Kinna

August 2010 Summary and Plans for September

My reading picked up from the previous month.   I managed to finish 8 books:

  1. The Dwarf – Pär Lagerkvist
  2. Counselor Ayres’ Memorial – Machado de Assis
  3. Beatrice and Virgil – Yann Martel
  4. Cloth Girl – Marilyn Heyward Mills
  5. Dusk – F. Sionil Jose
  6. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives – Lola Shoneyin
  7. So Long A Letter – Mariama Ba
  8. Electric City and Other Stories – Patricia Grace

And I featured poems by Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Derek Walcott. All in all, it was quite an interesting month of  reading.

I have a backlog of reviews that I need write.  I really have to quicken my pace of writing for this blog .  Luckily, I’m currently reading a chunkster, Wizard of the Crow, so I will continue to work on  reveiwing these books that I read in months past:

  1. God Dies by the Nile – Nawal el Saadawi
  2. Damballah – John Edgar Wideman
  3. The Cry of Winne Mandela – Njabulo Ndebele
  4. Quicksand – Nella Larsen

My plans for September are:

  1. Continue to read selections from my list of 10 overlooked books on my TBR
  2. Read Labyrinths by Jose Luis Borges
  3. Continue my reading of contemporary African fiction by Manyika,  Habila, Parkes, Badoe among others.
  4. Compile reading lists on Francophone African and Caribbean fiction
  5. Devise a new rating system – I’m not satisfied with my current 5-point system
  6. Conclude my reading for two challenges – Orbis Terrarum and African Diaspora

Well, those are my plans.

How was your reading in August?  What are your plans for September?

Advertisement

15 comments

  1. From JG. Stephanie Newell reviewed ‘Cloth Girl’ in African Literature Today number 27. Here is her final paragraph.

    From its title onwards, Cloth Girl maintains the contrast between the cloth girl and the frock lady. As a result, the novel is strongly didactic at all stages of its development. Nevertheless, Heward Mills presents such powerful and convincing character portraits that these ideological polarisations are absorbed into the subtle, well-plotted narrative. The novel contains strong traces of Jane Eyre, with Matilda as the West African Jane whose Rochester suffers a debilitating accident; it also has scenes reminiscent of A Passage to India, showing colonial society in its tea-sipping glory and the rape of a young white wife (although the assailants this time are low-class white ruffians). Above all, this is a detailed, well-realised narrative about the range of choices available to women in late-colonial society.

    Like

    • Wow, thank for taking the time to include this excerpt and for commenting on my blog. I will review Cloth Girl soon. Perhaps you could stop by and read the review?

      Like

  4. That’s a great list of books. I’m really looking forward to reading your reviews on a bunch of them (especially Baba Segi’s Wives, I’ve heard a variety of reactions to it). Best of luck with Wizard of the Crow!

    Like

  5. WOW, look at you go girl! That’s an impressive list of books. I will definitely be bookmarking your blog and will return for the reviews. My reading has slowed down considerably….managed only two books in August and September is not looking any better :(((

    I see you are a World Lit buff? I will have to mooch some titles from you….they all look so good!

    Like

  6. I’d love to know what you think of Borges. I have not read anything by him, but I have wanted to for years (it just keeps slipping my mind). I think he’s a bit of a surrealist? Enjoy!

    Like

  8. You did some good readings last month. I read slowly mostly in trotros..lol. My reading picked up last month… hope it doesn’t dip. Still on the Byatt’s Possession. lol. hope to finish it by the end of the week.

    My September reading? may be

    1. A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul
    2. AmaZulu by Walton Golightly
    3. Before I Forget by Andre Brink
    4. A Heart to Mend by Myne Whitman (e-copy)

    Like

Comments are closed.