A Cruel King, a Beloved Leader, and a Yellow Sun: #BookoftheWeek - December 9, 2013

 Looking for a good book to read? Every week, ZODML spotlights three great books from our extensive collection to inspire readers to try out books they might not have previously heard of. The selections fall under three major categories – fiction, non-fiction and children and young adult literature – so there’s a book to suit every taste. All of the books are available to borrow for free at our Community Library on Awolowo Road, Ikoyi. Be sure to check out our archives to see which books have been selected in the past.
Fiction: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche In 1960s Nigeria, a country blighted by civil war, three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university lecturer. Olanna, a young woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor. The third is Richard, a shy Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s enigmatic twin sister. When the shocking horror of the war engulfs them, their loyalties are severely tested as they are pulled apart and thrown together in ways that none of them imagined... Non-Fiction: Conversations with Myself by Nelson Mandela Conversations with Myself gives readers access to the private man behind the public figure: from letters written in the darkest hours of Mandela’s twenty-seven years of imprisonment to the draft of an unfinished sequel to long walk to freedom. Here he is making notes and even doodling during meetings, or recording troubled dreams on the desk calendar of his cell on Robben Island; writing journals while on the run during the anti-apartheid struggles of the early 1960s, or conversing with friends in almost seventy hours of recorded conversations. In these pages he is neither an icon nor a saint; here he is like you and me. An intimate journey from the first stirring of his political conscience to his galvanizing role on the world stage, Conversations with Myself is a rare chance to spend time with Nelson Mandela the man, in his own voice: direct, clear, private. Children and Young Adults: King for Ever! by Cyprian Ekwensi King Sinanda wanted to rule for ever. But he was an evil man with many enemies. Nobody liked him. When he had destroyed his enemies, he began to worry about his friends. Who could be trusted? Share your #BookoftheWeek with us in the comments or by tweeting @ZODML!