Happy pride month 🌈
Here are a list of books I recommend for reading . These books not only expose you to the realities of Queer and trans people, they validate their living . They celebrate queer and trans love in all its beauty. A thread 👇🏿
Ezioma when you say you don’t read intellectually stimulating books what do you mean? Do you know how intellectually stimulating fiction is? Don’t sell yourself short because of aspire to perspire people. The wealth of knowledge & intellect in fiction, non- fiction could never!
How many times will I tell you guys that I read for fun? 😂 Stop pointing to my reading 100 books when you want to come for me. I agree that I don't read intellectually stimulating books. I have never even said that I do, so come for me correctly. 😂
I’m going to tell you this for free. Put this book on your reading list and read it. Thank me later with gifts. You know there are some books that you would read and for days you won’t be able to move past the story, yes this is one. Read it & come back with thanksgiving offering
Writers are not good people. They would pretend to fall in love with you, collect all their information and go and use it to write a book. My dear you are only a research material, break up with that writer today!!
I hate it when I say I’m a reader and people assume it’s self help so they start giving me self help and business books and when I say they go on and on about knowledge. I hate it so much . I can understand development and the bottom billion from the lens of fictional stories!!
Buying books for me is a love language but please know the books. There are some books you would buy for me and I would be angry so let me be specific. Buying African literature and poetry is a love language. The poetry must be African / middle eastern to be safe. Let’s be guided
Ended the year drenched in Vagabonds! And no I would not come out of it. I have made a home there. I like it there… I really do , my mini review is on IG
Contemporary African writers make me happy, the ones who are abandoning the rules & writing. You can’t fit them in existing boxes even if you try. Their writing is in a league of their own. I mean just look at what Eloghosa did with Vagabonds! and what Akwaeke has been doing
First of all, put Ayesha Haruna on your reading list and read her!
Ayesha Haruna is a prolific writer and I don’t think we read her enough. I don’t think we talk about her enough.
Poets come out!!! Those ones are the worst. Especially the love poets. They would leave you and use you to write heartbreak poems as if it was you who left. They would gaslight reality out of you . My dear break up with a poet today!
Today I am plugging you on to a poetry collection. This book is more than a poetry collection, it’s a dirge, a prayer, a wish, a thanksgiving to women and our bodies. The audiobook is even best!
Put this poetry collection on your tbr and thank me later. Ama Asantewa is a gift🤎
One of the interesting things about reading is that sometimes you see yourself clearly in the pages of a book. Everything Good Will Come is one of such books for me. The richness and depth of the story Sefi Atta has spurned is worth studying. I’m grateful for writers like her.🫶🏽
Which of Akwaeke’s books are your favorite? Mine is You made a fool of death with your beauty, dear Senthuran and Vivek. I’m a die hard fan of YMAFODWYB. I can’t get over her
Unpopular opinion - Tsitsi should have stopped at nervous conditions.
Here me out please. While the rest of the two books explored very important themes, it also dragged the story and made it tiring to read. I think they would have done better as stand alones
I still can’t articulate how I feel about zlibrary shutting down. As a reader, gives me access and opportunities to read more books and as a student it gives me access to articles and books I won’t find in my library. So believe me when I say my body is still in denial
Nowadays when I think of my father I think of small worlds. Like Stephen in this book i yearn to know who my father is? Who was he when he was 20? Who was he before he became my father? What did he dream of? What is his fav food? What makes him smile? What is his story?
Unpopular opinion
There was a disconnect in the two stories - Eniola and Wura’s stories. It felt like the ending was rushed and the connection was an afterthought.
There were so many unexplored issues that were left hanging. The story drags till about 50% of the book. Sigh
Arinze Ifeakandu has written an important book that everyone should read. This book is on my top recommendation list. 9 stories of queer men navigating love, secrecy and what it means to be queer in contemporary Nigeria.
Find my full review here 👇🏿
Yaa Gyasi defrauded everyone with this book. I can’t begin to point out the inaccuracies in this book but hey she wrote for diaporan gaze so we should keep quiet. To think that she had funding to research, it really pains me that she wrote Ghana’s history in the way she did
I got a book mail and I am in stitches. Thank you
@eloosunde
for all that you are and for spinning magic into the world. Thank you for Vagabonds! They would forever stay with me.
Ps: signed copies are my favorite thing to have m🧡😍❤️
Just this year
Arinze Ifeakandu wrote an important book
Eloghosa gave us a Bible
Akwaeke gifted us with the messiest and most beautiful love story you would ever see. They also bared their souls to us.
Aiwanose reminded us of the burden of womanhood
I am full..
Unpopular opinion
Tomi Adeyemi should have stopped at children of blood and bone. Children of virtue and vengeance is an unnecessary drag and this story does not need a trilogy.
Ps: she is currently writing a last one, children of something something and anarchy ☹️
#booktwt
Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it’s gone, nothing is whole again…
#booktwt
I speak to my characters . That’s why I love reading. I’d be shouting at Feyi to not be stupid and to kiss Alim and be shouting at Nasir to get away. I live with my books and my characters😂 we are never bored
You see this book son of the house. It traumatized me. I could never stop thinking about the main character. I would be sleeping and all of a sudden open my eyes and stare at my ceiling thinking about the character and my heart would be aching . Physical pain
I’m tweeting for those of us who are still on our 1st book for the year or whose reading goal for the year is 5. I see you. I feel you. Thé year has been hard and often my mind is not here. But we are still reading even if it is a sentence a day, a page a week, we are reading.
You see Makumbi’s First woman, if you read it carefully and intentionally there are a lots of learnings and eye openings you can pick from it from the first page to the last. There are so many themes and conversations you can have from that one book. It’s so powerful
Sometimes I am awed by my own understanding and knowledge about African literature, about books, about the social issues discussed in books. Like girl! Take your flowers
Vagabonds! is healing… there is a magic about that book. It heals you in ways you never imagined. No matter what you are feeling, there is a story that carries the healing for it.
Yesterday was reading for aesthetics, today it is authors coming for readers for not promoting their work when they themselves have made zero efforts at promoting it. Your socials are not good for your book but mine is. Wow. Today people are spoiling for fights but I choose peace
What are some of the random moments in a book that comes to mind sometimes?
For me, from Vagabonds! When Helen was leaving B and she said “I love you, I love you but this thing is not good for my heart”
The people who have read these books should come in front .
In summary, tell me
1. What these books are about?
2. How your reading experience was?
3. What the genre is? I mean it’s YA but is it also fantasy?
Also please share a beginners guide to understanding these books
Bookish people are making me proud. People are making Vagabonds! tote bags and bookmarks because of me. Hei🥹. Nooo you people deserve my right breast. You must make more merch. People must know about Vagabonds! They must carry it wherever they go. Vagabonds! are here to stay
Unpopular opinion - Thread
1. The title of this book is unnecessary, it holds no bearing to the story-feels like a marketing tools
2. Thé représentation and framing was all wrong. A Ghanaian who owns hostels in Ghana and can afford round trips to the US & back is not poor
Woman, Eat me whole by
@poetra_asantewa
is beautiful. I love I love I love it so much I never tire of listening to it. It’s top top tier content and a book everyone must have and read. This book touched my core, spoke to my being. I love it and I recommend it.
I am forever grateful to Caleb for small worlds and Eloghosa for Vagabonds!. These books have held me in a way that I can’t give language to. They have had a profound effect on me in really big ways. I am grateful to have existed in your time
A mere fortnight ago, I was a woman with a husband who filled her world with shiny, pearlescent moments.I am now a woman with blood-stained jeans and hollow eyes, one who screams at her sister and frightens her mother & cries so hard it makes her choke. A woman garroted by grief
This beauty is a year already 🖤- a home of beautiful nonsense.
What are some of your favorite memories from V! and what are some of the quotes that have stayed with you?
I’d start- People who know loss know this: there’s nothing harder to let go of than an already-gone thing
There are stories and there is ALL MY RAGE. Top top top book . yes All my rage has been captured succinctly in this book. You would be furious, angry, annoyed, irritated , enraged and sometimes you would feel all of these emotions at once. I totally recommend
First liners with Peace Adzo Medie
✨Elikem married me in absentia, he did not come to our wedding - His only wife
✨My mother said she’d always known - Nightbloom
@PeaceMedie
A warning and a prayer 🙏🏿 . Ukamaka Okisakwe
@MsOlisakwe
really served us well with these two very different but great books. Which one of them have you read? Which is your fav?
When Grandmother still bathed me, she would say, “Squat and I wash your ruins…
Giibwa says her mother calls it “the burden” – “Did you wash your burden properly”
Hello
#BookTwitter
let's do something real quick. So you'll quote a line from an African book, and someone would guess which book it is.
I'll go first.
"Love is blood choosing blood. Nothing to do with the heart. The heart speaks, you can reason with it. But blood?"
One day I will talk about how Vagabonds! has held me through it all, softly and kindly. Not providing me with answers but giving me understanding to my whys. whispering kind words to me and saying this is how it is and it isn’t your fault. The world is broken
I am convinced that the photographer loved my Afro or maybe it’s my style because I be featuring in all the photos. Also see how
@this_abena
has posed in the first frame without me. While I was collecting gossip😂.
I also just want to add that if you are about to read Vagabonds!, listen to the audiobook alongside. I promise you it’s a whole new experience with the audiobook! Take it from me
2 years a senior Vagabond! I currently own 5 copies
3 paperbacks
1 soft copy
1 audiobook
I need the hard back, the US and Nigerian cover and then I would be complete. Throw in some merch and my life would have meaning
May this beast continue to move through us & we through it
Eloghosa wrote this first! It’s 28th February 2023. I was in the pharmacy when I heard that the anti- LGBTQI bill has been passed by Ghana’s parliament
“She understands, she really understands, that it’s okay to choose yourself. And that you can—and maybe should—leave home, if all home knows how to do is kill you.”
Vagabonds!
If you are in Accra tomorrow, come to our book club discussion. I promise it’s going to be so much fun. Drinks, games, books, laughter and some premium bookish content.
@Dz_bene
and I promised you a great time
I have this weird habit of thinking of people beyond their stories from books. I want to know their life updates and how it has been since I last read their stories. Like I think of how Alim and Feyi’s love is doing. I also think about Eve alot and how she has been hanging on
I just randomly remembered how Yejide found out that Akin had an erectile problem and I’m annoyed all over again. She found out in her hair salon , through customer chitchat about sex. That a penis rises and stands strong. Herh!!!! Akin was wicked period
I hope you have the courage to see endings as beautiful beginnings, stepping stones. I hope you have the courage to let peace, healing, love and opportunity move through you. I hope you have the strength to keep pressing for what you want. I hope you have the courage to let go.
My review of
@azemezi
You made a fool of death with your beauty is out on and . Also if you are traveling this week outside Ghana, please grab the aviation magazine in your flight and open to page 12 , you will find me there🥹😌
Join our bookClub!
Two Bookclub : Books and Vibes 📚
Two bookclub is a bookclub for people looking to rekindle their love for reading, people looking to connect with other readers or find community.
Join our bookclub:
@Dz_bene
Please rt.
Today is Vagabonds! day and I just want to say I’m grateful for the stories that live in us through the pages of this book. Shoutout to the audiobook narrators- it was your version I first met and fell in love with. Thank you you for giving me a home to dwell in.
Body agency is like a taboo in a patriarchal world like ours. How dare you want to have breast implants or reduction, how dare you want a child but without a father. How dare you think of sperm donors. Kawakumi gets us to reflect on our politics with this book. 👇🏿
“There was kindness in the way she was losing Nsuuta”
This quote from First woman has stayed with me since I met it. I sit with it a lot. This is the kind of kindness we all need to make the burden of life easier to carry.
May there be kindness in the way people treat you & vice