I have once again managed to take a full break from posting on the website for however long – not sure how long but it’s been many moons. I don’t want to attribute the break to having given birth to #theRaleieTwins last June, because I did post shortly afterwards if memory serves me well. I won’t even blame anything but myself and just complete, utter laziness or just my mind not really being in the right space perhaps.

So I’ve decided to try and understand the reason for this constant rut which I keep finding myself in and to remind myself why I regard reading as my first truest love by documenting the journey back to reading. I have to confess that I have been parking a number of books, so you can check out my Goodreads profile because it will tell you that much. Last year around this time I was in between books as well – reading Ijangolet S. Ogwang’s debut An Image in a Mirrow  published by BlackBird Books, and Redi Tlhabi’s Khwezi, published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. So this seems to be a trend with me, one which I intend to crush with 2019 once I get back into the swing of things.

I also attended a lot of book launches during the break and minimized on the #BookamosoBookClubTour where I visit a Joburg based book club so I can be a part of their monthly review and show you the reader how things can be run for your own book club under the tag #BookClubSaturday. Follow the hashtag, I may continue with the visits as the year progresses schedule permeating. That is another way of reminding myself why I do this – meeting new, like-minded people, who have the same love for reading.

I’m currently reading Lerato Mogoatlhe’s Vagabond which was part of Literary Alliance Book Club review for June. I have been reading it for a while simply because I’m taking in all the experiences that Lerato describes in detail, I go to Google to search for more information on a place etc. Vagabond is a travel memoir in which she shares in intimate detail – her experience as a drifter in 21 countries in 5 years, which was initially meant to be a 3 month trip to West Africa. I am absolutely enjoying how she writes in detail the different cultures she experiences, I keep getting anxious at her easy-going approach to getting around the cities or her lack of planning for sleeping arrangements. Once I’m done with Vagabond, I’m going to read a short story collection with the aim of getting different stories in one book for some variety. I’ll begin with Fred Khumalo’s Talk of the Town, published by Kwela Books. I’ll follow that with Mohale Mashigo’s The Intruders.

Hopefully these will kick start my reading game. I’ll check back in with updates on the short story reading in a few days. Once I’ve read these short stories collections – I’m going back to that Goodreads list of books I parked. And I’m going to be kind to myself again, and do my 12 books in 12 months.