Five important books on my desk right now
Happy Independence celebration to all our readers. Today’s edition of the column has been carefully chosen to look at things that bother us and bug us as a nation. Other books are for pleasure. In writing this column weekly I have often looked closely at gems and special books that should be shared with readers. Some of them for the sheer pleasure they bring to the readers, others for the lessons they deliver, others still for the beauty of the words and the incredible journey they take us through. Like I have said multiple times in my column, reading is both pleasure and education. I would never have been as knowledgeable as I am if not for my love of books. They have served as my sleep inducing miracle, they have served as my teachers, providing me valuable information over the years, they have served as my travel guide taking me to far flung places, they have also served as my psychologist providing me relief in stormy times. My romance with books is a very special one indeed. Against this background I would like to share some truly important books that you must have missed, gems that I have found that I want to share this holiday. Enjoy!
1) In this era of corruption right in our faces and mind boggling daylight robbery of state funds, it is important to get a perspective. Note must be made of the fact that this corruption of a thing involves other nations., international persons, other corrupt companies offshore, accomplices and family members who are feeding fat on ill-gotten wealth. So how did an associate professor of business administration at Harvard get his fangs on such a delicious topic as what goes on in the mind of a pen thief. In the book, Why they do it, Inside the mind of a white collared criminal, Eugenia Soltes arrives at this hot off the shelf book by incredible and eye-opening research. What makes a hard working executive turn to a book cooking criminal? How do people who seemed ordinary in fact affable and well-liked become monsters who are defrauding their nations, stealing from their companies, stifling communities and destroying societies by their brazen pen theft? I will take two quotes from the blurb of this exceptional book to satiate your appetite.
“By showing us how well-educated and well-meaning businessmen (Please also add civil servants) commit terrible crimes, Eugene Soltes has done a great service to the business community and the society. This ... should be required reading for all people in business, MBA students, business school faculty and staff, and regulators and policymakers” Andrew Lo, MIT Sloan school of Management.
“When you read of yet another corporate titan who has it all, money, fame, power, but who blows it all by straying across the line separating aggressive risk taking from crime, you are driven to ask, what possesses them. Soltes book provides a rare, intimate and fascinating glimpse into the series of decisions, each one mundane enough that leads by steps to a higher crime. Leaves you wondering, could it happen to you?” John Coates, former trader and author of The hour between the Dog and the Wolf: How risk-taking transforms us body and Mind.
Get a copy of Why they do it by Eugene Soaltes. It is such an important book for a time as this.
2) Again with most African nations constantly in the throes of power, I have returned to a most inspiring book about how a single individual leader put Singapore on the global map and turning it into a great nation to be reckoned with. From Third World to First’ Singapore and the Asian Economic boom is the autobiographical book by Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s charismatic founder, describing how he took decisions that turned his country around. In the preface to the book Kuan Yew says quite profoundly’” I wrote this book for the younger generation of Singaporeans who took stability, growth and prosperity for granted.”
3) The Pleasure of Reading edited by Antonia Fraser is a book after my heart. It is making its second appearance in this column. This is a book that brings together 43 writers on the discovery of reading and the books that inspired them. Everyone should get a copy of this book which is as hilarious as it is illuminating.
4) Long throat Memoirs by Yemisi Aribisala has taunted me on line for a while. Interesting reviews, brilliant interviews by the author. I truly wanted the book so bad especially since I have been writing my cook book for nearly two years now and needed some inspiration on Nigerian culinary appetites and journeys. Yemisi’s book is just the thing full of anecdotes, tales about Nigerian food, the psychology and physiognomy of Nigerian sauces, the arrogance of certain menus and the aesthetics of others. Gorgeous book, gorgeous Nigerian culinary tales, their philosophies, our food habits and their origin. I found it sitting pretty at Abuja’s upscale café, Salamander Café and I have been savoring it ever since. Delicious!
5) Genocide or ethnic cleansing? The Rhohingya Muslims of Myanmar have continued to flee their country into Indonesia with alleged crimes against them so bad that Amnesty International and the UN have described it as a textbook case of genocide. In the middle of all of this, the head of the UN peace keeping force in Rwanda during the genocide, Lt General Romeo Dallaire who suffered emotional breakdowns from the horror he saw at the time has appeared on International TV networks speaking passionately about genocide and comparing the Myanmar situation with the Rwandan genocide. The book he wrote from his experience in Rwanda titled, “Shaking hands with the Devil” is a good book to read at this time of so many such atrocities around the world.