Accra Book Club discussed Harper Lee’s work

The recent news of the death of Harper Lee brought to mind the Accra Book Club’s choice of Go set a watchman and To kill a mockingbird as our first reads for 2016.

I think all of us had read To kill a mockingbird in younger days (usually in secondary school/high school, so this was a while ago) and/or seen the award winning film starring Gregory Peck as Atticus.

So it was definitely re-reading a book from an earlier era, in the context of also reading a sequel (by when it takes place)/ prequel (when it was actually written).

We all agreed that To kill a mockingbird was definitely the better book, and still worth reading.  It really is a classic of the 20th century.

Advertisement

Launch of “The Ghana cookbook” in Accra

The end of January saw one of those typical Accra days when there seemed to be a multitude of events all happening on the same day.

Not unsurprisingly I chose to attend two book events – back to back: a long awaited cookbook launch and the first Accra Book Club gathering of the year.

The first was the launch The Ghana cookbook, by Fran Osseo-Asare and Barbara Baeta, at Flair Catering. I have followed the first author’s food blog, (Betumi Blog ) for several years, so I was aware that this cookbook has been in the making for quite some time.

The audience was mostly female (not too surprising) and many were not young (probably not too surprising either). Apart from some historical background provided by both the authors/cooks, I particularly enjoyed Elizabeth Ohene’s tribute, part of which is mentioned in the following article .

And to top off the occasion there were delicious Ghanaian small chops, including one or two which brought back memories of life in Kumasi in the not so easy 1980s.

I had already bought a copy of the cookbook, but at least I managed to get it specially autographed.

I am not a real foodie, as I don’t cook much, but I do like reading through cookbooks and recipes.   And indeed I do have a few shelves of them!