To read or not to read a book should never be the question

What you need to know:

  • Sometimes I go for months without reading a full-length book, thanks to the hustle of adult life.
  • April 23 is a “symbolic date for world literature. It is on this date in 1616 that Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died.

On a Saturday afternoon in 2003 I stumbled on a little book. I flipped through its pages. I liked what I saw. I held it up to Mr Norbert Mao, triumphant. I was good naturedly taunting him to suggest that he would find nothing worth taking home.
He smiled. We continued to browse. Sometimes we both came away with nothing, sometimes we both found something, and sometimes only one of us was lucky.

Early in 2002, Mr Mao, yes Mao the politician, introduced me to a little store that sold used books and other used knickknacks. Books R Us was located in a lightly dingy room on Bombo Road in Kampala. Mr Mao and I were panellists on the Capital Gang, the Saturday public affairs talk show on Capital Radio. The show ended at noon and on most Saturdays we headed out to Books R Us to browse and, if lucky, pick up a book at a throwaway price.

And so it was on one of those forays that I landed on Conversations, a little book that would captivate me once I sat down to read it. Within its 68 pages, Primo Levi (chemist, writer, Holocaust survivor) and Tullio Regge (mathematician and theoretical physicist) engage in a free-flowing high-minded conversation on music, art, religion, education, science, linguistics, and much else. The two Italians give erudition such a glow.
On that day, I believe, Mr Mao also found something he liked. He picked up a copy of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
We patronised Books R Us between 2002 and 2004, following the bookstore to Buganda Road, then on to the UMA Showgrounds in Lugogo. By the time I left the Gang at the end of 2004, the little store that had given us much joy was struggling. It is no more.

The point of my rumbling is that April 23, which was last Monday, is World Book and Copyright Day. UNESCO so declared it in 1995 to “promote the enjoyment of books and reading”. According to the UN agency, the day encourages people to “recognise the magical power of books — a link between the past and the future, a bridge between generations and across cultures”.

Anyone who reads books can relate to that magic: the escape away into another person’s mind, into another culture, into another land, into another time. It could all be real or fantastical, but a good read, solitary as the whole enterprise is, can be wonderfully fulfilling.
Sometimes I go for months without reading a full-length book, thanks to the hustle of adult life. Whenever I have returned, I have been surprised just how much solid information and fine exposition I have missed, above all how much joy I have missed.
My encounter with Conversations led to other things. I have since read several of Levi’s books, including The Periodic Table and The Drowned and The Saved. Who says books don’t swell the mind?

Many times I like to read books from the same region, or from the same genre one after another. The other year, I picked up three books on Africa. Nasir el-Rufai’s The Accidental Public Servant, which details the glorious workings of official corruption in Nigeria and how an inner group of ministers connived to fail President Olusegun Obasanjo’s third term bid. Next up was Cry Havoc, mercenary Simon Mann’s failed bid in 2004 to overthrow Equatorial Guinea’s kleptocrat Teodoro Obiang Nguema. Finally, the riveting account of how the ANC chased Mr Thabo Mbeki from the presidency of South Africa in 2008. As head of the presidency, the Rev Frank Chikane had a close-up feel of things and tells it all in Eight Days in September. Mr Jacob Zuma led the ouster, and now he is also out even if he exited screaming and kicking. Karma. Karma.

I am presently wrestling with a magisterial tome titled Main Currents of Marxism by Leszek Kołakowski. After that it will be back to fiction, starting with the works of Khaled Hosseini. I suspect Mr Mao — between managing the feuding DP and farming soya — still finds time to bury his nose and brain in a good book. People like him would be credible ambassadors for reading. Uganda could do with some.

Fun fact: April 23 is a “symbolic date for world literature. It is on this date in 1616 that Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors, such as Maurice Druon, Haldor K. Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.”
Now, let’s all go out there and enjoy a good book this weekend. Social media and European soccer are not good excuses to avoid books.