Thursday, December 19, 2013

Reading Snapshots: Ghana Must Go + The Chronicles of Narnia


Reading Snapshot: Ghana must Go
It was in Lanzarote that i started to "Ghana Must Go", but somehow didn't get into the flow of the book. This week, opened the pages again, and am glad for it. not sure if i really will read the whole book, but now i enjoy the unusual touch of it, the poetic language and the structure it has, moving both in timelines and in perspectives, and the change in perception came like in these lines:
"It came without thought, a feeling completely without narrative. An opening up.    Something had opened somewhere."
... more about the book at Goodreads: Ghana Must Go, and for a bit more about the author and the book, two quotes - the first is from a book review in the Indpendent, the second is a quote from the author Taiye Selasi:
"Back in 2005, Selasi wrote an inspirational essay in which she coined the term "Afropolitan" to cover those - like herself - whose geographical and cultural hybridity allows them to shape-shift fearlessly, carrying with it the need for constant self-definition." (-  book review, Independent)
" The summer I finished my first novel 'Ghana Must Go,' I drove across west Africa: from Accra to Lome to Cotonou to the deliciously named Ouagadougou." - Taiye Selasi

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Reading Snapshot: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
 "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is one of the books i came across by curiosity, after having seen the title in Wikipedia's all-time "List of Best-Selling Books". But it was only after seeing the cover that i learned that "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" is part of the book series "Chronicles of Narnia", which i (obviously) have never read - it's not really well-known in Germany. But i saw a part of one of the new movies based on it, so i knew the lion.

Other good surprises: reading the book on December 6th, which is called "Nikolaustag" here: "Santa Claus Day", and to find the book is set in winter, with Santa Claus appearing (and winter thawing in the end..). And to find it's a children book, it kept reminding me of Alice in Wonderland. Another fun detail: learning that C.S. Lewis was a friend of Tolkien. Here's the book's goodreads page

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....more reading notes: life as a journey with books

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