Okonkwo commands respect from his community, his three wives, and his children through both hard work and intimidation. He rises to prominence despite and perhaps due to his father’s laziness in [...]]]> “Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

Okonkwo commands respect from his community, his three wives, and his children through both hard work and intimidation. He rises to prominence despite and perhaps due to his father’s laziness in community and family matters. He stands firm to his culture and traditions. So he is outraged when some of his people start converting to Christianity. A power struggle ensues and ‘things fall apart.’

I’m intrigued by Achebe’s history and background.  I’d like to read the sequel to this book, No Longer at Ease, at some point.

1959, 209 pp
Rating: 4/5

It is almost always easier to learn about history through historical fiction or current world events through memoirs, and this book is no exception. Daoud Hari gives us a harrowing account of his experiences translating for various media outlets in the Darfur region. The violence in Darfur, especially toward women [...]]]>

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It is almost always easier to learn about history through historical fiction or current world events through memoirs, and this book is no exception. Daoud Hari gives us a harrowing account of his experiences translating for various media outlets in the Darfur region. The violence in Darfur, especially toward women and children, is unspeakable. Though not overly graphic, it is still difficult to read in spots.

Similar to the plight of the Kurds, the people of Darfur have had their lives shattered due to boundaries set by people not of their region. This brief, engaging book will not only enlighten you to the situation in Darfur, but will also make you question the wisdom of meddling in other countries’ affairs at all.

2008, 189 pp.
Rating: 4

In this book, Mma Ramotswe gets more cases and [...]]]> This is the second book in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. I read the first book earlier this year and enjoyed it very much. A light-hearted mystery like this was perfect for the late night hours of the read-a-thon.

In this book, Mma Ramotswe gets more cases and a very big surprise from her fiancé. She continues to solve them in her own unique way, and the “surprise” might just be enough to change her mind about him. I definitely plan on continuing this series when I need a break from more serious reading. A very fun, light mystery series.

2000, 227 pp.

Rating: 4

They sat on wooden planks and the weak morning sun streamed into the roofless class as she unfurled Odenigbo’s cloth flag and told them what the symbols meant. Red was the blood [...]]]> A beautifully told story of a savage civil war, Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun definitely deserved the 2007 Orange Prize.

They sat on wooden planks and the weak morning sun streamed into the roofless class as she unfurled Odenigbo’s cloth flag and told them what the symbols meant. Red was the blood of the siblings massacred in the North, black was for mourning them, green was for the prosperity Biafra would have, and finally, the half of a yellow sun stood for the glorious future.

I resisted reading this book because I really just don’t like war stories at all. I wanted to give it a chance, though, because so many bloggers had said they appreciated it. They were right; it’s a very special book. Based on the conflict in Nigeria in the late 1960′s, it not only depicts the horrors of war, it also hauntingly and lovingly depicts the lives of the participants. Apparently many of the characters were based on real people in Adichie’s family history, and this authenticity very much shines through.There were some content issues for me in the book, but I’m very glad I read this story. I look forward to reading Purple Hibiscus and other books of hers to come. If you decide to read the book (and I highly encourage it), afterwards you might want to go to her website http://www.halfofayellowsun.com where you can find a lot more information about the true story.

2006, 541 pp.
2007 Orange Prize
Rating: 4.5

1999, 203 pp.

Rating: 4

Sammar, (I believe it was pronounced ‘Summer’), is a young widow working as an Arabic translator at a university in Aberdeen, Scotland. She has been grieving for several years over the loss of her husband who was killed in a car accident. She has a little [...]]]> The Translator
by Leila Aboulela

1999, 203 pp.

Rating: 4

Sammar, (I believe it was pronounced ‘Summer’), is a young widow working as an Arabic translator at a university in Aberdeen, Scotland. She has been grieving for several years over the loss of her husband who was killed in a car accident. She has a little boy but feels she is unable to care for him and leaves him with her mother-in-law in Sudan.

Faith plays an important part in Sammar’s life, so when she starts to fall for Rae, her boss, she realizes it could never be. That is, unless he converts to Islam. Their relationship starts off slowly, just by talking on the telephone. I found this to be very real and touching. Many of my best conversations with my husband have been on the phone, and this was the first time (that I could recall, anyway), that I had found it portrayed in such a way in a book. The progression of the relationship and the issues of faith and belief are explored in the rest of the novel.

I really enjoyed Aboulela’s writing. It was very tender and poignant. I found it easy to feel Sammar’s grief. There were a few things I did dislike about Sammar’s character, though. I really cannot imagine leaving a child behind like that for such an extended period of time. A few weeks perhaps, but not a few years! The writing was beautiful. However, in the last few pages of the book there were a few too many sentence fragments for my taste. I don’t mind some, but it seemed a little excessive. I would definitely read another book by this author, though.

This is the author’s first novel and was first published in the UK in 1999.

Heart of Darkness tells a story about colonialism in the Congo, but it is so much more than that. It is more about men’s ‘hearts of darkness’ and what they become after they [...]]]> I will be reading more of Joseph Conrad’s work. English was his third language after Polish and French, and his writing is superb.

Heart of Darkness tells a story about colonialism in the Congo, but it is so much more than that. It is more about men’s ‘hearts of darkness’ and what they become after they leave ‘civilization’. Marlow is a steamship captain in search of Kurtz, who is one of the best ivory traders The Company has. It is said that Kurtz has become ill and The Company does not want to lose him because of his high productivity in obtaining ivory. But just how does Kurtz maintain his high productivity?

Kurtz isn’t the only one to leave his morals behind when he leaves ‘civilization’. The actions of The Company Men leave moral questions as well. Is it only the ladies, as Marlowe states, who try to uphold society’s mores, or are they just deluded in thinking society, left to itself, has any morals?

It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset.

This book is short but very complex. It is one that I’ll definitely read again at some point to try to understand it a bit better. I’m still trying to figure out “The horror! The horror!”

Some interesting passages:

I let him run on, this papier-mache Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe.No, I don’t like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don’t like work — no man does — but I like what is in the work — the chance to find yourself. Your own reality — for yourself, not for others — what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.

The mind of man is capable of anything – because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage – who can tell? – but truth – truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder – the man knows, and can look on without a wink.

I assure you to leave off reading was like tearing myself away from the shelter of an old and solid friendship.

The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words — the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of an impenetrable darkness.

When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong — too dull even to know you are being assulted by the powers of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil; the fool is too much of a fool, or the devil too much of a devil — I don’t know which. Or you may be such a thunderingly exalted creature as to be altogether deaf and blind to anything but heavenly sights and sounds. Then the earth for you is only a standing place — and whether to be like this is your loss or your gain I won’t pretend to say. But most of us are neither one nor the other.

Whether he knew of his deficiency himself I can’t say. I think the knowledge came to him at last — only at the very last. But the wilderness had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vegeance for the fantastic invasion. I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude — and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating. It echoed loudly within him because he was hollow at the core….

But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself, and, by heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad. I had — for my sins, I suppose — to go through the ordeal of looking into it myself. No eloquence could have been so withering to one’s belief in mankind as his final burst of sincerity. He struggled with himself, too. I saw it — I heard it. I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.

1902, 80 pp.

Rating: 5