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On our way to the Central African Republic in August
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I just put in a library request for Batouala. I have been a bit behind in my reading in general. Hoping to get back on track in August.
Also, feel free to post to discussion threads if you decide to read past books. I missed at least one book in there and intend to post about it. And you might reinvigorate discussions for us! Some of the books were hard to write about but maybe as we get more books under our belt we will have more to draw from, even for the earlier selections.
Muphyn wrote: "Rafiki wrote: "I didn't join the group till you were up to Cameroon. Could I get a list of the books you discussed from the countries I missed? Thanks."Hi Rafiki,
sure thing but have a look in ..."
THANKS.Got it
Rafiki wrote: "I didn't join the group till you were up to Cameroon. Could I get a list of the books you discussed from the countries I missed? Thanks."Hi Rafiki,
sure thing but have a look in the Book Club Discussions 2009 (and also 2008) for books from countries already "visited". The subject line for the thread is the book discussed.
I didn't join the group till you were up to Cameroon. Could I get a list of the books you discussed from the countries I missed? Thanks.
I have ordered a copy of Batouala,so now there will be at least 4 of us. If anyone who wants to read another CAR book, I recommend Andree Blouin's autobiography My Country,Africa. I just finished it. What a fascinating life she led. There are some copies out there online.
Yes, I don't have either of the Cape Verde books yet, either, so I would be happy to extend CAR into Sept. October.
Yeah, let's just shift everything. I have both cape verde books but haven't started either of them since I was just finishing up dog days. The almeida book is short. I might save it for a weekend and read it straight through. I love doing that!
How about we extend the current selection (Cape Verde) into August then? I'm still waiting for the Almeida book and haven't much progressed with the "Ring of the slave prince" yet. thoughts? (wrong thread, I realise. :) )
Marieke wrote: "I echo Andrea. It would be a bit less pressure since I read other books too. Also I've really enjoyed reading more than one selection per country. Should CAR be an august/September selection?"yes, I think that would be a good idea! and as you all say, we can always have a couple of "optional" reads for those faster readers of us! :)
I echo Andrea. It would be a bit less pressure since I read other books too. Also I've really enjoyed reading more than one selection per country. Should CAR be an august/September selection?
Andrea wrote: "One issue for me is that it sometimes takes awhile to get the books. If we spent two months on a country, people who like to read more or faster could read more than one book from that country. I..."
I think 2 months per country/book is a good idea.
One issue for me is that it sometimes takes awhile to get the books. If we spent two months on a country, people who like to read more or faster could read more than one book from that country. I've really enjoyed reading several things from Cameroon.
Aldawen wrote: "...I was thinking about this some time now ... Perhaps the monthly rhythm is too short? It seems that for most of us it isn't always easy to squeeze the books in which re..."
yes, i'm wondering whether we should try out a two-monthly book club? i'm so struggling to read anything within that particular month and two months would just give me that extra bit of time.
what are other people's thought?
I want to read more than one of the selections as well. I liked doing that with Cameroon although I am still working on dog days while I wait for my cape verde books to arrive in the mail. The crud is slowly clearing up. Today is the first day that I have felt better since I started feeling ill last Thursday. I am home from work and today I will actually read something! :D
Marieke wrote: "I'll join in. I've been really sick with some kind of crud and am really behind but august is a few weeks away. Will try to catch up!"Marieke,sorry to hear you've been sick. Hope it is clearing up! I'm planning to read Batouala by the way, although I can't remember if I voted for it.
Marieke wrote: "I'll join in. I've been really sick with some kind of crud and am really behind but august is a few weeks away. Will try to catch up!"oh, that's no good! :( just get better, don't worry about the reading... :) you can join in again for September or whenever you feel like it! :) take care.
I'll join in. I've been really sick with some kind of crud and am really behind but august is a few weeks away. Will try to catch up!
Alrighty, the winner for August (based on three votes, haha :) ) is René Maran's Batouala.Happy reading the three of us! (hoping others will join in too).
Marieke wrote: "ok. i did some quick and dirty searching and turned some things up. but i haven't really investigated them (but they look like they might be good!):a political biography:[book:Dark Age The Polit..."
You are fabulous!! thanks for your digging! i'm completely flat out with work at the moment but i'll try and set up a poll on the weekend so we can finalise our August book (coming up fast...).
ok. i did some quick and dirty searching and turned some things up. but i haven't really investigated them (but they look like they might be good!):a political biography:Dark Age The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa which got good reviews on Amazon
and
a missionary memoir:
They called me Mama
everything else i saw so far in English was either overly academic or was school-ey for kids. not YA lit. There is A LOT on and from Central African Republic but it's almost all in French. bah.
oh my! sorry! sorry!someone stop the calendar!
i think the daba's travels book sounds interesting...
but i'll do some digging that i meant to do and didn't manage.
sorry....i took a step off the continent for a moment and now i see i'm behind....hopefully dog days is a quick read for me...
No other ideas?? (Marieke, where are you?? You always manage to dig up something!! We need you! ;) )
Aldawen wrote: "Muphyn wrote: ""Daba's travels..." might be quite interesting; however, it's not very widely available (i only found one copy on abebooks.com and two on amazon.com)."Sure? I see 11 copies on abeb..."
isn't that weird?! i looked 20 minutes ago and there was one copy and looking again now there are four on abebooks.com. refreshing the pages produces nine copies for me... how bizarre... (maybe it's got to do with location). still, the book's not available anywhere in Oz... :(
Aldawen wrote: "Most of the (few) books from CAR I own are in French and, of course, not translated. But there's at least one YA book which might be of interest: Daba's travels from Ouadda to Bangui...""Daba's travels..." might be quite interesting; however, it's not very widely available (i only found one copy on abebooks.com and two on amazon.com). Same goes for Andreé Blouin's book.
Thoughts? (maybe I should suggest skipping again, that seemed to generate some ideas last time! ;) )
Found some articles about an interesting CAR writer-Andree Blouin. But her book "My Country, Africa:Autobiography of the Black Pasionaria" might be difficult to find. I did see a some copies on some different sites such a Biblio.com and Alibris.com
Hello everyone,
collecting suggestions again for our tour d'Afrique: in August we'll be travelling to the Central African Republic!
I haven't really searched much (yet) but here are a couple of ideas (titles are linked to the respective book pages if people want to find out more).
The first one is a non-fiction (anthropology) one:
* Louis Sarno Song from the Forest My Life Among the Ba-Benjelle Pygmies
Or a fiction one:
* Rene Maran Batouala
Other ideas? Let's hear them! :)
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Books mentioned in this topic
Batouala (other topics)Song from the Forest: My Life Among the Ba-Benjelle Pygmies (other topics)
Daba's travels from Ouadda to Bangui (other topics)
They called me Mama (other topics)
Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa (other topics)
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