I am not disputing that most literary works that have been judged as worthy of reading, are indeed so, but I am wondering whether the criteria of their selection can create a bias to their selection from year to year irrespective of whether they are literary masterpieces or not.

How often have your reading choices been influenced by the literary awards garnered by those works?

Novel Notation: FREEDOM by Jonathan Franzen

2011-03-24T13:05:00.006+01:00

Title: Freedom
Author: Jonathan Franzen
Genre: Fiction
Published: 2010

Inspired me to learn about: Carving out character descriptions through the use of first, second and third person narration.
Jonathan Franzen weaves an intricate tale in Freedom; which although does not have a plot that grabs, it held my attention sufficiently because of its almost mundane subject matter - the life of a contemporary middle class American family grappling with issues of love, marriage, infidelity and disappointment. Reading it did feel voyeuristic at times because The Berglunds - though struggling through their less-than-average issues are quite the average family.
I found myself liking them in the beginning; charmed by Patty's cheerful and contagious enthusiasm to everything and Walter's steadfast focus on his beliefs - then went to finding them quite unbearable as they fumbled through their simple, at times, and melodramatic, at others life; and finally rooting for them to get it together towards the end when it becomes apparent that although they bring out the worst in one another, they are also well-suited in their complicated and poignant emotions.
An average read that has made me curious about his first novel 'Corrections'.

The Reviews: The good and the bad.

What do I write?

2011-03-17T17:48:00.019+01:00

I was at a Ghana Women Writers Forum a while back - a group that meets regularly for book readings, critique evenings and anything literary-related and the question that kept coming up was, 'What do you write?'
The answer is everything. I write lists - extensive to-do lists, lists of names from my childhood, things I enjoying doing, things I want to do, places I plan to visit, alongside my shopping lists. I write notes, to my family, to myself, in letters, emails and blogs. I keep a journal, a yet-to-be-published novel, the start of a collection of short stories. I am in no way ready to claim a genre, nor am I entirely sure I want to as yet. I admire writers that can move with ease from one genre to another and still retain a freshness and agility each time.

On this blog, I will be writing about the books I read. I will be commenting on books from The Reading List. Under Novel Notations you will find my impressions of the books I read. In the same way that I write everything, I read everything, so there will also be the Reading Ruminations of anything else along the way.

I hope you keep coming back, and your comments are most welcome.

The Reading List

2011-03-10T17:50:00.012+01:00

The Reading List is drawn up from a collection of my books, some of which I have read and am eager to read again and others I have yet to read. It's an eclectic mix ranging from subjects that I found interesting then, and may still do and authors whose work I still enjoy or enjoyed in the past.

Some made the Man Booker, Pulitzer, Pen Faulkner, Pen/Hemingway... - Prize Winners Lists, others are book club recommendations. Others somehow made it into my collection, for the life of me I don't know how.

I am curious to hear some of your thoughts on some of the books listed. Liked? Disliked? Captivated? NOT!? Bored? Maybe? Would recommend?

A few were bought because I found myself in a bookstore and they were... there! Whilst with others I was just plain curious. A good number were suggestions of good reviews, others of bad reviews (being contrarian is never a bad thing), recommendations by friends, friend o' friends, a colleague, the friendly mom in the paediatrician's waiting room, a boss, TV show, and gifts from friends.

What informs your reading choices? Do you go with mainstream recommendations or tend to go against popular sentiment?

About the writer

2011-03-03T20:14:00.050+01:00

A bibliophile.
I believe there can never be too many books; that there are always so many books and so little time; and I will gladly take a book, a book! My kingdom for a book! (Apologies all round).

I read, I write, I golf - admittedly not as much as I would like given all the books in my life, I travel - whenever the stars in my family's life are aligned and I am an unapologetic foodie.

'Eat Mangoes Naked' is one of my all time favourite book titles; it inspires the hedonist within and reminds me of the possibilities of unadulterated fun in everything, even the simplest pleasures. 'Wanderlust' is one of my favourite words, no explanation required.

What inspires me?

the sound of children's uninhibited laughter
bursting ripe mangoes whose sweet juice floods my mouth and threatens to dribble down my chin
the smell of fresh rain
my morning cup of java
Friday afternoons that hold the promise of long, lazy weekends
the morning smell of a child's neck
the colours of a Flamboyant tree in bloom
slow-cooked lamb stew with dumplings on a winter's eve
the feel of sand between my toes
random acts of kindness
a good glass of red wine
laughter that hurts my tummy and brings tears to my eyes
the purple blossoms of the Jacaranda trees in spring
hugs
Ghana's harmattan rain
the display on the treadmill clocking 45 minutes the morning after the night before
blue cheese with figs
a smile from a stranger
grey and rainy days
champagne
the feel of my Love's hand on the small of my back
the snow-capped tips of the Maluti Mountains
sunny Sundays
Joburg's thunderstorms
a new Moleskine notebook
Paris in early fall
lazy Saturday afternoons spent braaing with friends
the bitter-sweet mingling of flavours of a well-made Mojito on my tongue
morning dew on freshly cut grass,
and definitely, most definitely, a flaky on the outside, doughy-soft on the inside warm croissant eaten while leafing through National Geographic Traveler.

I live in Neuilly-Sur-Seine, France and write about my reading and writing on this blog and about my travel, golfing and eating exploits on Wanderlust!.

What inspires you?