Great African Reads discussion
Group News & Current Activities
>
Group input, please - suggestions, ideas?
date
newest »
newest »
Does the group still have the french reads?
thanks Calla. The French reads have been put on hold due to lack of participation
Mod
Remember you're always welcome to read the regional read in a French edition (it may be originally written in French). Also we've set up a folder for Buddy Reads - so if there are particular French reads you would like to participate in, you can use that to find other interested people to read it with? And in general: Feel free to drum up more interest in French reads :D
I am surprised how many coloniser narratives are in the top Africa travel memoir list. Can there be a category of books about Africa that are NOT white saviour books?
Mod
Can there be a category of books about Africa that are NOT white saviour books?"
Which list?
But no, not really surprised personally - I've been trying to avoid the category. But I can recommend the story of a guy from Togo, who goes to Greenland in the 1960s, if you want an entirely different type of travel and a non-white perspective :) An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie
Anetq wrote: "Orgeluse wrote: "Anetq wrote: "Orgeluse wrote: "Anetq wrote: "We are nearing the end of the year - so it's time to think about 2024 and what (or how) we'd like to read next year?Do you have any th..."
The new year is slowly expiring again.
Mod
Thanks Anetq. Really appreciate your conitued efforts on keeping the group going..Perhaps instead of doing country based tours, we could select genres? Ive read some amazing thrillers recently and would love to read more. And/or we could allow for second third generation expatriate titles to also feature (maybe youve done so already?)
Laura wrote: "Thanks Anetq. Really appreciate your conitued efforts on keeping the group going..Perhaps instead of doing country based tours, we could select genres? Ive read some amazing thrillers recently and ..."I appreciate the region-based group-read thing but it's a bummer there's little engagement recently. I like that it gets me to read widely and improves my geography and history knowledge. I also like the idea of challenges for other themes. I like that aspect of the Bingo challenge... I wonder how it'd go if we had just open ongoing threads for broad themes, like types of reads or regions.
For example, we read Achebe's When Things Fall Apart last year, but if anyone read it now or in the future, I'd still love to hear their thoughts on it but maybe they'd be more likely to share if there was a thread for Nigeria, rather than go find that old group discussion thread where no one is participating anymore and add to it now...
I think this is a general trend across Goodreads, I see it in most of the groups where I am a member. One option which has sparked some additional engagement has been to include some short stories, people seem to be reluctant to read longer works, but happy to read something shorter. It can run along any of our existing reads. I'd also be open to some genre reads - I love a good thriller and we do seem to focus on more literary fiction most of the time.
Mod
Mod
@Laura thank you for the encouragement & suggestions - I am not much of a genre fiction reader (apart from Scottish Crime Fiction) - but if you would be up for running it, I'd be delighted?!
Mod
@Jen I also like the variety (and ease as a moderator!!) of keeing the Regional Reads going, for the reasons you point out. The country threads is an idea, there has been something along those lines in the group's history - any ideas for keeping engagement / getting it going / do you want to try something out?
And/or do you want to team up with Laura on the Genre Reads?
Mod
Thank you for your continued engagement and 'trend analysis' across groups - it's nice to know we are not alone :)
The short stories are a good idea, Sofia ran some short reads a few years ago. Let me know if you want to run something or suggest more reads (and I know you are busy in a lot of groups, so I completely understand if you have other priorities :) )
Anetq wrote: "Jen wrote: "Laura wrote: "Thanks Anetq. Really appreciate your conitued efforts on keeping the group going..Perhaps instead of doing country based tours, we could select genres? Ive read some amazi..."I can start with poking around group history to see if something can be revived, research how those past discussions/threads were done, and I'll see what next steps might make sense from there. How's that sound?
Mod
Go for it! Any help / input / Ideas are highly appreciated :)
Mod
Please keep any self-promotion to the designated folder :)
Great African Reads
Books mentioned in this topic
An African in Greenland (other topics)For Bread Alone (other topics)
We Are Your Soldiers: How Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
Choukri Mohammed (other topics)Alex Rowell (other topics)
Do you have any th..."
Okidoki ;-)!