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G.L.i.B – bed: My first Stephen King book
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G.L.i.B-bed: The Bourne Initiative
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June in review: A little bit of this, a little bit of that
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L is for Looking
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Or
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G.L.i.B – bed: Tell Tale
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G.L.i.B-bed: How to Spell Naija in…Vol 1
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G.L.i.B-bed: Of Human Bondage
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G.L.i.B-bed: June 12: Annulment
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Withdrawal symptoms

G.L.i.B – bed: My first Stephen King book

Never read a Stephen King novel. His movies, themed on horror and sci-fi, are indications and keep me at arm’s length. Not this one though. Not this one on his journey to being the brilliant writer he is known for and his opinions on the techniques of writing successful books. I heard about On Writing 18 years ago and only just got my hands on it. My notes from the book are 14 leaves long. It was well worth the time I spent in the mind of this genius writer of the 21st century. I now have a new reference material henceforth. Here are some excerpts: To write is human, to edit is divine. Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position. Life isn’t a support – system for art. It’s the other way around. The basic use of vocabulary is use the first word that comes to your[…]

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G.L.i.B-bed: The Bourne Initiative

The Brotherhood of the Rose was the one Robert Ludlum book I read in the ‘90s. That I didn’t look for another of his work meant it didn’t make a memorable impression. However, I went ahead to see the first movie adaptation of The Bourne Identity. It left the same taste the aforementioned book had previously – no desire for more. Enter Matt Damon and the recent version of the Bourne movie series – Identity, Supremacy, Ultimatum. Now we’re talking. I could watch all three movies time and again without a trace of boredom. So it was Matt Damon I saw in my mind’s eye as I read The Bourne Initiative (Didn’t even know it existed as well as many other Bourne titles not written by Robert Ludlum), all 500 pages of it. No disappointment here. It was classic fast – paced, espionage, multiple-countries setting Bourne read. The entertainment value was perfect to the t. The language or rather style of writing made my eyebrows climb a rung. The use of nouns as verbs, even in odd constructions, proliferated the book. A little too much to my taste. The blood fountained. Where they bivouacked. Her skin goose-fleshed. Though some were[…]

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June in review: A little bit of this, a little bit of that

I was going to stop e-books at the end of this month. I reneged; insufficient dose of patience. By June 14 or thereabout, I grabbed my first paperback this year and devoured every inny minny detail of it, even the copyright information. 😊 To my surprise, I read it simultaneously with another e-book. Withdrawal symptoms, I guess. They say it takes 30 days (or is it three weeks now?) to build a new habit; I’ve been nursing my newly acquired e-book practice for more than 151 days. Surely, that should tell on me. In all, I read four books this month, evenly distributed between e-books and paperbacks. Writing wise, I think I may have overstepped my boundaries. The Sunday signatures still went out weekly but I noticed, with every new read, there seemed to be a flurry of ideas for the written word. Which, in fact, falls within reason for my reading, besides the entertainment and knowledge – improvement factors, of course. However, the ideas poured in fast and furious, and I had to constantly write them down in other to keep up or lose the train of thoughts altogether. Right now, I’m juggling a new series, a short story and[…]

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L is for Looking

Yesterday, I saw a lady learning to drive; the mandatory, red L sign dangling from the back of the practice car, announcing her status to all.   Nothing new there. Learners on the road these days are a dime a dozen. Like some perpetual trend.  What caught my eye, as I slowly cruised by, was not the scarf covering her head and neck; it was the pair of reflector shades she had on as well that threw me for a loop.  What in the world…?! The minor confusion in my mind mirrored on my face; I stepped on the pedal and sped away. She was already a huge caution sign being a learner and all, but with a pair of shades on?!  Girl, you’re learning  to control a rather large machine in a safe and orderly manner, not primping for a photoshoot. You should be laser-focused on the road and its users only. Do the reflector shades, at your beginner level, improve that aspect? When you get the hang of pushing pedals while simultaneously manipulating the gears and the wheel, then and only then can your fashion style shine through.  Perhaps she had defective eyesight, I tried to reason it[…]

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Or

This is entirely my fault Maternal overload, excitement and variety in equal measure. Though it was off to a good start with my beau…at first. “For breakfast, do you want yam and eggs or toast, baked beans & eggs?” I would inquire Without missing a beat, he’d answer: “Yam & eggs, please.” No hassles. No rigmarole. Simple and straightforward. For a while, we matched down this either…or… route at almost every meal time with me presenting the options and he making the choices. Even basic dishes got the same treatment, complicating where there was no need to. “Moi-moi and ogi or oats?” “Sweet potatoes, ketchup and fried eggs or meat?” The options kept pouring out of my vocal cavity. And I claim not to be business-oriented. Statistics have shown that food is one amongst education, church, and water ventures that one can never go wrong with if one dabbles into it. And I have endless alternatives and combinations to succeed. Then one day, out of the blue, it all flipped. “There are fried plantains and white beans or Jollof rice & spicy sauce.” I laid them out. The response took longer to come; I should have suspected something. Where did[…]

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G.L.i.B – bed: Tell Tale

There’s nothing better than a Jeffrey Archer novel as a worthy companion. And to think I wasn’t much of a fan of his work in my budding, voracious reading years.  Don’t get me wrong; I did devour some of his books – A Quiver Full of Arrows, The Fourth Estate, False Impression, etc. However, it was a rare occasion to seek after them with the same passion and fervor I would normally for Sydney Sheldon’s work. Whenever I read them (Jeffrey Archer’s), they usually happened by chance and through no intentional effort on my part. Not until The Clifton Chronicles and I crossed paths. Now I’m quick to suggest him at  the slightest conversation about good reads and authors. Tell Tale was another enthralling read – all 14 short stories, and not enough of them in my opinion – that I finished in less than 12 hours, grudgingly laying it aside when there were more important tasks to tackle namely professional work and house chores. It was classic Jeffrey Archer with a surprising bonus at the end, four chapters of his new book – Heads You Win – which is due out in November 2018. I can’t wait!  

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G.L.i.B-bed: How to Spell Naija in…Vol 1

Give me the Vol. 2 of this book. I rather prefer it to its Vol 1 counterpart which I only just finished recently. In terms of the stories’ length and content, interesting and humorous rating of the plots, the Vol. 2, in my opinion, trumps its predecessor time and again. However, the pristine writing style and English Language deployment (both of which have continued to draw me to his works) are at par in both books. They are precursors to my reading The Extinction of Menai; and I look forward to that time.    

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G.L.i.B-bed: Of Human Bondage

After my rant about the inconvenience of e-books, another caught my eye. It’s amazing the effect minor changes can bring. A portable device. Bigger text size. A paradigm shift. Interesting this book was all of 1009 pages, a tome that should have thrown me off. It was twice the size of any of the e-books I had been scathing about previously. But I surfed through the entire volume in less than a week. The irony. The coming-of-age story of a boy with a club-foot tugged at my heart’s strings as he limped through life under the beliefs of his strictly religious guardians, his own sensitivities and shyness, friends and acquaintances, his follies and mistakes while dabbling into various vocations to find his fit, his innate goodness and war with his emotions all came together in an intelligent and engrossing read for me.  

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G.L.i.B-bed: June 12: Annulment

I was in the crowd, shouting amongst the protesters, in ’93 during the IBB-must-go demonstrations. Still in secondary school, it was a new experience, exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. The day before, a cousin of mine – studying in the University of Benin – showed up at our doorstep. He informed me that they (the university students) would be dropping by schools to physically ingrain the students into the protests. Before his arrival, I had been undecided about attending school the next day. The tension, accompanying the annulment of the election results, in the country was simmering rapidly to dangerous boiling points. It was becoming unsafe to go about mundane, daily activities. The streets seemed like they were preparing for battle. After his visit, it was a no – brainer. And the Uniben students made good their promise; like a parent picking up his/her ward from school, they appeared at our school gates and ushered us out. And because it was novel, nothing like we had ever imagined, we were in the front line of the riotous crowd, screaming at the top of our voices, waving hands like we didn’t care. Until the police bombarded us with canisters of teargas[…]

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Withdrawal symptoms

For the last 23 weeks or so… I have been in unfamiliar territory – reading e-books. New year, new things, I thought to myself. So I tried it out. Fire and Fury was by far the worst of the lot – in terms of how it was written. It was also the first of them all, starting me out on this untested route. However, it didn’t fall short in the entertainment department which was what I sought from it, as long as I overlooked Michael Wolfe’s writing inconsistencies. On the flip side, the best I’ve read has to be The Picture of Dorian Gray. A well-put together tome by the British Oscar Wilde did my syntax and grammar so much good I was sorry to see it come to an end. It cleansed me of all the Americanisms and flaws of Fire and Fury, throwing in striking statements from one of its principal characters. A Briton would definitely write my autobiography. Who said: “Everything sounds better in a British accent?” It applies to their writing skills too when done impeccably. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka was anyone’s nightmare come to reality, and a poor choice on my part after an[…]

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