Library Additions

I have been busy today but trying to squeeze in some time to share with you the latest members of my bookshelf that doubles as my library. I have been privileged to have received some books and I have also purchased others. Below is the list of books:

• Neo-Colonialism - The Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah. It is not every time that presidents set their visions into books. Most presidents, instead of telling us their visions, writes about memoirs, in an attempt to justify a wrong doing and improve their standings. Most memoirs have been self-serving - explaining away the unexplainable; justifying the unjustifiable. From Clinton, to Bush to Blair and Rumsfeld, presidents and lawmakers have used this genre to improve their standings. However, this is not so for Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, overthrown in a CIA-sponsored coup. Most of us just talk about the man but have hardly read him. The reading of this novel begins my personal journey to read his works. And there are many of these. The man remains enigmatic even today. And it is only in his thoughts that he could be discovered and understood. He saw many potential things and the most common one is found in his popular saying: the independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of the African continent. Voted as the African of the 20th Century, his ideas were far advanced for most of his peers. Needless to say, this book is non-fiction. My reading about Nkrumah is David Rooney's  Kwame Nkrumah: Vision and Tragedy. I must say I was also influenced to read non-fiction by Amy of Amy Reads who has read a lot of non-fiction books this year.
•  A Sense of the Savannah: Tales of a friendly walk through Northern Ghana by Kofi Akpabli. I got copies from the author. This funny book would be launched tomorrow at the National Theatre in Accra. Copies have started selling at the Silverbird Lifestyle Shop in the Accra Mall. I would let you know what I think about this book. However, if his article The Serious Business of Soup in Ghana is anything to go by then it promises to be fun. This is also non-fiction.
• Searching by Nawal El Saadawi. This isn't the book I have been looking for by the author. I am in search of A Woman at Point Zero, which is on my Top 100 Books Challenge, however like Bessie Head's whose A Question of Power  eluded me till I read  A Woman Alone, I hope by reading this novel I would, by some unexplainable means, come across the most-sought after novel. Again, this was the first English translation copy and I got it in a hardcover. Intact too!
• Accra! Accra! More Poems about Modern Afrikans by Papa Kobina Ulzen. The author shared autographed copies of this chapbook at the last Book Reading organised by the Ghana Voices Series. Another reason for those who have never attended to attend. Where else could an author give, freely, autograph copies of his books? However, next time you are passing through, be prepared to make a purchase.