It helps to slow down and think things through before taking action sometimes. I’ve learnt to do just that when I’m angry. The little and supposedly unimportant decision that comes back to bite your behind can be really annoying. Well at least for me.

Like that post on twitter or Facebook, or an email you should have reread before hitting the submit button, but you didn’t. Only to find out later you used “where” in place of “were” or even worse, “your” in place of “you’re” (to be clear, I’ve never made this particular error before, I think).

I’ve read a lot of articles by Elnathan John which I have enjoyed (especially the How to Behave as a Car Owner in Nigeria piece). I heard he was nominated for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing a while back. Having not read a novel or work of fiction in years, I decided to do something about it and start with Elnathan’s novel, and then The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin; having also read rave reviews about the latter novel.

The only problem was, I didn’t even know the name of Elnathan’s novel and I was having problems finding his name on Amazon. I decided to ask someone on Twitter. Now this twitter celebrity wasn’t even following me so this wouldn’t be a direct message but a tweet for the whole world to see. I was going to ask him if he knew where I could find Elnathan’s novel to buy in the UK since I couldn’t find it on Amazon. Something just told me to use my head and Google a little more and I ended up finding out that the book was actually a short story, published online and freely available for anyone interested in reading it.

This would have been what we in Port Harcourt call “bringing your leg out” or “shitting for church“. That is when your stupidity escapes the security of your inner circle for the whole world to see.

Enough of my blabbing. Read the book here or here and let us know what you think. Your review better include a line about the book being really good though! The book got nominated for a Caine Prize dammit.

Next on the list, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives.

 

Photo credit: “That African tree” by Mark Skipper on Flickr