April in Review, Projections for May
My projections were to read three books in April but in the end I read only two. Too bad. This means that I am falling behind my ultimate goal of reading 60 books. I don't know when I can speed up. I should have read 20 books by the end of April; instead, I had read only 15. The following were the books I read:
- The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. This is a unique love story. What if Time Travel is possible but isn't under the control of the person? What if it is a genetic defect? That is the problem with Henry and how will Clare, the eventual wife take it? In such situations, Time Travel is more dangerous than one would have thought.
- Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. This was a selection of the Writers Project of Ghana. It was my second reading in three years and the this has helped. In this period of mass hysteria, when the killer is praised for being the saviour and the victim is consistently blamed for the actions of the killer, no book is as important as 1984. It shows how a whole society could be easily hoodwinked into believing something entirely different from reality and consequently become regurgitators of the powers that be - saying what they have been programmed to say and believing what they have been programmed to believe. It also shows the relationship between language and thought and therefore freedom. In this age of Snowden-files, Wikileaks, East-West tensions, uprisings and others, it is important that we revisit the man who knows how society is organised and ruled.
May: I truly do not know what is going to happen in May. I am currently not in my comfort zone as my life has taken a turn that requires time to settle. Thus, anytime I sit to read I lose concentration and my mind strays to other areas. I will therefore only move full-swing into reading when everything is settled. However, I have started both The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - which I scheduled to be read in April, and My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. In addition to these, I will reread Lord of the Flies by William Golding for the Book and Discussion Club of the Writers Project of Ghana.
I looking forward to your thoughts on re-reading Lord of the Flies. I read it for the first time last year after my daughter read it in school and told me I had to read it.
ReplyDelete