Summer reading chat on 702
Thinking of delights this glorious Saturday morning, and always a delight to chat with Gugs Mhlungu on 702 about books.
The Lost Love of Akbar Manzil by Shubnum Khan
Many of us will do beach things, and this book captures Durban in such a charming, funny, soulful way. It's a haunted house and genie book, but in no way Alladin or jump scares. The story follows the residents of a ramshackle mansion over a century and across continents. Akbar Manzil is the name of the house, and the lost love is the loss of the people who have lived there.
I put off reading this for years, because diving into a book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is just so heavy. But this a book about empathy and how to create it. Based on the true story of an Israeli father and a Palestinian father, they each lose a daughter in the conflict. And yet they find a way to connect and make a new bond. Modelled on 1,001 Arabian Nights, it's 1,001 short chapters that takes in a sweep of history from math and science to literature.
The Book of (More) Delights, by Ross Gay
This is only a sequel in the thematic sense, following up his Book of Delights that brought me lots of comfort during the lockdowns. I go back to it often, when I need a little pick me up, and was delighted to find that he has a new collection. The concept is the same: Every day for a year, he wrote, on paper, a short essay about something that he found delight in. Not all the essays make the cut, but the book ends with some rapid-fire delights and a really interesting list of reading that inspired him.