I read for much of my day. At work mostly on screen, with a quick scan through some of the local Ghanaian newspapers at the beginning of the day, usually when the Internet is not working! I suppose the nearest thing to relaxed reading at work would be the online serialisation of Alexander McCall Smith’s latest novel, Corduroy Mansions, which is on the Telegraph website. It has a large cast of characters, of whom I do tend to lose track, especially when I don’t read a chapter or two for a few days! I love the illustrations on the web pages as well..
At home, it is a more motley group. I’ve just started Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish policemen’s union, which my sister recommended. Another complex crime novel with elements of alternate reality. And it does take a bit more work than some of your average crime fiction. Unusually I have two non-fiction on the go: The long tail by Chris Anderson and Emma’s war by Doborah Scroggins. I remember hearing about the former in one of the British Council’s Management Express newsletters [wonder what happened to them?]. It contradicts the usual notion that 20% of goods sold make 80% of the money… and is applied very much to e-based products, though not exclusively so. Analogies to the beginning of Sears Roebuck in the US were interesting from a historical point of view, especially with the major current changes in retailing going on in the US, Europe, and more affluent parts of the world.
I do have to get on with reading the other non-fiction book, as it is a selection for the Accra Book Club, whose selections I have been reading, but whose meetings I have missed over the last year or so – due to R’s not being well, and my own guilt feelings about being out.
To help me sleep I usually read something – mostly library journals from the UK and the US, and most recently Ghana. I hardly finish an article before eyes close, I turn off the light, and fall asleep to the BBC which will go off after half an hour or so.
