Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/714702
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 14 AUGUST 2016 11 Feature summer reading… I simply happened to have picked it up this month and am really enjoying the ride. It's been out since 2013 but although I like the author's past books, I've been postponing it because its synopsis never engaged me. "However, once I got over the cover, I real- ised I was so gravely mistaken! I'm hooked, it's written beautifully and is a disquisition on race in America that keeps constantly bringing me back to realities here in Malta and all over Europe. "Adichie, through her lovable characters, gives an inside view of being Nigerian in the US, of the latent racism and tribulations of making "the move" from a placid life back home to the promised life in America. "It breaks down many misconceptions of being African in the twenty-first century. "Do read it if you enjoy lifespan novels written flowingly, and plenty of musings and asides that will have you nodding in agree- ment." Executive Chair- man of the National Book Council and freelance writer Mark Camilleri whose upcom- ing book 'A Ma- terialist Revision of Maltese History: 870 – 1919', analyses the role of the Sette Gi- u g n o riots in re-identifying Maltese people as more than just oppressed, recommends an entirely different sort of book. "I don't have enough time for pleasure reading as most of the books I read are ei- ther work or study-related, but the most recent novel which I have read exclusively for pleasure was 18% Gray by the Bulgar- ian author Zachary Karabashliev and it was great fun. "The style of the novel is somewhat simi- lar to Alek Popov's who I think will be one of the guests of the Malta Book Festival this year." Lara Calleja might not be a household name yet, with her de- but novel 'Lucy Min?', but her novel has been praised for its depic- tion of youth and the challenges of growing out of its inherent youth. Her book also achieved record sales on the book-signing night, and Calleja has also made a mark for her work as a librarian at the Pembroke library, where some of her initiatives in the past five years have led to a significant rise in loans. "My most favourite 'summer' book would be 'Stories of Eva Luna' by Isabel Allende. "I did not read it this summer, but I re- member reading it one particular summer, and it remains one of my favourite books for the period – one of those you revert to over and over again. "The book is full of short stories, one dif- ferently more enchanting than the other, and all recounted and presented with magi- cal and vibrant descriptions, which set you into a whole new, beautiful dimension – in an enchanted forest, in a room with a girl with long hair called Belisa Crepusculario, in a remote village with two women who join forces to ruin the life of their abusing hus- band – all stories are so different but con- nected by the same voice and by the same positively magical feeling every story leaves behind. "The characters are at once strong and weak, and they fight against odds. They are proud and shameless, weak and beaten, feisty and daring. It's the strength of its char- acters and the presence of the vibrant magic of Latin America in every tale which makes this book so special to me..." Poet translator, editor, and cul- tural organiser, Antoine Cassar has a number of publications under his belt. Perhaps his best known works include his poem Passaport*, a work centreing around notions of integration and of creat- ing a world where passports are no longer necessary, and his equally impressive poem Merhba which won him the Grand Prize of the United Planet Writing Contest in Sep- tember 2009. * Passaport has since become available in nine languages, and it is a protest poem de- nouncing a long, non-exhaustive list of bor- der absurdities and atrocities, nested inside a love poem to humanity as a naturally mi- grating species. Its proceeds go to associa- tions that provide direct assistance to refu- gees in 14 countries. "These days I'm re-reading Ruth Padel's 'The Mara Crossing' (Chatto & Windus, 2012), a sharp, informative and physically moving discussion of migration. "Each chapter is dedicated to a different type of migration in nature – from cells to plants to birds to beasts to homo sapiens sapiens. (That's two 'sapiens' we've baptised ourselves with, and yet we are the species with the least freedom of movement). "The book has been described as 'experi- mental' for combining prose and poetry, a format which can be traced back to Dante's 'Vita Nuova,' and which I'd like to read much more of. The dialogue between the two 'modes' of writing is refreshing, like breath- ing in and breathing out, and the ebb-and- flow tension between the two experiences of reading makes both more stimulating. "There's one poem called 'Maltese Fishing Boat and Broken Net', which I'll let read- ers discover for themselves. One of my fa- vourites is 'Purple Ink', a six-line poem that plants a sad bureaucratic stamp on the wall of the heart. "The reason I'm re-reading The Mara Crossing four years later is that the en- tire book can be considered a build-up to the final and longest poem, 'Time to Fly'; I heard it live at the Migration Museum in Shoreditch last June, and I'd like to experi- ence the full sense of unravelling and release one more time. Built on the anaphora 'You go because…', Whitmanian in its rhythm and direct, sensual approach to the reader, this last poem is broad in scope but does not embrace more than it can handle, strung as it is with specific images and reasons, each one more laden with emotion and meaning in the light of all the book has discussed be- fore. "This is one of those rare books that en- deavour to take poetry beyond poetry, through closely engaging dialogue with an- other artistic mode, in this case prose sto- rytelling and discussion. This is a delightful way of reaching out to readers who may not usually seek out poetry. The combination does risk comprising the quality of the po- etry, but in this book at least, the dialogue with prose enriches it." Although best known for his s o n g - w r i t i n g , Gerard James Borg has also offered up two enthralling and intriguing best- selling works, 'Madliena Married Men' (2015) and 'Slie- m a Wives' (2013). "A book I have just finished reading is 'Headhunter' by Jo Nesbo, who is a well known Norwegian author, known for crime stories. "I would say that this book is 'a book for all seasons,' and it is intriguing, with a great twist, which is how I like books to be! It is written in the first person, and the detail of the plot is very impressive. "It will surely get you sipping your Aperol Spritz under the umbrella and turning the pages. "Of course, another one I'd recommend is 'Madliena Married Men' (ooops) Well, it has the intrigue, the plot, the scandal, and is also a page-turner! Another good excuse for a Spritzer under the sun.... Make it two!"