So, ........hmmm, thanks Franklin, for nominating me to continue with this chain . but I cant for the life of me choose or select ten books that have been most impactful in my life. Thousands of literature have affected different aspects of my life at different times. But I will make a try, as hard as it may be...... i am not that complicated am i? 1. The Bible. For me a great rendition of history that weaves together the journey of man from the beginning and fuses it seamlessly with divinity to make a demand on man for the future, how the past makes relevance how we live our future..... Always living although i haven’t read it from cover to cover. 2. Anna Karenina. Leo Tolstoys classic was a true serious introduction to me of the ways of women. In my innocence (or was it naivety?) many things in there were incomprehensible till i was past my salad days, and judgments were no more green. I learnt that the way of the woman was more than mere words.....and perhaps very wise if it didnt kill you.. 3. The Idiot. Fyodor Dostoyeski. Another book that confused me for ages because i wasn’t sure whether by some dint of clairvoyance or prophecy Dostoyeski had seen me and written about me many years before. I felt the discomfort of almost fitting the bill of Prince Myshkin..... abundant in naivete and innocence, and with a clear misunderstanding of the harshness of this world. Rejection for thinking innocently right.......... The rest is history 4. Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Samuel Taylor Colerdige....whew, boy oh boy, that was a poem and a half but a whole story that at many points frightened the daylights out of me, even more than Dante’s Inferno did. It frightened me because it gave me serious insights into the complexity of matrices that govern options, choice, responsibility and outcomes, as well as the whole concept of fate: Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Not a drop to drink. It made me think deep about the dangers of choice especially in a situation of challenging novelty, where one was totally oblivious of the requisite logic of choice. But what was even more fightening was the possibility of the impact of a supernatural whose control i didn’t have....... I was haunted for days about the right and wrong thingy because then, i knew i had very few emotional, intellectual and technical tools to make certain life critical decisions, but in the end.. .... He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all. 5. The Prince. Nicollo Machiavelli. My first introduction into the intricacies of power and politics and the nature of man to be deceitfully self-serving but necessary for survival in the power jungle. Incidentally i read it almost the same time i read Sun Tzu’s Art of War. They both, for one reason or other, left a rather poor impression about politics and power in my head that for many years led me to be totally apathetic to that side of life. And then many years later the same book inspired me to not just sit on the side walk for fear of becoming a victim rather than the protagonist. 6. The Moon’s a Balloon. David Niven’s autobiography was such a memorable joy to me and took me deep into my own childhood experiences and how i would recollect them. 7. The Other Side of Midnight. Sydney Sheldon, ..now that was one hell of a story of Gbomo ehii isms.....lol. it influenced and unfairly so, an irrational distrust of women for a long time and i thought of them as manipulative and exploitative, till i realized that we men were equally bad if not the same, and that women made the world beautiful and sound....and it was the way of the wolrd, survival for something we yet haven’t found. Lol 8. The Executioner’s Song. Norman Mailer. This book also caught me spellbound for a while and aroused my interests in what made people just simply uncontrollable or what made them lose it. A brilliantly written story, i didn’t even know i could feel remorse for an unrepentant murderer especially when Garry Gilmore fought for his own early execution.....weird... 9a. Rethinking the East Asian Miracle. Yusuf and Stiglitz. I thought this was a brilliant historical elucidation of the East Asian economies. I got to understand from this book that development can never and was never by accident. Also sparked my interest in economics and development culture. 9b. The Illusive Quest for growth. William easterly. Definitely an interesting read that opened my eyes to development on the African continent and led me to read other writers on development like Tom Dichter 10. How will you measure my life. Christensen, Allworth and Dillion. I only read this book two years ago but wished i had had it twenty or thirty years earlier. I bet it would have changed my life completely and the outcome may have been very different from what it is today. I am always quoting from it to my younger friends now starting life. Indeed there are others that made an impression on me and i remember quite well like Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and The Immoralist by Andre Gide, challenging the mores and norms of a moral seeking but bankrupt society, which even influenced me to write a poem on morality and hypocricy, and the everliving Madame Bovary, which for ever left an indelible note in my mind about women seeking the good things of life. I even knicknamed a friend of mine Madam Bovary. ....lol Ok so i also nominate Abena Asiamah, Ayowa Afrifa Brian Frimpong Samuel Attah-Mensah Kayode Samuel Cyril Fayorsey Ato-Kwamena Dadzie Abena Antwi
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 16:38:08 +0000
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