All posts filed under: Books

Which Were Your Favourite Books of 2013?

Published by Osemhen

 The year’s winding up, and as usual, I want to find out which of the books you read in 2013 had the most effect on you, and why. Please share your favourite fiction book, and your favourite non-fiction book. You can reply in the comments’ section and you can take the conversation to Twitter/Facebook with the hashtag #abookIreadin2013.  I’ll go first.  Favourite Fiction Book of 2013: This was a difficult choice because I read so many fantastic books this year. But Khaled Hosseini’s “And The Mountains Echoed” wins, beating “Children of the Jacaranda Tree” and “Burma Boy”. I love how Khaled writes, I love his stories, I love the sense of kinship I feel with Afghans after reading his books. I totally recommend this book. Favourite Non-Fiction Book of 2013: This was an easy choice. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In (labelled the “Feminist Bible” in some circles) is a thought-provoking book for women who have careers outside of their homes. I don’t agree with all of Sheryl’s ideas (e.g. I don’t think it’s as easy as she makes it …

This Is How.

Published by Osemhen

This is how to break up with the juvenile, codeine addict who fancies himself Goth because he paints his fingernails black and wears black eyeliner. This is how to pretend to be miserable, because you’re supposed to be miserable after a break-up. This is how to blog about it. This is how to live life; a series of Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sundays that never get old, never change. This is how to be a yuppie. This is how to dress like a yuppie, in chiffon blouses and pencil-skirts and kitty heels. This is how to spend like a yuppie; on expensive cab rides, handbags purchased from Dubai, ice cream at Coldstone and movies with friends. This is how to wrap your box braids in a bun. This is how to arch an eyebrow. This is how to smile at a man you like; coy and charming. This is how to smile at a man you don’t like; looking him straight in the eye. This is how to smile at a woman so she feels flattered. This is how …

Flight.

Published by Osemhen

K: I’ll pick you from the airport. Me: No, thanks. 10 hours later, I wonder how I’ll find my way from the airport. What if “Something” happens? What if my flight gets delayed and I take a taxi to my destination late at night and I get robbed or Something because I’m this petite, light-skinned woman (read: easy mark)? It’s impossible that I could be strong, you see. No one thinks you can be, not when you’re fair and petite and female. I should have taken K’s offer. Why do women like to be chased? Airport. The boarding announcement comes on and we all shuffle to the tarmac. All of us will be dead in 100 years. And it should evoke some sort of camaraderie, shouldn’t it? But it doesn’t. We are ignoring one another. It’s strange, considering that we could be deathday mates. What if? What if our plane, this plane that Arik has christened “Michael” were to fall out of the sky? We would die together. Approach the pearly gates together. Our families …

How To Make The Perfect Jollof Rice

Published by Osemhen

O.,   How do I make the perfect Jollof Rice?   R.     Dear R.,   Are you expecting a recipe? I have none. I do have a few tips I don’t mind sharing.   Cook for at least 4 people. Invite your friends/family. Or invite the strangers that you met at the bus-stop the last time it rained so heavy, you got to work at noon. Do you remember? You exchanged numbers with the guy and his sister and eventually hitched a ride with them when her fiance came to pick them. You’ve never gotten around to calling her. You should.   Blend a lot of onions into the tomatoes, don’t use tinned tomato puree. Add a quarter of a ginger root. Monitor the water, add it a little at a time.   Pretend you’re on a cooking show. Maybe Maggi Kitchen ( is that show still on air?) or Shokoyokoto. Say each step to yourself out loud. “Now, I’m adding a dash of Cameroon pepper.” It’s a lot of fun and no, …

Brother's Keeper

Published by Osemhen

 If you asked me, it, the beginning of the end, started one Sunday evening, with a phone call from my brothers’ principal that said Datonye and Damiebi had been suspended for a month. They could have been twins, my older brothers. Odd, considering their different mothers. Datonye, my half-brother, was a year older than Damiebi and the result of a fling my father never spoke about, not even to my mother. If she resented this or him, she hid it well. Damiebi – her firstborn, her pride – was, after all, my father’s legitimate heir. If Datonye resented this, he hid it even better. They were close, for half brothers. Best friends, confidants, twins if you didn’t know better. And so perhaps, you understand why they did what they did. “What offence this time?” my father asked, his face a mask of irritation. Two boys had been sighted kissing in an empty classroom on Friday night. Both had escaped, one without his ‘D. Carpenter’ monogrammed sweater. On one hand, there was Datonye, with his tattoos and love for …

Some Stories Shouldn't Have Titles

Published by Osemhen

There are many ways to destroy a life. Stop. It’s just life, you see. Just life. Everyday. Wake up, eat breakfast (rice), fight with little brother on the way to school, sit through boring classes, get caned by the soldiers ’cause we’re all such noise-makers, go for lunch break (meatpie and Coke), sit through more boring classes, submit assignments, go home, wash dishes, wash uniform, eat dinner (eba and okro), watch the news with Daddy, gossip with Mommy, sleep. It’s just life. Stop. Ordinary. Boring. Simple. Sitting in mass and wondering. Wanting more. More. More of something that doesn’t even exist. The sameness. God, the sameness. Homework. Books. Dirty socks. Missing earrings. Why is life nothing like American movies? It just happens. Someone’s birthday. Something different. Not so different, these parties are all the same. Too much rice, chicken fried too dry, Coke, Fanta and because someone is feeling cool, the occasional beer. The music will be too loud, and everyone will shout, “YAY!” every time the song changes. And sixteen is too young to …

Dear Random-Guy-Who-Asked-If-He-Could-Share-My-Mini-Umbrella-At-The-Busstop

Published by Osemhen

Dear Random-Guy-Who-Asked-If-He-Could-Share-My-Mini-Umbrella-At-The-Busstop, I don’t judge you for not having your own umbrella. I don’t even hesitate when you ask if you can share mine, despite seeing how small it is, and how it really is only meant to shelter one small person from the rain. Me. I don’t complain that I have to raise it really high now, to accommodate your hulk, or that my genuine L. Credi bag is now getting wet. I don’t complain because I’m only doing the Christian thing by sharing. There is love in sharing etc. etc. etc. However, you stretch my charity  by presuming that because I’m sharing my umbrella, then I am open to conversation. Please understand. Do not feel obliged to fill the silence. It may not be companionable, but it is certainly not awkward. I was lost in my thoughts before you came along, I will continue to be lost in my thoughts. Your attempts at conversation are, at best, distractions. At worst, annoying. “It’s like you’re not in a good mood,” you say after giving …