All posts filed under: Books

Books. Reading. Book Reviews. Book Recommendations.

Book Review: “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgensten

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.” Since I moved back home to Harare one of the biggest things I was missing from my Jozi life, was my book club. Not only did I miss the regular meet-ups with witty and feisty women-folk having very passionate (and usually loud) discussions over a selected book, but I also missed having a new book to read every month. So I consulted with a friend and we co-founded a book club together here. “The Night Circus” was my pick and the first book of the year. Now even though I am normally a big lover of “out there” and super fantastical books, this one pushed those limits and had me side-eyeing it…many a time.

10 Riveting Books That Have Stayed With Me

Have you ever read a book and it’s just stayed with you? Have you every found yourself carrying around characters, story-lines and dialogue around with you, the same way you would tangible memories you’ve made in real life? This list of books I’ve compiled today is made up of my literary ex-lovers (read: the kind that I actually want to remember and whom I do so quite fondly). These are books that I fell in love with on first read and that have stayed with me over the years. It was hard to narrow down the selection to just 10 books, but after many elimination rounds (a la American Idol style) these are the ones that were top of my mind and made the cut…

Book Review: “Me Before You” by Jojo Moyes

“The thing about being catapulted into a whole new life– or at least, shoved up so hard against someone else’s life that you might as well have your face pressed against their window– is that it forces you to rethink your idea of who you are. Or how you might seem to other people.”  Every year, or so, there appears a book whose very essence becomes ubiquitous among book lovers and non-book lovers alike. It starts off with spotting a random review in a magazine one day to coming across a full-on praise piece for it online. After a while, it just seems to be everywhere! Jojo Moye’s book “Me Before You” did all those things. I definitely feel the strength of its popularity is based on word-of-mouth marketing and personal recommendations. For a book that I’d heard only great things about, what impressed me the most is that I was still clueless as to what the whole plot of the book was when I eventually got around to reading it. The only heads up …