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Flashback on July

To a large extent I sailed smoothly in July, working so hard to stick to my new schedule and order on my blog.

Hitch:  Dear readers, if you would recall, my secretary, Rejoice was involved in a lorry accident. Thank God she is better and now back at work. I wish to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all my friends and fellow bloggers who sent goodwill messages. I am truly appreciative. As you all know by now, Ghana lost her President Prof. John Evans Ata Mills on 24th July 2012. This tragedy has rendered me momentarily impotent, and I was unable to write and/or post anything meaningful for the latter part of July. once again, my heartfelt thanks and deep appreciation to all of you out there who have been variously showing your love and concern  for me during this national bereavement. May God almighty bless you all.

Friday Fictioneers: My participation in the Friday Fictioneers during the month of July has been random due to my involvement in a project which sees me busy most Fridays. As a result, I only did two issues of 100 words based on the respective prompts.

Playing at Poetry: I played with words and came out with six (6) poems in July; Poisoned Love; Mad For Your Love; Jaded; Sleep No More; Lamentations;  I Weep For You; and a special tribute in honour of our late President;  Rest In Peace, Mr. President.

Books Reviewed: For the month of July I was able to fulfil my promise of reviewing most of the four (4) books I had lined up: The fourth book, Chaka the Zulu by Thomas Mofolo would have been done tomorrow, but I must confess that I am unable to finish reading due to obvious reasons. The three reviews are:

  • The New Tribe by Buchi Emecheta
  • The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta
  • Contemporary African Short Stories, edited by Chinua Achebe and C. L. Innes. From this anthology I reviewed three (3) short stories for my Short Story Tuesday slot as follows: The Miracle by Ba’Bila Mutia; The Housegirl by Okey Chigbo; and Government by Magic Spell by Saida Hagi-Dirie-Herzim

Statistics: There was no  difference in my statistics for the Challenges. However, there was a slight upward shift of two (2) in my TBR list.

  • Africa Reading Challenge:            2/5
  • Back to the Classics Challenge:   2/9
  • The Classics Club:                        1/51
  • 2012 Reading Challenge (TBR):    4/50

Blogging:  This continues unabated. I made some new online friends through the blog, twitter and Facebook.

Awards:  I did receive the following three (3) awards in July. I am so grateful to these lovely bloggers for the honour. Do pop in over there and sample their wonderful posts.

Hello August

Ayebia Clarke Reading Challenge: It seems I am doing so well with the poetry. However, I need to up my reading and reviews if I am to meet the deadlines of the various challenges I’ve signed on to. Hm, so much to read and so little time, what with other distractions and schedules. You would think I’ve got enough sense in my head but no, I had to go and sign up for another challenge; The Ayebia Clarke Reading Challenge hosted by Nana of ImageNations. The basic rule in this challenge is to read any book published by Ayebia Clarke Publishers, ‘bespoke publishers specialising in quality African and Caribbean writing. You could pay a visit to Nana’s blog to find out more of this interesting challenge.

Below are the books I’ve lined up to read for August with a few carry-overs from July.

  • Faceless by Amma Darko
  •  Not Without Flowers by Amma Darko
  • Nicholas II, last of the Tsars by Marc Ferro
  • Kevin’s Last Walk, A Father’s Final Journey With His Son by Barry Adkins.
  • The Secret To Detoxifying Your Life And Love by Mariska Taylor-Darko (A special request from a friend to be read for review)
  • The Kite Runner by Khaled Husseni
  • Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Upcoming Reviews:

  • Chaka The Zulu, Thomas Mofolo
  • Faceless by Amma Darko
  • Not Without Flowers by Amma Darko
  • Nicholas II, last of the Tsars by Marc Ferro

Wish me luck, my dear friends!  Shalom