At the train station last week, I was in a hurry and so rushed to use the newly installed machines thinking I could avoid the queues that way. Precious minutes after, the silly machine spewed out my credit card with a signal saying "Sorry this transaction cannot be completed at the moment"....gritting my teeth I went to join the now even longer queue, certain that I'd missed my train. Sure enough I had and so I complained to the gentleman behind the counter. In a burst of extraordinary frankness he confided that the machines weren't always very good at processing transactions, and that he hoped that this state of affairs would continue because he would be out of a job when the machines started to work promptly and efficiently. Honest as he was I did wonder if it was wise saying this to a stranger, after all for all he knew I could have been a manager in the train company......
Browsing in Daunt's, a lovely oak panelled independent bookshop I stumbled across recently, I noted a number of new books which will surely keep me busy in the weeks ahead.The great thing about Daunt is that their books are arranged in geographical sections, so going to the USA section, you can find anything from the latest biography of Condi Rice to Philip Roth's latest novel, to a California travel guide.
In the Africa section, I saw Aminatta Forna's novel- Ancestor Stones. Having enjoyed her The Devil that Danced on the Water, a memoir of her father, one of Sierra Leone's leading early politicians, I'm looking forward to seeing her turn her gracefully eloquent hand to fiction. Also catching my attention was The Cloth Girl, set in mid forties Ghana, written by Marilyn Heward Mills who's half Ghanaian and half Swiss. It's not often we find contemporary books set in that era so am looking forward to it as well. Monica Ali's second novel Alentejo Blue which hasn't received great reviews, also caught my eye but I'm sure that after the runaway success of Brick Lane, anything that she produced subsequently would struggle with the critics......Finally Marie Fatayi-Williams who eloquently and courageously summed up the grief of many the day after her son Anthony was killed in the July 7 bombings has written a book explaining how she got through those dark days. Proceeds will go the Foundation set up in her son's memory. Anthony son of a Muslim father and a Roman Catholic mother, scion of English and Nigerian heritage was a potent symbol of the senseless killings of last year......
Disappointingly while the Nigerian section in Daunt had the Bradt travel guide and a few Chinua Achebe novels, there was no Soyinka, not to talk of Adichie, Atta, Abani, Afolabi, Habila. It made the shelf look a bit sparse which is such an unfair representation. Which maddens me- because let's imagine a book lover strolls over to Daunt's and thinks "Hmmm I'd like to read something Nigerian" and then saw the sparse offering they'd think nothing much was happening in Nigerian literature. Which of course is patently untrue. So when even an alternative, off the beaten track bookshop still struggles to stock popular, prize winning books by Nigerian and African writers, how are they supposed to make a name for themselves?
At the moment I'm reading and enjoying Rana Dasgupta's Tokyo Cancelled, a sort of contemporary rendering of The Canterbury Tales- several travellers are stranded at an airport when their flight to Tokyo is cancelled and they end up passing the time telling stories, there is a surreal, medieval quality to the tales which is compelling. I'm looking forward to the story set in Lagos.....
Our five days of summer are here and as I prepare to go and watch England play Portugal I wonder if the English will end up stumbling their way to the World Cup. Watching Brazil is sheer poetry, the fluidity of movement, the balletic passes, England always ends up getting there, but with only the occasional flash of brilliance. In any case I'll be flying my St George flag, got free with my evening newspaper yesterday..... I noticed the vendor hesitate before offering it to me, perhaps he wondered if I'd find it offensive- I didn't.....
Yesterday, half the London underground was closed suddenly at rush hour and as I tried to make sense of the conflicting reasons the staff gave, I hoped and prayed it was nothing more sinister.....
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