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December in Review:  December was the 'challenge round up' month; hence, I set forth to complete the reading of all uncompleted challenges. In all I read a total of six (6) books by the 27th December with a decision of pushing any book read in the four days left to 2013. The six books gave me a total of 1,490 pages or an average of 48.06 pages per day.The following are the books read: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. This is my first Woolf and was not disappointed. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather. Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman by Dorothy Sterling A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway Traces of a Life: A Collection of Elegies and Praise Poems   by Abena P.A. Busia Search Sweet Country by Kojo Laing. YEAR IN REVIEW Books Acquired Almost all the books read in 2012 (excludes Pdfs) The objective for 2012 was to make a dent into my unread books. I wanted, seriously, to not be a part of those whose unread books keep piling ...

Search Sweet Country (Heinemann, 1986; 352) is the first novel by the Ghanaian poet, Kojo Laing. It expanded what the author had already started started with his poetry, his unique use of words, his ability to make words turn, somersault, split and do some weird, but adorable, gymnastics. As is the foibles of poets, Laing's poetry seeped unrelentingly into his prose in a lovely kind of way. This is a book that does away with the straitjacket novelistic requirements, those narrow rules requiring a plot, an arch, and such and such. Laing is the persona in that famous Frost's poem, for he takes the road less travelled, weaving his words in unique patterns to tell our story and it is this boldness to chart his own course that sets him apart from many other African writers and which has seen a renewed interest in his works leading to the re-release of his books. Some readers - including me when I first encountered his writing in Big Bishop Roko and the Altar Gangsters  - find...

Traces of a Life: A Collection of Elegies and Praise Poems (Ayebia, 2008; 124) by Abena P.A. Busia is an anthology of poems, diary entries (sort of) and memorial lectures. The general theme is that of loss - of loved ones, of country, of innocence, of self, of privacy, of culture; but also found interspersed amongst the loss are poems celebrating anniversaries: marriages and birthdays. And even these ones have the pathos of loss built into them; for what could be as sad as celebrating a marriage anniversary in exile. As the title suggests, this collection provides snatches of scenes in the life of the author. And because of her special position as the daughter of an astute politician, whose freedom suffered and personhood abraded on the abrasive and unsmooth playing field of politics, the poems also provide glimpses into some of the not too pleasant part of Ghana's politics: the coups, the arrests, the executions, the route to exiles, living in exile, the exilic life, the zo...

Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (Scribner, 1929; 332) has been on several 'must-read' lists. Usually I'm not drawn to recently-published much-talked about books; however, when it comes to classics, it's different. This is one of those books that are easy, and yet difficult, to talk about. Easy in the sense that the story is not complicated and it is beautiful; difficult because Hemingway's prose defies description. The story is set in the midst of the World War I, on the Italian front. Lieutenant Henry, is an American ambulance driver working with the Italian forces. Henry meets Catherine Barkley, through a friend, and what blossomed from that meeting was innocent love. Though, Henry had gone into the relationship with a non-staying mentality, meeting the vernal and venerable Catherine exuding innocence and genuine affection, his ulterior motive extinguished in a flash. Slowly, he found himself fall deeper and deeper in love; a love so pure that onl...

I picked this book because I've read the name 'Harriet Tubman' in books and in poems where it represented the image of a bold and strong woman. However, for some reason, I've never taken the pain to explore further. Hence, when I saw a copy of  Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman  (Scholastic, 1954; 191) by Dorothy Sterling I never, for a microsecond, dithered in my decision to purchase it. This was the reason why I never discovered that the writing had been tailored toward younger readers; in Ghana possibly Junior High students. However, regardless of the unchallenging prose, a lot lies within the covers of the book. It tells the almost mythical story of Harriet Tubman with her slave-parents on a farm and how badly she was treated. One of such mistreatment crushed her skull and caused her to lapse into frequent sleeps. But even as a child, Harriet yearned for freedom and to do things her way. This story brings out the power of the will. Even when her brot...

Death Comes for the Archbishop  (Vintage, 1927; 297) by Willa Cather is about a Bishop Jean Latour and his friend Vicar Joseph Vaillant as they set out from Sandusky France to proselytise the Latinos and Indians of New Mexico and its environs when it was annexed by the Union. The story is about what they went through and how they survived in a place they knew next to nothing about. The characters of both friends complement each other: whereas the bishop was the intellectual, the vicar was the bold one.  The Bishop and the Vicar would come into several obstacles; some of which include priests whose service to God is titular and ritualistic. For there is nothing about them that is priestly, with beahviours incomparable in its nefariousness to the natives they are working to convert. They were swindlers, covetous, philanderers, hoarders, and bacchanal. These would offer the greatest resistance to their work but with the intelligence and bravery they would sail through, con...

Virginia Woolf is an author I've heard of but have not read. Her books are on several Top 100 lists. When I chanced upon her book Mrs. Dalloway (Harcourt, 1925;197) I wasn't going to pass it by. Mrs. Dalloway  is a lifetime of events told over the period of a day through the point of view of Mrs. Dalloway as she goes about planning to hold a party for friends. The story was written in a very conversational manner, with repeated words and phrases for emphasis. The narrative takes place both within the minds of the characters and also outside of it so that we know what the other is think in addition to what is taking place externally. The third person limited narrative style combined with the omniscient voice was handled exquisitely so that transitions were very difficult to point out. Virginia Woolf zooms in on a character, describes him or her, talks about the person and then zooms out to include others and then before the reader is aware her lens is on another person. T...

I was inspired to read Persephone Books - which " reprints forgotten twentieth century novels,..., by (mostly) women writers " - by Marie of Boston Bibliophile . It was last year or so when she embarked on reading Persephone Books and I got interested but couldn't get the books. So when I came across this one, I snatched it quickly. Once a while you come across a book that leaves you asking for more, a book that is both funny and intellectually rewarding. There isn't many of such books; most intellectually rewarding books are simultaneously drab, insipid, and energy-sapping.  Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day  (Persephone Books, 1938 (republished in 2000); 234) by Winifred Watson belongs to the former group of books. And it is also universal and timeless, like the works of the great Italian sculptors and painters. Miss Pettigrew is a governess on a job hunt, but she is a terrible governess and she knows it. When she is given the address of a young lady, suppos...

The English Patient (Vintage International, 1992; 302) by Michael Ondaatje is a story about four people set in the period of the second World War in North Africa and Italy: an enigmatic figure referred to simply as The English Patient, because he claims to be English but who was later revealed to be Count Ladislaus de Almásy, an Indian - Kirpal Singh (or Kip, the sapper) an expert in locating and defusing bombs, a young nurse, Hana, whose father died in the war and a Canadian thief, Hana's father's friend, Caravaggio. Almásy or the English Patient arrived at hospital burnt and without identification except a copy of annotated book of histories by Herodotus. Revealing nothing to anyone, Hana became interested in his situation, perhaps seeking redemption for his father's death. When the hospital was moved away from the monastery-turned-hospital to a more appropriate place in another town where there would be facilities and equipment to cater for the sick, Hana chose to ...

There are some writers whose works conjure magic. Their control over words is ethereal; their use, quintessential, drawn from a deeper understanding and a personal relationship they have with them. These individuals become either linguists or storytellers; poets belong to such class of people. And Toni Morrison. Toni Morrison is an author whose oeuvre is worth a study . To describe the relationship between aficionados of Morrison's craft and Morrison, it would be important to paraphrase Sherman Alexie:   what you write we'll read.  In  Home  (Knopf, 2012; 147) Morrison continued her exploration of the lives of Black Americans during the time of segregation. Frank Money and his sister, his only sibling, Ycidra witnessed a burial, of a possible homicide. Now Frank Money has just returned from the Korean War with the horrors on his mind and the demons at his back. He is tormented by nightmares that sometimes cause him to behave insanely. In fact, it even led him ...

It is apartheid South Africa. This time Blacks are up in arms, heavy arms, fighting the Whites. And the Russians and Cubans are here to help them. White South Africans are running for their dear lives. With nowhere to go, the Smales' family took the advice of their houseboy, a man they named July, following him to his family. July's People  (Penguin, 1981; 160) is about the changes in the roles and the dynamics of Black-White relationships. The Smales' are liberals whose relationship with South Africa Blacks in general and with their houseboy in particular is cordial and non-discriminatory. However, they were forced to analyse this view when it dawns on them that, though liberals as they are they could not speak any of the native's language whereas the apartheidists or their followers could and therefore found it difficult communicating with July's people. They never also did actually ask July of his real name. They just named him as such. How liberal is one ...

Chuma Nwokolo's Diaries of a Dead African (Villager House, 2003; 193) is a story of two generations - a father and his two sons - spanning over just a month and recorded in one three-authored diary. The story is about their lack and their nothingness and their uselessness in the midst of plenty. It is also about human, and in general societal, behaviour towards the less privileged in society. Meme is the patriarch. A patriarch who has nothing. Except a cheating wife and two sons, of whom he might not even be their sire and who hate him for his poverty. He also has two tubers of yams, what was left after his wife took all his yams in a certain mathematical equation of ten yams to every son born to him (including the three who passed away), and Meme must survive on these for the remaining weeks before the yam festival is celebrated and the ban on yam-harvesting is officially lifted. Now Meme faces several obstacles: the wickedness of the people working in connivance with the f...

I read Fury (Random House, 2001; 259) as an introduction to Salman Rushdie. It was to prepare me for the author's two major works I have on my shelf: Satanic Verses and Midnight's Children . However, I don't know if the book did what I wanted it to do. Having heard a lot about Midnight's Children  - winning the 1981 Booker and the Best of the Booker twice (for the 25th and 40th anniversaries of the award), the idea is to enter it fully prepared with the author's prose-style so that I will enjoy it completely because I also know people have read it and not liked it. Fury was therefore meant to be the introductory text to Rushdie, for me. The story is about a fifty-five year Professor Malik Solanka, a Cambridge philosopher, who leaves his wife and a learning-to-talk son in London for a completely new life in New York. An anomie of sorts; though not religious.  The story follows all the things that happened to him, finding love and losing it and finding love ag...

The most difficult to review literary genre is anthologies and within this subgenre, poetry anthologies are at the top. The difficulty increases exponentially when the author is a revolutionary, an avant-garde with a recherche oeuvre. And Kofi Anyidoho, one of Ghana's foremost poets - those aficionados and promoters of oral poetry, that quintessential African literary style - is a member of the intersection set.  Kofi Anyidoho's The Place We Call Home and Other Poems (Ayebia-Clarke, 2011; 94 - Foreword by Femi Osofisan, Afterword by Veronique Tadjo) is a collection of thirty-four (34) poems in three movements. The poems in each movement is threaded together by one theme written from multiple dimensions. Movement One is titled Homage; poems in this movement, including the titular poem, The Place We Call Home, deal with remembrance. But remembrance of a different kind. It is the remembrance of an old man, in the twilight of his life - just before he steps into the other si...

The main purpose of reading this short stories anthology  The Best American Short Stories 2004  (Houghton Mifflin, 2004; 462) edited by Lorrie Moore was to complete the 100 Shots of Shorts . The anthology, of twenty short stories, had both interesting and less interesting stories, some of them almost novella-length.  Intransigently American, there are several of the stories whose appreciation is linked to the appreciation of the American culture and other sub-cultures. It reminded me of what Horace Engdahl, the permanent secretary of the Nobel Prize jury, said in 2008, that "The US is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature...That ignorance is restraining." I'm not a student of literature and so cannot say for certainty that these words are true but reading the stories, this statement crossed my mind. Nevertheless stories like  What You Pawn I Will Redeem ,  Tooth and Claw, ...

In order to complete all those challenges with December 31, 2012 as a deadline, I needed to increase my reading rate. I did this in two ways. First, I read less chunky books and also increased the morning reading hours by waking up early. These two factors have cranked up my figures. I completed the 100 Shots of Shorts Challenge when I finished reading The Best American Short Story 2004 , which I reported as read/being read in last month's activity review . Again, I'm just four (4) books, and a month, away from completing the 70 Books Reading Challenge . I set this challenge to push myself to read more books than I did last year, fifty-six (56).  In all, the month was good. I read a total of eight (8) books which make up a total of 2,109 pages, an average of 70.3 pages per day. Four of the books were by females, three by males and one is a mix (an anthology). I read one non-fiction, one short story anthology, and two African books. Though I couldn't project all the ...