A Great Start and Looking Forwards to Next Time!

Last Saturday we had our first book club meeting. Students, lecturers, journalists, and activists came out in impressive numbers. In addition to setting up the future format of our club, we shared our favourite books which ranged from The Communist Manifesto to Long Walk to Freedom, from Half a Yellow Sun to Eli Wiesel’s Night. By far the most beloved author of the group was Chinua Achebe, whether for A Man of the People, The Trouble with Nigeria, the ever-classic Things Fall Apart, or his collections of short stories. Kenyan authors like Wangari Maathai, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Tom Mboya, and Koigi wa Wamwere, all also got mentions. Stories written or published by Kwani, Nairobi’s literature activists, also were suggested as essential for a future “book of the month.” Although our book club is Africa-focused, we realized that our members all have diverse interests and are widely read through the sciences and all areas of the humanities.

The necessity of one of the primary purposes of the group, to improve affordable and practical access to good books, was reconfirmed during this first meeting. This month’s book, It’s Our Turn to Eat, is very difficult to get without regular access to a computer (you can legally pay for a PDF copy online – see the post below, you can order it through Amazon.com if you have a credit card – or supposedly Mpesa might work, or you can go buy it in Kampala.

Realistically, none of these things work for us. Next month’s book, Long Walk to Freedom, is one of those books that everyone in the world, and especially everyone with any interest in Africa should read. University of Nairobi only has one copy, but, when teaching Politics and Government in South Africa, I requested the book to be temporarily moved from the law library way far away in Parklands to the main campus, and a certain librarian ornery librarian “misplaced” it. It’s a intolerable shame for us not to have access to these books, and from our discussions last Saturday, I firmly believe book sharing is the way to go. The more members we have, the more books we can get our hands on (and the larger archive we can build up), but if the numbers grow too large, we might consider dividing the group up into smaller circles for discussion while sticking to the larger group for socializing and sharing research and ideas.

I apologize for the hiccup with the venue. I think it’s unwise to try to hold anymore meetings at University of Nairobi, especially when places like Alliance Francaise are so welcoming and helpful.

We are still in the process of confirming next month's location. I've started the formal process of reserving a regular space at Alliance Francaise and will post here as soon as it is confirmed. Cross your fingers, and once the details are confirmed, please help us circulate the location and time to friends and colleagues.

We’re still working out what is the best way to do cocktails. Some suggested that everyone chip in next month to provide for the following month’s cocktails. This works for me, but for next month, how about I bring the cups, but other people volunteer taking a turn with either juice or spirits? If you’re willing, please drop me a text or something so I can coordinate that we don’t get a whole lot of juice but no spirits or vice versa.

Those who went with copies of It’s Our Turn to Eat, please either pass them on to other members as soon as you’re done, or put them back in my pigeon hole (Gandhi Wing 403 – department secretary’s office) by May 4th so others can have a turn.
Verify with Kwani about the book being sold?

Congratulations to Steve for becoming the official Bartender, to Laureen for becoming executive treasurer, and for Karanja and the nameless run-away journalist for heading the PR grand coalition. I’m working on providing you all with the tools you need - a 100ml measuring cup and stirrer; a tallying book and envelopes; and paper, a printer, and contacts, but please let me know what else you need for your job to be a fun one : ) Perhaps I could meet with the PR people just briefly sometime before our next meeting?

You may have noticed a wish list on the side of this post. These are books which I desperately need to get my hands on and the asterisked ones are available in Bookstop (Yaya). If anyone has any of these books and is willing to lend them to me for even a day, I would be forever grateful.

Proto-Catalogue: Please Add Yours

Books:

Mirza and Hinnebusch. Kiswahili
GRIPS. Diversity and Complementarity in Japanese ODA
Hafiz. Green Sea of Heaven
Koigi wa Wamwere. I Refuse to Die
Koigi wa Wamwere. Towards Genocide in Kenya
Creech. Walk Two Moons.
Stephen Chan and Ranka Primorac, Eds. Zimbabwe in Crisis
Lonely Planet. East Africa
Lonely Planet. Tanzania
Jane Barry and Jelena Dovdevic. What’s the Point of the Revolution if we can’t Dance?
Ruthie Rono, Ed. Perspectives of Psychology in Africa.
Linda Melvern. A People Betrayed
Yvonne Vera. Stone Virgins
The Rumi Collection
The Essentials of Luganda
Talk to the Scarf Cos the Face Ain’t Listening
A New Concise Xhosa-English Dictionary
Breaking into Japanese Literature
Kwani. Chimamnda Adichie. You in America
Kwani. Binyawanga Wainaina. Discovering Home

I will bring back many more in late July. If you’re willing to share your own personal collection, please click on “comment” and give me titles with authors if possible. I’ll then add them to the collection. If you’re busy and don’t have time to go through your books writing down titles, I would be happy to come do it for you at a time of your choice. Also, if anyone is considering donating books or electronic files of articles, journals, PDFs of books, etc. please let me know how I can collect them.

DVDs:

"Slumdog Millionaire"

Welcome to our Inaugural Meeting!

Today we're having our first meeting in about 45 minutes! We had arranged to meet in room 535 of the Gandhi Wing of the University of Nairobi, but at the last minute, that room was taken away, so the Alliance Francaise has kindly allowed us to use their garden. We'll assemble still at GW 535 to make sure everyone knows about the change in location, and then walk together to Alliance Francaise. I'll make a post shortly confirming where our permanent meeting location will be.

Our first book of the month is Michela Wrong's "It's Our Turn to Eat." After our meeting, I'll post a review of this book which reflects our book club's sentiments.

The following link takes you to a website where you can pay to legally download the book:

http://nairobinow.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/its-our-turn-to-eat-pdf-version-now-officially-available/

Check back for next month's meeting date and location, and please feel free to join us or send me an email with any inquiries.

Special thanks to Bookstop for their help and inspiration for this project.