More Congo reading

Two more for the springboard reading list. Jeff suggested Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone, Memoir of a Boy soldier. There’s an interesting controversy about this. The newspaper The Australian claims that the events described in the book happen two years later than Beah says they did. This would mean he was fifteen, not thirteen. [...]

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Live and Learn

When I started the Springboard Reading project, I didn’t really expect it to bear fruit so quickly. About 3 weeks into 2008, I know exponentially more about the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That isn’t hard – in honesty, I didn’t know a lot about it before that anyway. Anyway, today I read this:
A [...]

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Springboard Reading II: The River Congo

So we’re off on the 2008 Reading Challenge. I’m off the springboard and it’s juddering in the air behind me as I plunge into the pool for the first length. Following on from The Mission Song dealing with the bloody truth behind geopolitics as it influences the Congo, today I picked up Blood River: A [...]

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Springboard Reading, or Chain Letters.

While I was reading last night (The Mission Song, John le Carre) I daydreamed my way into a reading project for the year. Springboard reading.
In essence, it goes like this. Once I have read a book, I pick up one of the things touched on in it and follow it up with the next book [...]

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