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If you’re in a part of the world that marks Easter, I hope you had a restful time. This year, I did a devotional series over Lent and it made for interesting reading. The last time I read the Bible this often was in high school and this period of dipping back in has reminded me why it ranks as great literature.
That’s almost all the reading I did, alas. Over 4 days, I finished a novel and novella and not much else. I told myself I’d get a lot of reading in (consider that 4-5 books may be all the reading you do every week, Mike!) but between naps and errands not much else was read. There’s something to be said about my regular exhaustion, and my sense that I should read more. It took talking to a dear friend to realise that reading is reading is reading. Me at me: I’m begging you to have a sense of proportion, bestie!
For what it’s worth, I put out another video last week. Did I manage to forget to talk about one book? Yes, yes I did but it’ll be discussed in this week’s video so keep an eye out for that. I need to work on my sound and all but I’m trying to take the advice of folks who say not to invest too much in a hobby before one puts in significant time. Going to make that 30 videos, which is more or less the rest of the year (might even get a camera and microphone during - shivers - Black Friday sales if my money lines up).
A book I read yesterday really has me thinking about fictive kinship because of my fear of doing anything less than praising Kenyan books - like I’d be betraying my siblings. But sometimes the book makes you feel a type of way and it’s important to make space for that. There’s so little, though, the feeling of scarcity that compels one to protect what exists isn’t insignificant. Just last week Okwiri Oduor’s debut novel was released, for instance, and when Don and I listened to the audiobook sample the Luhya name Makokha was mispronounced. This feature was one that came up over and over in the book I read yesterday - instances when one’s immersion in a text is interrupted by the knowledge that something is off. A knowledge that has to do with being acquainted with the names and places mentioned; a knowledge I feel over and over again authors disregard. With yesterday’s book, it was too short to do anything but highlight and sigh, with Oduor’s book the plan is to read the e-book once it becomes available at the library in the hope that it does this place I’ve lived in all my life some justice.
The first of two digital reading weeks saw me finish Good Intentions by Kasim Ali (read by Nathaniel Curtis), Ogadinma Or, Everything Will be All Right by Ukamaka Olisakwe and & This is How to Stay Alive by Shingai Njeri Kagunda and start The Vagina Bible: The Vulva and the Vagina: Separating the Myth from the Medicine by Dr. Jen Gunter (narrated by the author). I hope to get more of it in (even finish it!) before the week ends.
The books with waits on them are top of the agenda in a week when a little travel will hopefully mean more book time so I’ll prioritise those titles - Music Is History by Questlove, Guts by Raina Telgemeier, Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde (narrated by Arit Okpo, Atta Otigba, Eloghosa Osunde, Ifeyinwa Unachukwu, Obongjayar and Sheila Chukwulozie) which I’ll do as a blended read along with the e-book, Vladimir by Julia May Jonas (narrated by Rebecca Lowman) as well as The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan (narrated by Scott Brick).
I hope you have a great week and a lovely time reading. Talk to you soon!