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THE CONFEDERATE: A Vanessa Series Boo...
A cyber attack into Somalian government. A penetration and a leak that threatens and could devastate East Central African regional security.
A shootout in the middle of Nairobi.
Vanessa, a girl on the run.
Inspector Letui, a counter terrorism officer who wants to find the truth.
Aisha, a Confidential Informant who has no idea the people she is spying on are far more dangerous than her day job.
The book has several Offensive Cyber Operations, written in detail never since before in a Thriller.
The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa ...
n British-occupied Egypt, on the eve of the 1952 revolution, respected landowner Abd el-Aziz Gaafar has fallen on hard times. Bankrupt, he moves his family to Cairo and takes a menial job at the Automobile Club, a luxurious lodge for its European members, where Egyptians appear only as fearful servants.
When Abd el-Aziz’s pride gets the better of him and he stands up for himself, he is subjected to a corporal punishment that ultimately kills him—leaving two of his sons obliged to work in the Club.
As the nation teeters on the brink of change, both servants and masters are subsumed by social upheaval, and the Egyptians of the Automobile Club face a choice: to live safely but without dignity as servants, or to risk everything and fight for their rights. Exuberant and powerfully moving, The Automobile Club of Egypt is an essential work of social criticism from one of the Arab world’s greatest literary voices.
The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah...
In 1988 Saul Adler (a narcissistic, young historian) is hit by a car on the Abbey Road. He is apparently fine; he gets up and goes to see his art student girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau. They have sex then break up, but not before she has photographed Saul crossing the same Abbey Road.
Saul leaves to study in communist East Berlin, two months before the Wall comes down. There he will encounter - significantly - both his assigned translator and his translator's sister, who swears she has seen a jaguar prowling the city. He will fall in love and brood upon his difficult, authoritarian father. And he will befriend a hippy, Rainer, who may or may not be a Stasi agent, but will certainly return to haunt him in middle age.
Slipping slyly between time zones and leaving a spiralling trail, Deborah Levy's electrifying The Man Who Saw Everything examines what we see and what we fail to see, the grave crime of carelessness, the weight of history and our ruinous attempts to shrug it off.
My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and ...
Everyone remembers the smell of their grandmother's house.
Everyone remembers the stories their grandmother told them.
But does everyone remember their grandmother flirting with policemen? Driving illegally?
Breaking into a zoo in the middle of the night? Firing a paintball gun from a balcony in her dressing gown?
Seven-year-old Elsa does.
Some might call Elsa's granny 'eccentric', or even 'crazy'. Elsa calls her a superhero. And granny's stories, of knights and princesses and dragons and castles, are her superpower. Because, as Elsa is starting to learn, heroes and villains don't always exist in imaginary kingdoms; they could live just down the hallway.
As Christmas draws near, even the best superhero grandmothers may have one or two things they'd like to apologise for. And, in the process, Elsa can have some breath-taking adventures of her own . . .
Britt Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. A disorganized cutlery drawer ranks high on her list of unforgivable sins. She is not one to judge others—no matter how ill-mannered, unkempt, or morally suspect they might be. It’s just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention. But hidden inside the socially awkward, fussy busybody is a woman who has more imagination, bigger dreams, and a warmer heart that anyone around her realizes.
When Britt-Marie walks out on her cheating husband and has to fend for herself in the miserable backwater town of Borg—of which the kindest thing one can say is that it has a road going through it—she finds work as the caretaker of a soon-to-be demolished recreation center. The fastidious Britt-Marie soon finds herself being drawn into the daily doings of her fellow citizens, an odd assortment of miscreants, drunkards, layabouts.
Most alarming of all, she’s given the impossible task of leading the supremely untalented children’s soccer team to victory. In this small town of misfits, can Britt-Marie find a place where she truly belongs?
Things My Son Needs to Know About the...
Things My Son Needs to Know About the World collects the personal dispatches from the front lines of one of the most daunting experiences any man can experience: fatherhood.
As he conveys his profound awe at experiencing all the "firsts" that fill him with wonder and catch him completely unprepared, Fredrik Backman doesn't shy away from revealing his own false steps and fatherly flaws, tackling issues both great and small, from masculinity and mid-life crises to practical jokes and poop.
In between the sleep-deprived lows and wonderful highs, Backman takes a step back to share the true story of falling in love with a woman who is his complete opposite, and learning to live a life that revolves around the people you care about unconditionally. Alternating between humorous side notes and longer essays offering his son advice as he grows up and ventures out into the world, Backman relays the big and small lessons in life, including:
-How to find the team you belong to
-Why airports explain everything about religion and war
-The reason starting a band is crucial to cultivating and keeping friendships
-How to beat Monkey Island 3
-Why, sometimes, a dad might hold onto his son's hand just a little too tight.
Things My Son Needs to Know About the World collects the personal dispatches from the front lines of one of the most daunting experiences any man can experience: fatherhood.
As he conveys his profound awe at experiencing all the "firsts" that fill him with wonder and catch him completely unprepared, Fredrik Backman doesn't shy away from revealing his own false steps and fatherly flaws, tackling issues both great and small, from masculinity and mid-life crises to practical jokes and poop.
In between the sleep-deprived lows and wonderful highs, Backman takes a step back to share the true story of falling in love with a woman who is his complete opposite, and learning to live a life that revolves around the people you care about unconditionally. Alternating between humorous side notes and longer essays offering his son advice as he grows up and ventures out into the world, Backman relays the big and small lessons in life, including:
-How to find the team you belong to
-Why airports explain everything about religion and war
-The reason starting a band is crucial to cultivating and keeping friendships
-How to beat Monkey Island 3
-Why, sometimes, a dad might hold onto his son's hand just a little too tight.
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.
Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.
Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.
Us Against You by Fredrik Backman
After everything that the citizens of Beartown have gone through, they are struck yet another blow when they hear that their beloved local hockey team will soon be disbanded. What makes it worse is the obvious satisfaction that all the former Beartown players, who now play for a rival team in Hed, take in that fact. Amidst the mounting tension between the two rivals, a surprising newcomer is handpicked to be Beartown’s new hockey coach.
Soon a new team starts to take shape around Amat, the fastest player you’ll ever see; Benji, the intense lone wolf; and Vidar, a born-to-be-bad troublemaker. But bringing this team together proves to be a challenge as old bonds are broken, new ones are formed, and the enmity with Hed grows more and more acute.
As the big match approaches, the not-so-innocent pranks and incidents between the communities pile up and their mutual contempt grows deeper. By the time the last game is finally played, a resident of Beartown will be dead, and the people of both towns will be forced to wonder if, after all they’ve been through, the game they love can ever return to something simple and innocent.
Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo
Anna is at a stage of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. In her 40s, she has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother—the only parent who raised her—is dead.
Searching through her mother's belongings one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president—some would say dictator—of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive...
When Anna decides to track her father down, a journey begins that is disarmingly moving, funny, and fascinating. Like the metaphorical bird that gives the novel its name, Sankofa expresses the importance of reaching back to knowledge gained in the past and bringing it into the present to address universal questions of race and belonging, the overseas experience for the African diaspora, and the search for a family's hidden roots.
Examining freedom, prejudice, and personal and public inheritance, Sankofa is a story for anyone who has ever gone looking for a clear identity or home, and found something more complex in its place.
Transparent City by Ondjaki
In a crumbling apartment block in the Angolan city of Luanda, families work, laugh, scheme, and get by. In the middle of it all is the melancholic Odonato, nostalgic for the country of his youth and searching for his lost son. As his hope drains away and as the city outside his doors changes beyond all recognition, Odonato’s flesh becomes transparent and his body increasingly weightless. A captivating blend of magical realism, scathing political satire, tender comedy, and literary experimentation, Transparent City offers a gripping and joyful portrait of urban Africa quite unlike any before yet published in English, and places Ondjaki, indisputably, among the continent’s most accomplished writers.
The Cheat Sheet: It’s the game ...
Bree Camden is helplessly (and secretly) in love with her longtime best friend and NFL legend, Nathan Donelson. And that’s the least of her problems. After a car accident ended her chance of becoming a ballerina, Bree now runs her own dance studio if she can afford the rent to keep it open, that is.
When Nathan comes to the rescue and buys the entire building, a stubborn Bree is not happy about it. Rebelling with a couple okay, maybe more than a couple of tequila shots, she spills her deepest, darkest secret to a TMZ reporter. One viral video later, the world thinks Nathan and Bree are the perfect couple and Nathan’s publicist has an idea that could mean financial security for Bree.
The catch? They have to pretend to be in love. For three. whole. weeks. Is now the moment for Bree to finally act on her hidden feelings?
And is it possible that Nathan has been hiding some of his own?
SUFFERING WITHOUT BITTERNESS: Love Th...
In a society ruined by decades of hatred, divisions, and unthinkable crimes against humanity, there is an urgent need for a guiding star to steer our course back toward the promised land.
In his intriguing novel, Suffering Without Bitterness, the author, Tut Kuany Kok, laid a blueprint to help us redirect our efforts, reimagine our society, and re-engineer a cohesive nation where we can live without boundaries or confines.
The outstanding story of Athiei and Dhiel, two young people who hailed from once friendly communities but were turned rivals by the political decision-makers, melts hearts as it unfolds. Their struggle to mend the patches created over the decades of the divisive gospel of hatred met stiff opposition from their immediate relatives.
However, despite the difficulties encountered on the journey, they remained consistent with the cause they believed was worth dying for. The growing strong bond between the two in the face of unimaginable suffering, and their resilience to face it with love and compassion for all humanity, narrowed the valley separating the two communities and culminated in a momentous end.
Lucky Girl by Irene Muchemi Ndiritu
Soila is a lucky girl by anyone’s estimation. Raised by her stern, conservative mother and a chorus of aunts, she has lived a protected life in Nairobi. Soila is headstrong and outspoken, and she chafes against her mother’s strict rules. After a harrowing assault by a trusted family friend, she flees to New York for college, vowing never to return home.
New York in the 1990s is not what Soila imagined it would be. Instead of finding a golden land of opportunity, Soila is shocked by the entitlement of her wealthy American classmates and the poverty she sees in the streets. She befriends a Black American girl at school and witnesses the insidious racism her friend endures, forcing Soila to begin to acknowledge the legacy of slavery and the blind spots afforded by her Kenyan upbringing. When she falls in love with a free-spirited artist, a man her mother would never approve of, she must decide whether to honor her Kenyan identity and what she owes to her family, or to follow her heart and forge a life of her own design.
Lucky Girl is a fierce and tender debut about the lives and loves we choose—what it meant to be an African immigrant in America at the turn of the millennium, and how a young woman finds a place for herself in the world.
Country of My Skull by Antjie Krog
Ever since Nelson Mandela dramatically walked out of prison in 1990 after twenty-seven years behind bars, South Africa has been undergoing a radical transformation. In one of the most miraculous events of the century, the oppressive system of apartheid was dismantled. Repressive laws mandating separation of the races were thrown out. The country, which had been carved into a crazy quilt that reserved the most prosperous areas for whites and the most desolate and backward for blacks, was reunited.
The dreaded and dangerous security force, which for years had systematically tortured, spied upon, and harassed people of color and their white supporters, was dismantled. But how could this country--one of spectacular beauty and promise--come to terms with its ugly past? How could its people, whom the oppressive white government had pitted against one another, live side by side as friends and neighbors?
To begin the healing process, Nelson Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by the renowned cleric Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Established in 1995, the commission faced the awesome task of hearing the testimony of the victims of apartheid as well as the oppressors.
Amnesty was granted to those who offered a full confession of any crimes associated with apartheid. Since the commission began its work, it has been the central player in a drama that has riveted the country.
In this book, Antjie Krog, a South African journalist and poet who has covered the work of the commission, recounts the drama, the horrors, the wrenching personal stories of the victims and their families. Through the testimonies of victims of abuse and violence, from the appearance of Winnie Mandela to former South African president P. W. Botha's extraordinary courthouse press conference, this award-winning poet leads us on an amazing journey.
Dune by Frank Herbert
Dune is a 1965 epic science fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert, originally published as two separate serials in Analog magazine.
It tied with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal for the Hugo Award in 1966 and it won the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel.
It is the first installment of the Dune saga.
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it’s as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family’s dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. With the Padavanos, William experiences a newfound contentment; every moment in their house is filled with loving chaos.
But then darkness from William’s past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia’s carefully orchestrated plans for their future, but the sisters’ unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?
An exquisite homage to Louisa May Alcott’s timeless classic, Little Women, Hello Beautiful is a profoundly moving portrait of what is possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.
The Book Of Echoes by Rosanna Amaka
Brixton, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Michael is already on the wrong side of the law. In his community, where job opportunities are
low and drug-running is high, this is nothing new.
When Michael falls for Ngozi, a vibrant young immigrant from the Nigerian village of Obowi, their startling connection runs far deeper than they realize.
Narrated by an African woman who lost her life on a slave ship two centuries earlier, this powerful story reveals how michael and ngozi's struggle for happiness began many lifetimes ago.
Through haunting, lyrical words, one unforgettable message resonates: love hope and unity will heal us all.
We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pri...
Jen and Riley have been best friends since kindergarten. As adults, they remain as close as sisters, though their lives have taken different directions. Jen married young, and after years of trying, is finally pregnant. Riley pursued her childhood dream of becoming a television journalist and is poised to become one of the first Black female anchors of the top news channel in their hometown of Philadelphia.
But the deep bond they share is severely tested when Jen’s husband, a city police officer, is involved in the shooting of an unarmed Black teenager. Six months pregnant, Jen is in freefall as her future, her husband’s freedom, and her friendship with Riley are thrown into uncertainty. Covering this career-making story, Riley wrestles with the implications of this tragic incident for her Black community, her ambitions, and her relationship with her lifelong friend.
We Are Not Like Them is both a powerful conversation starter and a celebration of the enduring power of friendship.
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by ...
The Year of Women--in which I'm devoting 2021 to reading female authors only--continues with my introduction to Deesha Philyaw and her debut short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies. Published in 2020, this is a book that grows in richness with each entry. A lot of collections slot the best story first, sometimes using it as the title for the book. My favorite of Philyaw's nine stories were the last, then second to last, then third to last. Each involves a Black woman in America exploring her precarious relationship with the church. Her stories progress from okay to good to great.
In Eula, 40-year-old Caroletta rings in New Year’s Eve 1999 in a hotel two towns over with her childhood friend Eula, who definitely does not think of herself as gay and clings to the Christian ideal of saving herself for a good husband, a life goal Caroletta gave up on long ago, much to her lover’s surprise.
In Not-Daniel, a daughter visiting her ailing mother in hospice carries on an affair in the parking lot with a married man she meets visiting his terminally ill mother at the same facility. The affair sparked when she initially mistook him for a boy she attended junior high school with named Daniel McMurray.
In Dear Sister, a woman writes a letter to her half-sister to notify her that Wallace “Stet” Brown, the wayward father they share with three other sisters, has passed away.
SUFFERING WITHOUT BITTERNESS: LOVE TH...
In a society ruined by decades of hatred, divisions, and unthinkable crimes against humanity, there is an urgent need for a guiding star to steer our course back toward the promised land. In his intriguing novel, Where They Didn't Reach, the author, Tut Kuany Kok, laid a blueprint to help us redirect our efforts, reimagine our society, and re-engineer a cohesive nation where we can live without boundaries or confines.
The outstanding story of Athiei and Dhiel, two young people who hailed from once friendly communities but turned rivals by the political decision-makers, melts hearts as it unfolds. Their struggle to mend the patches created over the decades of the divisive gospel of hatred met stiff opposition from their immediate relatives.
However, despite the difficulties encountered on the journey, they remained consistent to the cause they believed was worth dying for. The growing strong bond between the two in the face of unimaginable suffering, and their resilience to face it with love and compassion for all humanity, narrowed the valley separating the two communities and culminated in a momentous end.