But when you pay too high a price for freebies, whose fault is it? Here I would like to relate two stories. The first one happened in about 1994/95 or thereabouts. I read in the paper that the South African government had turned down US$300 million, yes US$300 million, from the Japanese who were giving it for the construction of clinics in rural areas. I phoned one of the newly ensconced government officials I knew at the time and asked, what’s going on? Can you explain this? I mean everyone knows we need hospitals in rural areas! Very calmly, my uncle, Shepherd Mayatula, a man who has not one but two Masters degrees in economics said to me, Eric, say we take this money and build these clinics. Where are the medicines going to come from? Where is the manpower to man these clinics going to come from? And the list continued, what about the cost of maintaining these structures… The he said, Eric, at this stage we think it best to preach primary health care because if people do not fall unnecessarily sick then we do not need hospitals, do we?
I'm not sure everyone will love this book. It's definitely not for the PC (Political Correctness) Police. Eric Miyeni doesn't seem to care much what people think of him. He's outrageous and he's daring, he sees the line and then he crosses it. He's the guy who voices what many people are thinking but don't have the guts to say about race, about gender violence, about politics, about our personal finances.
I love it. I think it's a great read.
Thursday
The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd
I took my place in back of her and pulled out my course catalog to study for the long haul.
“I mean I hope so…” she added, less certain. I kept pretending to read and bobbed my head, eager to avoid a conversation. If we started talking now, we’d have to think up things to say for what looked to be hours.
“I’m pretty sure, at least.” And she seemed equipped for that. She was chipping merrily away at the precious, fragile barrier that kept us Strangers.
“Don’t you think?” Small talk is small in every way except when you try to get around it. Then it’s enormous. Defeated, I closed my catalog and really looked at her for the first time. She seemed completely out of place. Not just in this room, but perhaps in the entire state. She was dressed for, well, not for this, anyway. You don’t wear ankle-length white linen at this hour to jockey for position in a viper pit. Nor for such an occasion does one “do” one’s hair, though the only thing you could call her hair was Done. Her eyes gleamed bright with the fear that you Might Not Like Her, and her eyebrows met occasionally with the suspicion of the abandoned—maybe she thought she’d been left at the wrong school. She stood relatively still, but her spirit was paddling.
This book begins brilliantly. I had more laugh out loud moments reading this book in crowded airports and planes than I care to remember. That beginning then passes the baton over to a very interesting, very engaging middle. The end, well…dodgy.
It’s like when you’ve had an excellent flight, the weather was good, the food was excellent, the movies were engaging, the guy in front of you didn’t lean his chair back right into your nose and you actually managed a couple of hours of decent sleep. Then the pilot executes the kind of bumpy landing that has you sitting upright, clutching the end of your seat, talking to yourself and wondering what was the last thing you said to your (insert loved one here).
But in the end, you’re landed and ready to get on with life. And you will remember the flight fondly, for the most part.
Have I told you about that beginning? BRILLIANT. And the writing, excellent.
Do I recommend it. Heartily. Read it. Read it. Read it.
Seriously.
“I mean I hope so…” she added, less certain. I kept pretending to read and bobbed my head, eager to avoid a conversation. If we started talking now, we’d have to think up things to say for what looked to be hours.
“I’m pretty sure, at least.” And she seemed equipped for that. She was chipping merrily away at the precious, fragile barrier that kept us Strangers.
“Don’t you think?” Small talk is small in every way except when you try to get around it. Then it’s enormous. Defeated, I closed my catalog and really looked at her for the first time. She seemed completely out of place. Not just in this room, but perhaps in the entire state. She was dressed for, well, not for this, anyway. You don’t wear ankle-length white linen at this hour to jockey for position in a viper pit. Nor for such an occasion does one “do” one’s hair, though the only thing you could call her hair was Done. Her eyes gleamed bright with the fear that you Might Not Like Her, and her eyebrows met occasionally with the suspicion of the abandoned—maybe she thought she’d been left at the wrong school. She stood relatively still, but her spirit was paddling.
This book begins brilliantly. I had more laugh out loud moments reading this book in crowded airports and planes than I care to remember. That beginning then passes the baton over to a very interesting, very engaging middle. The end, well…dodgy.
It’s like when you’ve had an excellent flight, the weather was good, the food was excellent, the movies were engaging, the guy in front of you didn’t lean his chair back right into your nose and you actually managed a couple of hours of decent sleep. Then the pilot executes the kind of bumpy landing that has you sitting upright, clutching the end of your seat, talking to yourself and wondering what was the last thing you said to your (insert loved one here).
But in the end, you’re landed and ready to get on with life. And you will remember the flight fondly, for the most part.
Have I told you about that beginning? BRILLIANT. And the writing, excellent.
Do I recommend it. Heartily. Read it. Read it. Read it.
Seriously.
Friday
So Many Books by Gabriel Zaid, translated by Natasha Wimmer
Some common knowledge of texts, songs, sayings, news stories, and films is also a good thing — without it, conversation would be impossible. Uniformity is boring and numbing, but absolute differentiation isolates us. In order for diversity to be enriching, a common base of knowledge is required. Beyond that, variety is preferable. What is desirable is not that all books should have millions of readers, but that they should attain their natural readership — the readership they might have in a perfect world where distribution was flawless and price not an issue, giving every possible interested reader the opportunity to read them.
Rory Gilmore, an avid reader, walks into the Library at Harvard and despairs. She's 16 and she's barely read 300 books and here are over 15 million volumes. It suddenly dawns on her that all she'll ever be able to read is a fraction of a drop in the ocean compared to what's available. She is horrified.
This is the book Rory Gilmore should read. This is the book everyone who's ever felt like Rory Gilmore should read.
Short and definitely sweet.
Rory Gilmore, an avid reader, walks into the Library at Harvard and despairs. She's 16 and she's barely read 300 books and here are over 15 million volumes. It suddenly dawns on her that all she'll ever be able to read is a fraction of a drop in the ocean compared to what's available. She is horrified.
This is the book Rory Gilmore should read. This is the book everyone who's ever felt like Rory Gilmore should read.
Short and definitely sweet.
Mister God, This is Anna by Fynn
Reading the Bible wasn't a great success. She tended to regard it as a primer, strictly for the infants. The message of the Bible was simple and any half-with could grasp it in thirty minutes flat! Religion was for doing things, not for reading about doing things. Once you had got the message there wasn't much point in going over and over the same old ground. Our local parson was taken aback when he asked her about God. The conversation went as follows:
'Do you believe in God?'
'Yes.'
Do you know what God is?'
'Yes.'
'What is God then?'
'He's God.'
Do you go to church?'
'No.'
'Because I know it all!'
'What do you know?'
'I know to love Mister God and to love people and cats and dogs and spiders and flowers and trees', and the catalogue went on, '-with all of me.'
Anna's a special little girl-bright and insightful and intuitive and outspoken. She 'runned away' from home because her mother is a cow and her father is a sod and met Fynn who loved her so she followed him home.
She's so special, sometimes it's hard to believe she actually existed. But she's also so special that you desperately want to believe that she did.
This book is a gem of a find tucked away in the religion corner of the bookshop.
'Do you believe in God?'
'Yes.'
Do you know what God is?'
'Yes.'
'What is God then?'
'He's God.'
Do you go to church?'
'No.'
'Because I know it all!'
'What do you know?'
'I know to love Mister God and to love people and cats and dogs and spiders and flowers and trees', and the catalogue went on, '-with all of me.'
Anna's a special little girl-bright and insightful and intuitive and outspoken. She 'runned away' from home because her mother is a cow and her father is a sod and met Fynn who loved her so she followed him home.
She's so special, sometimes it's hard to believe she actually existed. But she's also so special that you desperately want to believe that she did.
This book is a gem of a find tucked away in the religion corner of the bookshop.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)