Bookaholic e-Reading List...

As a new week begins, we hope that you have a great week...even as you read these interesting posts online. Enjoy!


Olufemi Terry's Caine Prize Winning Story, "Stickfighting Days"

"Thwack, Thwack, the two of them go at it like madmen, but the boys around them barely stir

with excitement. They both use one stick and we find this swordy kind of stickfighting a bitcrappy. Much better two on one or two on two – lots more skill involved and more likelihood ofblood.

I turn to Lapy. “Let’s go off and practise somewhere. This is weak.” Lapy likes any stickfight, but almost always does what I say. "

Ben Okri Interview in the Guardian UK

"I'd be walking along and suddenly I'd be unable to stand straight and I'd hold on to a lamppost and find the lamppost wasn't solid either. That was a turning point for me. It began a great journey. I don't feel I need to lean on lampposts any more. You need internal lampposts – and a few good friends."

Articles on The Pilgrimages website. Here's an excerpt from Uzodinma Iweala's post!

"I’ve been telling everybody that I’m going to Timbuktu, “No really Timbuktu.”

“Is that even a real place?” I’ve been asked a bunch of times. Wikipedia says its real and full of at least 30,000 people, accessible by road, boat and flight, full of many wonders, so it must be true. How embarrassing it is, how exciting it is to be on the verge of a place that you as recently as two months ago really knew nothing about except for the fact it exists and that a backpack company headquartered in New York makes bags with same name

I should know more. Really and truly I should know more. I should have logged my hours in the library researching, pulling books and scholarly articles, looking at pictures, reading the myriad travel narratives already written about Timbuktu. Sadly I haven’t had the time to do so. Medical school has this way of getting in the way of the really important things."

Nnedi Okorafor's story in Clarkesworld Magazine :

"They will never die. No information dies once gathered, once collected.

The creatures' field guide is thorough but incomplete.

I am the greatest explorer.

I am griot and I will soon join the others.

The Newest Issue of Open Wide Magazine. 

The Latest issue of ITCH.

The sixth issue of ITCH online is live, and full of fascinating insights into almost 70 private mental worlds, organised around a rather self-centred theme:

i

What is i? Is it you or me? Is it imagination or information? Is it intellect or introspection?

As always, ITCH is crammed full of poetry, short stories, book reviews, experimental writing, photo essays, videos and miscellaneous visual splendour for your reading and viewing pleasure.

Explore!

10 1/2 Inclinations...by Ben Okri

This is courtesy Naijablog. We find it interesting...we hope you do too. 

When asked a few years ago to list the top ten books children must read, this is what Ben Okri recommended:

The 10 1/2 Inclinations
There is a secret trail of books meant to inspire and enlighten you. Find that trail.

• Read outside your own nation, colour, class, gender.
• Read the books your parents hate.
• Read the books your parents love.
• Have one or two authors that are important, that speak to you; and make their works your secret passion.
• Read widely, for fun, stimulation, escape.
• Don’t read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.
• Read what you’re not supposed to read.
• Read for your own liberation and mental freedom.
• Books are like mirrors. Don’t just read the words. Go into the mirror.10.5 That is where the real secrets are. Inside. Behind. That’s where the gods dream, where our realities are born.
• 10½) Read the world. It is the most mysterious book of all.

Now Tell us: Who is your fav Fiction Character?

I have read Toni Morrison's Beloved (you know I'm a fan already!) and absolutely find it hard to get Beloved, the character, the Baby Ghost off my mind. Not my fault, Morrison did a fantastic job with that character even as she made her stride both worlds of the living and the dead.

Now come to Africa, there's a way Ben Okri (though most of his stories seem plot-driven) makes his character a part of you--you can literally touch them; almost believe that they live very close to you. Now, that's good writing. If you've read Famished Road, and know the Abiku child; you will understand what mean.

Final example--Kainene in Chimamanda's Half of a Yellow Sun was a strong one for me. Though not the stereotype African woman--she shows that there are no limits; that the only limits to being who you want to be exists, not really in the society, but in your mind. After closing the last page of the book, I dreamt of Kainene, I joined in the search for her, in my mind. Somehow, I think I still search for her!

Now, you tell us--who is your favourite fiction character? Why do you love them?