Memoirs of a born free by Malaika wa Azania

I decided to read Memoirs of a born free by Malaika wa Azania about a week ago and finished it within 4 hours instead of the week that I had thought it would take. I haven't read a book in months so I was being realistic. I really enjoyed reading this book. I originally picked it up because I had liked reading Malaika wa Azania's (much) older facebook posts about books that educated her on Pan Africanism. I have been hoping to find more non-fiction African writers with a writing style I can relax and enjoy. I have also been fascinated by her posts about travelling through Africa which, to be honest, am increasingly finding to be a very attractive idea.

The book details a young woman's journey of self-discovery in an environment of financial, emotional and political turmoil having been raised poor, living in a shack and growing up in the first generation of South Africans to be allowed to go to multiracial schools since the unbanning of Apartheid.  She has strong opinions, having been raised in the political environment, and she defends these opinions with her sharp tongue, a quality I enjoy

in a writer.  I also enjoy lovers of books who encourage others to read with their passion for books. I hope to come across more of her work. 

2 months of reading

I've been reading! Yay for me!

I enjoyed the 2 fiction books I read. I usually enjoy fiction so enjoying The Alchemist and The Kite Runner was no surprize. It was a complete co-incidence that they were both set in Muslim country.

Jonny Steinberg is my favourite South African non-fiction writer so far. He explains things really well and he is great at giving you the sense of a place. I learnt a lot from Midlands about the possible relationship dynamics between farmers and their workers.

Fooled by Randomness was a pleasant read. Its one of those books that I've always been curious about. It's the sort of non-fiction book whose purpose, it seems, is to try to convince you to think about a particular subject in a certain way. It seems to be the sort of book columnists write. I'm still trying to make this genre out, but I think I like it.

On writing by Stephen King is the first Stephen King book I've read. Its worth reading if you'd like to write fiction. I enjoyed reading the parts about writing more than I enjoyed reading about his life. He has inspired me to read a few books specifically (he wrote about why he enjoyed certain ones) and more books in general (he says he's a slow reader but he reads 70 - 80 books a year).

Just read, okay

All my excuses for not reading my books are lame.

Books read this month

I haven't been reading books this year, so I'm glad I managed to read 4 books this month. It isn't as easy as it used to be, this reading thing, but I've found that watching less tv makes it easier.

The first book I read was The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Hightower which I really enjoyed. I remember watching and enjoying the film adaptation some years back and so I thought I'd give the book a try. I found I like her style and her imagery is so vivid, I'd really like to read more books in the Ripley series. I was also excited that it appears as one of the 1001 books to read before you die. Its always fun for me when I find I've read a book on that list.

Where's the chicken is a short book that asks the reader and society at large to think about what the unseen problem in a crime situation is. It also asks (and gives suggestions) about what we can do to promote peace and reduce or avoid crime in order to create a safer society. It gives examples of the sorts of solutions people come up with when they ask these kinds of questions and suggests that even a perfect police force is not enough to create safety and security.

Ja No Man by Richard Poplak is an autobiography by the subject on growing up as a white boy under Apartheid.

How to be an Intellectual is a funny read by Nick Kolakowski on maxims to employ to become an intellectual. I love list books and this one is a lovely one.
I'm curious about what else he has written, he comes across as a fun conversationalist. I just might read a classic after reading this book, he recommends a few that he made sound quite tempting.

SA politics unspun by Stephen Grootes

SA politics unspun by Stephen Grootes is the sort of book I have been hoping to find for a long time; a concise guide to contemporary South African politics.

It is a lovely, easy read. I say easy because it is so well-written, with a light humour and no airs about the subject that I couldn't help but enjoy it. It also helped me make sense of a lot of the seemingly nonsensical reports in the news about all kinds of issues I felt obliged to know about without really understanding how they fit into the bigger scheme of things. 

Grootes explains governing structures, political parties and political controversies and explains them all one by one, leader by leader as well as why they are important. He also has lovely timelines, explanation sidebars, graphs and pictures in the book which I enjoyed.

It really is a lovely book. 

Nelspruit Book Traders

In Nelspruit, on the R40 road on the way to Barberton there is a second hand bookshop called Nelspruit Book Traders. It has some nice books though I do wish their Africana section was richer. It is my favourite section but there is something colonial about that 'Africana' word that kind of disturbs me.

I like that it has a foreign language section, I like to have a few french books because I will read it one day and I'd rather have them around.

It also has a lovely classic section, English classics, of course, from which I got Henry James' The Europeans for R10 and The Way of the World by William Congreve which I am quite curious to read.

Don't judge this book by its cover by Gavin Tucker

This book is a collection of hilarious opinion pieces.  I guess it could be referred to as a book of essays and its becoming my favourite type of book to read because of the way it highlights different newsworthy events that went on at a particular time and how they affected the writer's perspective. 

This guy makes fun of people; from the uneducated in Limpopo to Lobola to people who drive Peugeots. He occasionally makes fun of himself, his drinking and judgemental attitude towards other people. But he's not apologetic, which seems to be a sought-after quality in opinion piece writing and co-incidentally the quality most likely to get its writers fired ... think David Bullard and Kuli Roberts (when is her book coming out, by the way?).

He is hilarious. I don't always agree with his opinions but he's a really funny guy and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

I bought it from Exclusive Books in Nelspruit for R124.00. It is Published by Thomas Stein Publising.