ImageNations

There comes a time when even a hobby suffers from a person's silences and inactivity. Sometimes it becomes pronounced that going back to what we love becomes a tortuous task in itself. I have suffered this, though not to the tortuous end. This year has been like no other year. It has taken me to the extremes of events. I have lost a job and found one. I have known fear and I have been rescued. It is in my moments of desperation that I realise I could not muster the necessary energy to read as many books as I used to read. I discovered that I am not one of those who could lose themselves and seek solace in books when faced with obstacles. In such situations, my mind takes control over me and does its own thinking, unaided, uncontrolled. It is for this reason that my reading in April was highly affected with only two books . I just could not bring myself to read. It is like a writer suffering from a writer's block. May in Review This block entered May. I thought that...

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 a...

March was a not-so-good month. Unlike last year, I have been falling behind in my reading targets very early in the year. At the end of March, I was two books behind and have read 13 books instead of 15 towards the target of 60 for the year. Though I am improving on my reading speed, I am slacking on consistency. It is likely that April will not be different.  I read the only book I projected to read in March and three others. The dwindling numbers of unread books on my shelf means that I am not motivated enough to pick a book. Most of the unread books are those I have passed by on several occasions, not that they are not good but I do not have the urge to read them. This reduced degrees of freedom is impacting badly on my vision to read more African books. Thus, any African book that comes into my possession is given priority. Two of the four books I read were African books. Of the four, one was a poetry anthology, two were collections of short stories, and one was a novel...

I know my passion for blogging has declined (or is declining). I have blogged on only one of the nine books I have read this year and already we are in the third month of the year. This does not happen often. But it has. Though I truly do not know the cause, sometimes I feel I am wasting my time - tasking myself for nothing. I don't know if people truly read the posts and if it makes sense at all or if it makes an impact. Or if I am just shouting into cyberspace and only contributing to the zillions of GB of information created everyday. Or perhaps the ups-and-downs of 2014 is having its toll on me.  The month has ended and, once again, I am doing okay with reading. I am reading fast but slow. Slow in the sense that I leave a lot of days between the completion of one book and the beginning of another, which used not to be the case. However, I read all the four books I projected to read in February . Even with this sluggishness, I surpassed my daily target of 50 pages a day b...

Just as all resolutions begin on a high-note at the beginning of the year, January has also been a good month for reading. Though it hardly portends how the rest of the year would turn out to be, and this January was no exception. With these books, I am fulfilling my 2014 reading projections : The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins . [569p] This was a selection by the Writers Project of Ghana's Book and Discussion Club for the month of February. It is a story full of suspense, of heart-wrenching escapades involving very naive and very wicked people. There is something beautiful about this book. At least those who have read it have praise the selection. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie . [547p.] I decided to read this book last year, but I could not muster the necessary courage and mental fortitude to brace it. I had heard of the numerous characters (same as for Rushdie's Midnight's Children ). I read this basically because of the news  that surrounded it - its ban...

December in Review: Before I proceed to review the year in books, let me first review the month of December. By the way, Happy New Year to you all. Bonne Année . To complete the challenge of reading 60 books,  I projected to read four books in December . However, I exceeded this target by three books which was expected since the average for the last two months - October and November - had been 8 books. In all I read a total of 1,573 pages, which gives an average of 51 pages a day. There was a dip in December if compared to the last two months but it was not a bad month for reading. I read my first science fiction of the year; my second ever Graphic 'Novel'; and my first ever Zambian novel. I also read three short story anthologies, including Delta of Venus - that famous book. The following were the books read: Delta of Venus by Anais Nin . This is a collection of short stories bothering on different sexual desires, cravings, perversions and more. It is both repulsive...

October was such a great month for reading that I thought I would not be able to repeat it again. Thus, even though I read a total of eight books, I set a target of six (6) for November , knowing that if I really have to play catch-up to my target of 60 books in the year, I would have to do better because of the poor showing in the months of August and September.  However, November turned out to be not different from October. Like October I read exactly 8 books , including all the 6 books I projected to read; however, better than October I read a total of 1,988 pages (66 pages a day). I read one each of memoir, short story anthology, novella, and five novels; seven African-authored books (from five different countries, spread across four regions(West, East, Central and Southern Africa)) and one English author. Thus, according to Goodreads, at my current rate I am one book ahead. The following are the books I read: True Murder by Yaba Badoe . This story deals with the psy...

Once in a while you hear statements that make you want to give up. They are so piercing that you wonder what they are meant to achieve. One contributor to the  African Roar 2013   anthology nearly made me quit reviewing African books altogether. This guy claims my reviews exposes no one (with laughter) and more. However, I have decided not to be put off by folks of such mentality who see it proper to discourage and extinguish rather than to encourage. So the month has ended and my quest to read 60 books, which took a huge jolt last month , is almost back on track with a gain of three books, reducing the deficit to two (according to Goodreads). This month, I read eight books - four by Africans and four by non-Africans; one each of non-fiction, short story anthology, and poetry anthology, two plays, and three novels. I read my first Austrian and Norwegian authors, Musl and Ibsen respectively. In all, I read a total of 1884 pages at 60.77 pages per day. The following ar...

Actually, this is becoming a cliche; however, in this instance the description is more apt than it had been in previous months' reviews. I almost did not read anything in September, besides completing  Huckleberry Finn (started and reported read in August), starting and completing WPG 's selected book of the month September A Streetcar Named Desire (by Tennessee Williams), and starting another. Thus, I only read one book within that month. The other two are spillovers from or into other months. What this means is that I have read a total of Forty (40) books out of the projected sixty (60) for the year and at this rate I am five books behind - at least that is what Goodreads tell me - with three months to go. Consequently, I will need to read an average of 7 books a month to meet this target, which is (im)possible, depending on the kind of books read. However, I must say that my reading interest has picked up and I am once again having a fantastic reading time with this to...

Reading has become a part of me, through dedication and perseverance. I am not one of those whose home overflowed with books. There was none, almost. Not that my parents were illiterates. They weren't. My mother retired as a Principal Nursing Officer. No problem. But that was the days nurses were almost paid in coins and so there were more important things to think about than filling-up a bookshelf with fiction. First, there was school, good but affordable school, to consider. If you thought my father who described himself as a farmer, with no commercial farm, was an illiterate you should see his signature; his handwriting is a thing to envy, the best in the family. He thought us how to read. My reading book - the school-text - was defaced and plastered all over such that even with a microscope you cannot identify the colour nor the text on the cover. If books could cry, that 'Here is Aku' book could have wept gallons. Hang on, I am not reviewing my family. I am review...

July was an extremely slow month. It happened to be the month that ushered in the reading fatigue that usually comes when one has been consistently reading. Last year, the fatigue months were May, June and August, where I read the least.  In my review of June's reading activities I projected to read four books, hoping that I could add another one to get to the average of five per month required to meet the challenge. However, July had its own ideas and I had to suspend reading for days. I have read (almost) three of the four projected books: Ama - a Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade by Manu Herbstein .  [374 p.] This is an engaging story about the slave trade. It is not only about the Atlantic slave trade but also about the kind of internal slavery that existed among the tribes. It is an interesting book that needs to be read by all. God Dies by the Nile by Nawal El Saadawi . [175 p.] Nawal was in her elements in this story. This is a book or a story about the pol...

Reflections on the First Half of the Year The end of June also marks the end of the first half of the year and an assessment of progress has to be made. But a friendly one. For this activity is only a hobby and rakes in no financial benefits. However, whatever thing that is worth doing is worth doing well. That said, lets jump straight to what I set out to do from the beginning of the year and what I have achieved so far. It is good to talk about successes first and failure last. I set out to read 70 books by year-end December 31, 2013 , at an average of almost 6 books a month,  repeating what I did in the year 2012. However, when I saw the kind of books I had to read for the Year of Russian Literature  (a challenge I had set for myself), I swiftly readjusted it to 60, averaging exactly 5 books per month. So far I have read exactly 30 books and 1 Single Story, which is half of the total books to be read at half of the year. Comparatively, a year ago by this time I had read...

At the beginning of the month , I was only sure of three titles, one was to be a re-read; I however, stated that I would purchase some Russian literary works to advance my goal of reading Russian literature. At the end of the month I had read a total of four books: 2 of the projected books ( Oscar and Lucinda & Saturday ); 1 Russian Lit ( Crime and Punishment ) and 1 Nobelist from Bulgaria (Auto da Fe). The other title which I projected but did not read was Bessie Head's A Question of Power . This would have been a re-read and was directed at the Book and Discussion Club of the Writers Project of Ghana. However, I realised that I still have the story in me and could relate and discuss it without problem. However, even at my reduced target of 60 books, I am still performing poorly on the average. To read 60 books in a month, one must read an average of 5 books a month; but I am doing less than this requirement. The problem, which is not a problem, is that I am concentratin...

April was an okay-month. I read a total of five books: two non-fiction, one play, and two novels. Withe the exception of Ian McEwan's Saturday,  I read most of the books I projected to read this month . In place of McEwan's book, I read  The Government Inspector  for The Book and Discussion Club book of the month. Antifragile - Things That Gain from Disorder  by Nassim Nicholas Taleb . This book continues from Black Swan - the Impact of Highly Improbable Events . In this extraordinary, myth-busting book, Nassim discusses how we can position ourselves as individuals, organisations, companies to benefit from such Black Swan events. He also proposes that predictors should have their skin in the game if they are to continue to predict and that the gradually increasing phenomenon where some people take the upside of events whilst others take the downside should be eliminated with we are to build systems that would be antifragile. Economists, forecasters, banksters, a...