Skip to main content

Blogger Spotlight: Reading Pleasure ~ A blog of books and literature

Celestine Nudanu is the owner and creator of Reading Pleasure ~ A blog of books and literature. She is from Ghana where she lives and blogs from. She studied English with Theatre Arts for her undergraduate program and International Affairs for her graduate degree. She is a Senior Assistant Registrar, coordinating Administrative Systems with the University of Professional Studies, Legon, Accra-Ghana. She is also author of HAIKU RHAPSODIES (Verses from Ghana)


What inspired you to start a book blog?
I've always loved reading; from as far back as I can remember. In school I used to sit up late with my friends discussing books we had read. So the love for books and the discussions led me to believe that I could review the books I read on my blog, especially when I realised others were doing exactly that on their blogs. I believe that reviews on my blog would generate a healthy discussion among book lovers all over the blogosphere. 

Do you blog for a living?

No, I do it for pleasure. 

Of course, hence the name Reading Pleasure. How did you fall upon the name “Reading Pleasure”?
(laughing) 😃 oh well I guess anytime one reads, it's either for knowledge or pleasure. I made up my mind that any visitor to my blog should read my works, either my poetry or my reviews for pleasure. All visitors to my blog are guaranteed much pleasure. 

That, I can attest to. For how long have you been blogging and for how long do you look forward to blogging?
I've been blogging for four years now. I started in March 2012. Mary, so long as I have life, I shall go on blogging. 

What is the highest amount of book you’ve read in a year? 
Hmm! You've really asked a question. I used to read avidly and voraciously, consuming any book that caught my fancy. But I must admit that these days my reading is on the low side due to ill health and bad eyesight. In my good years I've read about fifty or more books in a year. 

How many books do you look forward to reading this year?
The year has almost ended but I can safely say I've read about fifteen books this year which is not good enough despite my ill health.
Actually, along my blogging journey, I developed the passion for haiku, the three lined Japanese poetry form. And this year, I self-published my first collection of haiku, Haiku Rhapsodies which was launched on April 23, and now available on Amazon. 
Writing haiku, sending the poems over to haiku experts poets in my country Ghana and overseas for editing and re-editing before the final publication, was quite stressful but very much rewarding. This project took up much of my time but then it also helped me to take my mind off the sickness.

How do you make time to read? When do you read?
I read anytime, anywhere especially when the book is so good. 

How do you decide the books you read? Where do you buy or borrow them?
I read books I'm attracted to; sometimes the blurb pulls me in to buy a particular book; sometimes the cover. I also read books based on the genre. I love thrillers, especially based on conspiracy theories. I love books on the holocaust; romance and contemporary fiction. I read African writers too.

Almost all the books in my possession are books that I bought myself. Any borrowed book is returned immediately after reading.  

Actually I'd rather buy a book than trendy clothes (laughing). Right now I've had a model library ordered for our new home that we moved into and I can't wait to have it installed by the workmen for me to arrange all my books on the shelves. Hundreds of them, both adult and children books! 

That sound interesting. Who are your three most read authors?
Quite a lot of them I dare say. But the three most read I'm afraid are not African authors; Sidney Sheldon, John Grisham and Robert Ludlum.

Your favourite (African) writer?
Ama Ata Aidoo, without a doubt. 

Are you participating in any reading challenges? 
I started the Classic Club Challenge but dropped off due to circumstances beyond my control.

Five African literature blogs you recommend and follow?
I follow a lot of book blogs, Mary. Most of the blogs I follow talk about and review books, not necessarily on African literature. But the blogs that mainly focus on African literature that readily come to mind are: Kinnareads; your own blog, Mary Okeke Reviews; Bookshy, The African Book Addict! and ImageNations. I follow all these blogs and I highly recommend them.

10 African literature, you have read, really enjoyed and highly recommend.
Wow, that is a tough one. (smiling) 
  1. The Joys of Motherhood, by Buchi Emecheta
  2. Anowa by Ama Ata Aidoo
  3. Changes by Ama Ata Aidoo 
  4. The Concubine, by Elechi Amadi
  5. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  6. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie
  7. The Beggars Strike by Aminata Sow Fall
  8. Tales from Different Tails by Nana Awere Damoah
  9. Most Eligible Bachelor by Empi Baryeh
  10. Midwife to Destiny by Nana Prah
Actually, the last two are romance reads from Africa, precisely Ghana and I love these two authors so.  I really enjoyed reading all the above and although some of them were read ages ago, the stories were so profound that their impact resonates with me even today. 

How do we contact you?
Link to 



from Mary Okeke Reviews http://ift.tt/2fEBHa6

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sphere

Photograph by Elena Saavedra Buckley. Once when I was about twelve I was walking down the dead-end road in Albuquerque where I grew up, around twilight with a friend. Far beyond the end of the road was a mountain range, and at that time of evening it flattened into a matte indigo wash, like a mural. While kicking down the asphalt we saw a small bright light appear at the top of the peaks, near where we knew radio towers to occasionally emit flashes of red. But this glare, blinding and colorless, grew at an alarming rate. It looked like a single floodlight and then a tight swarm beginning to leak over the edge of the summit. My friend and I became frightened, and as the light poured from the crest, our murmurs turned into screams. We stood there, clutching our heads, screaming. I knew this was the thing that was going to come and get me. It was finally going to show me the horrifying wiring that lay just behind the visible universe and that was inside of me too. And then, a couple se...
Post a Comment
Read more

DEMOCRACY DAY SPEECH BY PMB; MAY 29 2016

www.naijaloaded.com My compatriots, It is one year today since our administration came into office. It has been a year of triumph, consolidation, pains and achievements. By age, instinct and experience, my preference is to look forward, to prepare for the challenges that lie ahead and rededicate the administration to the task of fixing Nigeria. But I believe we can also learn from the obstacles we have overcome and the progress we made thus far, to help strengthen the plans that we have in place to put Nigeria back on the path of progress. We affirm our belief in democracy as the form of government that best assures the active participation and actual benefit of the people. Despite the many years of hardship and disappointment the people of this nation have proved inherently good, industrious tolerant, patient and generous. The past years have witnessed huge flows of oil revenues. From 2010 average oil prices were $100 per barrel. But economic and security co...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Private Life: On James Baldwin

JAMES BALDWIN IN HYDE PARK, LONDON. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALLAN WARREN. Via Wikimedia Commons , licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 .   In his review of James Baldwin’s third novel, Another Country , Lionel Trilling asked: “How, in the extravagant publicness in which Mr. Baldwin lives, is he to find the inwardness which we take to be the condition of truth in the writer?” But Baldwin’s sense of inwardness had been nourished as much as it had been damaged by the excitement and danger that came from what was public and urgent. Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni’s Room dramatized the conflict between a longing for a private life, even a spiritual life, and the ways in which history and politics intrude most insidiously into the very rooms we try hardest to shut them out of. Baldwin had, early in his career, elements of what T. S. Eliot attributed to Henry James, “a mind so fine that it could not be penetrated by an idea.” The rest of the time, however, he did not have this luxury, as pub...
Post a Comment
Read more