African books.

I'm lucky having a few good friends from the African continent. Amongst them one from Morocco and a few from Uganda. I've spent parts of the day with one of my friends from Uganda and our conversation amongst lots of things was about African litteratur. He told me, in spite of loving to read and the fact that he had read lots of books at an early age, that he was almost 30 years old the first time he read a book by an African author.

He said that Africa as a continent, as far as he knew, and also Uganda doesn't do enough to  "market" the authors of the continent. As we where talking I asked him to recommend me a few books. And so he did. He gave me a list of three, actually it's five, books.

So Long a Letter by Mariama Ba
The African Trilogy by Chinua Achebe
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

I'll start the hunt for African litteratur and start reading. Please give me more recommendations.

Terry Hayes. I Am Pilgrim.

I've just finished reading the book I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes.

Last thing first, this is a book I will recommend you to read if you like thrillers and suspense novels.

It's a thick book but the biggest challenge is to stop reading once you have started. I read it in just three days and was disappointed that it didn't last longer. The book is a big, breathless tale of nonstop suspense.

Get up, get out and borrow or buy these 612 pages and start reading. But make sure that you don't have any plans or obligations before start the adventure.

Cutting for Stone.

One of my passions in life is reading. I also love to visit a bookstore and it is always one of the first things I am looking for when I visit a new city. I also love to hunt for books at bookstores online.

Tonight I finished reading the book Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. The story is a saga about the twin brothers, Marion and Shiva Stone. The boys where orphaned by their mothers death and their fathers disappearance at their birth. They come at age at the mission hospital in Addis Ababa where their parents were living and working, their mother a nun and their father a surgeon.

I will not tell you more about the book. I recommend you reading it instead. It left me with the strange feeling of loss I sometimes get after reading a great book. The knowledge that I've read it and this exact experience is lost for ever. But the knowledge that this Wonderful World is full of great books keeps me visiting bookshops and surfing the internet searching for the next great adventure of reading.

Reading.

It has been a hectic week where I have been running from one thing to another. When the whole family has lots of appointments and obligations weeks like this is unnavigable. Even though the plans about changes is my life includes getting rid of unnecessary stress I doubt it will totally disappear.

But now I've got a kind of reward. The house is empty and I've got almost two hours without any plans or obligations. This calls for a good book and a cup of coffee. See you later, it's time for reading.

If - by Rudyard Kipling

Literature is among the things making a wonderful world. The poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling is a perfect example.
The poem is written in the form of paternal advice. Three years ago I recited the poem to one of my sons in a speech to him. I can only hope he will follow the advice.

If -
by Rudyard Kipling.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!