false28327513112923Mogbolahan A. Koya-Oyagbola If you came to our house you’d often find me, my mum and all three of my brothers in the same room, caught up in the book addict’s hush. Dad’s law books made him immune. In no time at all I was hanging on street corners pushing Steinbeck, Marquez, Roth, Achebe. “Try this one,” I’d say, “and if it makes you euphoric, control your reading high and don’t crack the spine”. I had gone from book addict to book pusher. Mum cheered on, supplying pure uncut encyclopaedias, dictionaries, thesauruses.
At 14 I started to manufacture my own. I gave up on the pursuit of impressive sounding jobs. I’m not a doctor, not a lawyer or engineer in spite of my almost encyclopaedic knowledge. Instead I’m a student of languages and an English language teacher. I’m the worst kind of book addict. I also manufacture my own my stuff. One of them is now available on amazon.com. It’s a highly addictive collection of five poems and 14 short stories called, Some White English Women I’ve Almost Known. It’s one step away from thesaurus – addictive, pure uncut.
Go to amazon.com to get yours. But a word of caution - it might give you a reading high which makes you crack the spine. Caveat emptor! You’ve been warned. Hooked by my cautionary tale? Check out my website - http://www.mogbolahankoya-oyagbola.com/
]]>maleMunich, Germany10/200911/20091388082Jostein Gaarder3354Haruki Murakami1728Orhan Pamuk59866Ruth Benedict6378Hans Christian Andersen55397Nadine Gordimer1232228true7187558read2true7187583currently-reading2true7187569to-read1false7305085wroteThe Witches of Eastwick (Paperback) by John Updike]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77317520
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Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:27:03 -0800 Wel...more...]]>
Kick the Animal Out (Paperback) by Veronique (1972-) Ovalde]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77317350
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Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:26:33 -0800Interpreter of Maladies (Paperback) by Jhumpa Lahiri]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/77308331
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Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:02:38 -0800
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/231252-poetry-versus-prose
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Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:55:54 -0700
Jen wrote: "I like to think I know, or to add my own meaning to poetry, so I won't ask you about that. (How selfish am I?) I would be interested to know who your greatest influences were, especially while wr..."
You make a very good point. Let's see what I remember. To give you some background, I had just returned to London (2005). It took me a while to get a regular job and when I eventually got a job I found it drab. London was very expensive, my friends were not as accessible as in the past (they were married or very busy) so I led a rather monastic life. Reading was my outlet. The books that made the biggest impression were:
A collection of short stories by Nadine Gordimer (can't remeber which but it's in my goodreads list)
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende
I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal
The Tin Drum by Günter Grass
Certain films also played a part:
City of God directed by Fernando Meirelles
Saints and Soldiers directed by Ryan Little
Heading South by Laurent Cantet
Swimming Pool directed by François Ozon.
Amarcord directed by Federico Fellini
La Dolce Vita directed by Federico Fellini
A documentary about Fellini
An intimate interview with Donald Sutherland about Fellini
My Architect documentary about Louis I Kahn
The Battle of Algiers directed by Gillo Pontecorvo
Il Postino directed by Michael Radford
That's what I remember. There were the indefinable things of course such as listening to some jazz track in the park, observing people getting on with their lives, observing the colour and smell of autumn leaves, watching how sunlight fell on countryside landscapes as I looked out of the window of a moving bus etc.
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Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings (Paperback) by Jorge Luis Borges]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75760992
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Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:00:13 -0700Cronopios and Famas (Paperback) by Julio Cortázar]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75760707
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Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:56:57 -0700Lolita (Paperback) by Vladimir Nabokov]]>
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/75759600
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Mon, 26 Oct 2009 06:42:58 -0700