I only love girls and ladies who love to read

Beyoncé Knowles reading a book.


I only love girls and ladies who love to read.

Say Hello to the New Kindle 2

CLICK HERE TO BUY KINDLE 1 & KINDLE 2

Say Hello to The New Kindle
Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback

Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots

Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required

Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images

Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging

More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books

Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns

Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you

Large Selection: Over 230,000 books plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs available

Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise

The New York Times Book Review, Jason, the Prize Writers and the Golden Fleece

For an unknown writer from an unknown background to make it to the overrated New Times Book Review is like Jason in the quest for the Golden Fleece.

Getting a book reviewed by the highly coveted reviewers of The New York Times is determined more by the names of the publishers than the qualities of the book. An ordinary book published by Random House or a scrap book from Simon and Schuster will most likely be reviewed, but a masterpiece published by a small and unknown publisher will never be noticed by these so-called first class reviewers whose literary criteria for selecting books should not be the sine qua non of literary excellence in contemporary fiction and non-fiction, because it is more of playing to the gallery of the American publishing syndicate than intellectual pedantry.

The New York Times standard for Making the Cut is no literary benchmark for the best works in prose, poetry or drama, but simply another capitalist tool of the American mainstream media to uphold the social hierarchy of their hypocritical American intelligentsia.
They stage-manage the whole process and they dictate what makes the cut or not.

What makes The New York Times Best Selling List is not the quality of the book, but who wrote it and who published it. Even a collection of nonsense by a noise making American celebrity and published by any of the elitist publishers makes the list.
What an American intellectual sham!



Here is the question on the literary criteria of The New York Times Book Review and the smart answer from the Book Review Editor.
..................

Q. How do you decide what books to review — out of the thousands you receive every week? Perhaps this is just the classic journalistic question of what constitutes news, but beyond picking the obvious celebrity authors, what subtle criteria do you use to choose from among the many unknowns? Do reviewers you've used before ever suggest books to you? Thanks again. Love the Review.

— Steven Ager, M.D.
Philadelphia, Pa.


A. The first thing to say is that the Book Review has space, in any given week, for some 20 to 30 reviews, which sounds like a lot but in reality means we cover only a fraction of the books sent our way. Once the books reach us the process is rather simple. Each week three of us — the deputy editor, Bob Harris, our senior editor, Dwight Garner, and I — sort through the many galleys or advance reading copies that come in and distribute them, setting aside some for ourselves but passing the great majority along to our five preview editors, who all have specialties (in areas ranging from experimental fiction and poetry to history, science, philosophy, sports and popular culture, among others). A couple of weeks later, after the individual previewers have had a chance to evaluate all the books they've been assigned, they meet with the three of us and advise us which books should be reviewed. We then discuss possible reviewers. The previewers also write up brief reports on each book they've "skipped." Now and then Bob, Dwight, or I will take a second look at a skipped book and suggest that it be reviewed, after all. But most of the time we accept the verdicts of our colleagues, because they know the book best and also are so well versed in the area or field the particular author is working in.

Sometimes reviewers do suggest books, but since we see just about everything, and see it far ahead of time, it's not often an "outsider" knows about a book before we do.
..........................

But the fact is, 90% of the titles never make it to their desk, except the few ones recommended by the errand boys or publicists of the major publishers in the US.

Who is fooling whom?

Where They Do Not Read Books

To give you an idea of the thrust of my post, read James Brady's "Books, Writers And Fun" on the Forbes.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with over 140 million people, but Nigeria is a country where they do not read books.
Most of them do not read books, but they spend an average of $76 million monthly on GSM Recharge Cards!

The excuse for not reading books before the introduction of the GSM phones was lack of money to buy books, but we have now seen that their excuse was a LIE. They have only chosen to be ignorant of the facts of life.

What Nigerians read most are the social gossip newspapers and the very few society magazines they buy and pass around themselves. The pupils cannot avoid reading the recommended text-books and the students buy handouts from their lecturers or photocopy pirated text-books.

To know the literary culture of Nigerians, visit the few public libraries and you would be speechless. The public libraries in Nigeria look like ghost towns. There are more outdated books than new ones. The public libraries look like abandoned properties. The only functional libraries are the professional libraries run by the professional institutions where the Nigerians reading for their professional examinations throng until after the examinations. Once they have passed the mandatory examinations, they put away their text-books and handouts. Finis.

They have only studied their text-books to pass the examinations to acquire the qualifications to secure their professional positions and titular status symbols in their society.

There are over 35 million users of the GSM phones in Nigeria, but most of them are either semi-literates or intellectual illiterates.
Nigeria is a nation of talking heads hooked to their GSM phones, but with vacuous minds. Most of their telephone conversations have little or no economic benefit, except the millions of dollars spent on their phone calls and the GSM telecom operators spend the millions of dollars on their operations. But the consumers are getting poorer, because they are wasting their money on unprofitable conversations.

There are no regular literacy programs or occasions and most of the companies in Nigeria prefer to waste millions of naira on pornographic TV Reality Shows and musicals than promoting literary programs. The literary debating contests shown on Nigerian TV in the 1970s to the 1980s have disappeared and replaced by singing and dancing competitions for the ignorant and promiscuous pupils who are shown gyrating to the psychedelic music of American and Nigerian Hip-Hop singers who encourage them to have sex at random. I have never seen a musical video showing school girls or boys reading their books. What they are showing on TV are girls and boys being lured into premarital sex.

In my younger years, what I gave to my dates were books and chocolates and I never lured anyone of them to dance with me and sleep with me. I am still giving out books and spent over one hundred thousand naira to promote literacy among secondary school pupils in Nigeria. But only few people have emulated the example. They are more interested in exploiting the literacy programs for their get rich-quick schemes and scams. They go to the leading companies to sponsor their so-called reading and writing contests, but they end up spending more of the money on buying themselves new cars or getting other expensive social status symbols and soon abandon the literacy programs. Most of them are mere opportunists.

The most committed and dedicated Nigerians promoting literacy programs are Mrs. Koko Kalango of Rainbow Book Club and Mr. Olakunle Tejuoso of Glendora Bookshops in Nigeria.



Poverty is caused by illiteracy.

Only literacy can lift the over 78 million non-literates in Nigeria out of the dark abyss of ignorance and lead them into the mainstream of the 21st century.

Nigerians must spend more on books than on GSM Recharge Cards and devote more time on reading and listening to audio books than gossiping on their mobile phones.

Let us boast of the latest books we are reading and not boasting about the latest phones we have bought.

Let us stop the shameless parade of ignorance
In the childish and foolish masquerade of arrogance.

Let our works prove our worth.

Where They Eat Dogs

It has been an exciting and thrilling spring for me. The joy of every writer is the birth of a new born baby and books are the children of writers.

My new book is coming out next week and the first collection of my essays and commentaries will be released before fall.

The title of this post is the title of a novel I want to write on the Nigerian tribe known for eating dog meat. But I am using it to address the dog eat dog ways of life in Nigeria.

Many humans actually behave and live like dogs.
Remember what our Messiah Jesus Christ warned us about such people in Matthew 7:6. He also said that:
"By their fruits you shall know them."
That means, you can tell from their characters and separate the sheep from the goats.

See The Dogs and the Pigs in Nigeria.

Doris Lessing, 87, Wins 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature

Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing, the Persian-born, Rhodesian-raised and London-residing novelist whose deeply autobiographical writing has swept across continents and reflects her deep feminist engagement with the major social and political issues, won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature today.Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy described her as “that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny.” The award comes with a 10 million Swedish crown honorarium, about $1.6 million.

From the New York Times

Doris Lessing who will be 88 years old later this month, said she should have won the Nobel Prize for Literature years ago, because she has been mentioned on many occasions as being worthy of the highly esteemed literary honour since 40 years ago.Why did it take the Nobel Prize Committee decades to honour her for what they have called epicist of the female experience?

How can Lady Doris Lessing honour all the invitations to speak on her unique writings when she is already a weak old woman who would need more hands to attend to her daily needs at home and to escort her whenever she is going outdoors.

The Nobel Prize Committee has given the prize to writers who should not have won it before Doris Lessing. In fact, there are two previous winners who did not deserve the Nobel Prize for literature. And I have my doubts about the intellectual integrity of the Nobel Prize Committee responsible for awarding the most celebrated literary prize.

I thank God that Doris Lessing is still alive to receive this honour that she would have missed.

Recommended:

The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels (Paperback)

Shikasta: Re, Colonised Planet 5 (George Sherban Emissary) (Paperback)

Book Description:

A disturbing allegory, centered around a planet called Shikasta, which bears remarkable similarities to Earth. Through time, a higher planet, Canopus, has documented the progress of Shikasta and tried to distract its inhabitants from the evil influence of the planet Shammat, but the Shikastans continue to hurl themselves toward annihilation.

The next writer who deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature is Prof. Chinua Achebe, for his great contributions to the literary culture of Africa.

Other Books By Doris Lessing:

1. Canopus in Argos

Author: Doris Lessing;

2. The Golden Notebook

Author: Doris Lessing; Buy New: $10.85

3. The Grandmothers

Author: Doris Lessing; Buy New: $11.86

4. Shikasta

Author: Doris Lessing; Buy New: $19.00

5. Under My Skin

Author: Doris May Lessing;

6. Learning How to Learn

Author: Idries Shah, Doris Lessing; Buy New: $12.48

7. The Fifth Child

Author: Doris Lessing; Buy New: $10.16

8. The Sirian Experiments

Author: Doris Lessing;

9. The Diaries of Jane Somers

Author: Doris Lessing;