Books.

I am home today.  Not out of personal choice, but due to a body breakdown.  That’s right, I am currently on a steady diet of sprite and water, because everything else comes out in incorrect ways.  But that’s not what I want to write about.

Today I finished a book, and it got me thinking. 

I’ve never been a big reader.  The whole not being able to pull words together on a page until I was ten because of an eye problem really put a cramp in my reading.  My mom use to pay me a dollar for every book I finished as an incentive.  (and when your allowance was 7 dollars a month, that was a lot of money.  Though I still don’t think I read very many books)

But here is the funny thing.  I love books.  I love book shelves.  I love having books, looking at them, and sometimes reading them.  When I first came to Africa longer term, I only brought 4 book with me and I believe I read them all, mostly out of boredom along the way.

The Irresistible Revolution, Charity in Truth, 12 Marks of the New Monasticism, and … I don’t remember the other one.  Maybe that was all.  They are all excellent, I recommend them.   (and of course my bible, but that doesn’t really count because you read it differently, not really a book you “finish”. )

Then I got a little more settled in Uganda and started buying books.  It was wonderful to be able to go from Mbarara, land of no bookstore, to Kampala… land of Aristoc (a bookstore with several branches throughout the city) and be able to come home with the spoils of a good book shop. (Note:  When I say “spoils” I mean I probably bought about 9-12 books throughout the year)  Books were pretty much the only thing I would spend money on.  Susanna and Peter also have an extensive library which I would occasionally visit and pick from.  I always lend out my library and it was great to be able to give out good books to people who needed a good read.  My friend John Bahati managed to read my whole book collection before I left.  Impressive.

The problem was, I would try to read the books I bought and couldn’t.  Let me give you an idea of some of the books I bought…

“Poor Story” by Giles Bolton…  Tried to start reading it, and realized that half of the book was a repeat of his other book about the Aid industry.  This annoys me.  If you are going to publish a book, it should have totally original content.  Just sayin’

“A knock at midnight: Sermons by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr”…  Also tried to start reading it.  However, I just couldn’t get into it.  It’s really good, and I will read it eventually I am sure. 

“Demystifying Participatory Community Development”…  Tried this one two, and met one of the best quotes I’ve ever read “Poverty is a lack of justice”… did that quote encourage me to finish the book?  Nope.

“Aids and Power”… I think I took it with me on a trip once, but never cracked it open. 

“The Challenge of Third World Development”… I didn’t buy this one (I don’t think I’d ever buy a book about development with the words “third world” in the title unless it cost less than a dollar).  I got it from a sort of “swap and share” bookshelf at a backpackers in Nairobi.  That was where I picked up one of the funniest books I’ve ever read… more on that later.  But this particular book I have not read.

“The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”…I did read this book, but that was because it is the material I teach.  In all honesty, I haven’t finished the last chapter completely.  Maybe I should do that.

“The End of Poverty”… I did not buy this one either, I got it from Susanna.  It is sort of an International Development staple.  Jeffrey Sachs is a major economist who thinks he figured out how to end poverty.  I studied his debates a lot throughout college.  I had never fully read his book until now.  And I almost read the whole thing.  I forced myself to, but then, 80 pages from the end, I had to give it back and didn’t care at all.  He repeats himself a lot, and I believe I had grasped his arguments.   

See, the problem was that these books are very heady.  Great, they are about development, which is what I do… but they are about development, which is what I do.  Get me?   I found that at the end of the day, I didn’t have the intellectual energy to put myself into stats, models, and heady understandings of development… when where I live no one had access to clean water or good sanitation. 

It didn’t click until the end of the 13 months what the problem was.  I needed fun books!  And if I had actually put thought into it, I would have realized that I had devoured fun books whenever I had picked them up.  

Ok, pictures for those of you who need distraction while reading!  

My books currently live under my bed, in falling apart card board boxes.  They are easy to get to. 

These ones live on my desk... for no good reason.  Except the 7 habits, which I use while working.

The best book of 2010 was :  “The 2 ½ Pillars of Wisdom” by Alexander McCall Smith.  This is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.  It’s like Frasier in book form, and if you know me… you might know that I love Frasier.  When I read it in Nairobi is provided me constant laughter and a great mental relief. 

Dante’s Inferno was also awesome.  I read it very quickly, and loved it.  What is it with Gorniks and Dante??

Finally, the realization of the need for un-development based books, was when, at the end of my first long stint in Africa, I read “The White Massai”.  Ok, it’s about Africa and is intense.  But it’s also good.  It was only then that I realized my reading problem.  It wasn’t so much that  I can’t read, or am bad at it, but that I was reading the wrong stuff for where I am living.

So I finished a book today.  I knew I was close to the end, so I challenged myself to finish in an hour.  I finished in 64 minutes. 

It was “A Year of Living Biblically” and it was decent.  It's by an agnostic man who tries to live the bible as literally as possible for a year to write a book about it.  It was funny at parts, but not as funny as I had expected after the first 2 chapters.  Eye opening at parts for sure.

I also have started and finished a book since arriving back… though it’s not much of an achievement.  It was “The Titans Curse:  Percy Jackson and the Olympians”.   Yes, it’s the third books of a children’s series.  Don’t judge. 

I have a Kindle now, which is awesome for Africa because the lights go out at night a lot.  I often curl up with my Kindle, which thankfully has a light attached which is powered from the Kindle battery, and read!  Fun things, like Percy Jackson.

Sadly, my bad habit of starting and not completing books continues.  Here is part of the list of books I have started and not yet finished.

“Come, be my light” by Mother Teresa

“Love Wins” by Rob Bell

“The Challenge for Africa”

“The State of Africa”… which I started forever and a day ago and have not picked up in a while.

Add those to the list above and I don’t even want to know how many that is!

However, I think that most of them will be passed over for lighter reading.  Percy #4 and Sherlock Holmes, here I come. 

Moral of the Story:  I don’t think that reading will be a problem for the next 6 months.  I think I’ve cracked the code.

(sorry about the length of this post, I hope you like to read)