And just like that, another year is behind us! In the midst of another challenging pandemic year, we have found joy and community in our shared love of stories and the fortitude to keep hope alive. We are extremely grateful to have been able to continue being your custodian of beautiful stories and wonderful books. Our gratitude and our inspiration remains steady because of your continued support.
In line with the tradition of Prestige Bookshop, we bring you the 2021 top reads as our way of winding down the year with you. These are not the only books that were loved and enjoyed this year, this is a very small glimpse of the hundreds of books that we were privileged to share. To talk about all of them, we would need another year!
All these books from Kenya and around the world expanded our horizons for the better and sparked conversations in our bookshops, in our homes and with our friends. We hope that by going down memory lane, we are able to recapture the magic of those moments and also introduce you to new writers!
1. Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka – 3,090
A towering figure in world literature, Wole Soyinka aims directly at the corridors of power as he warns against corruption both of high office and of the soul, with a dazzling lightness of touch and gleeful irreverence.
Much to Doctor Menka’s horror, some cunning entrepreneur has decided to sell body parts from his hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Already at the end of his tether from the horrors he routinely sees in surgery, he shares this latest development with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne, who has never before met a puzzle he couldn’t solve. Neither realise how close the enemy is, nor how powerful.
2. Unbury Our Dead With Song by Mũkoma Wa Ngũgĩ – 1,790
“…the first time you heard a Tizita that was yours, you fell in love with it. You never forget your first love; you never forget your first Tizita.”
In the heart of Nairobi, four musicians – The Diva, The Taliban Man, The Corporal and 70-year-old bartender Miriam – gather for a once in a lifetime competition, to see who can perform the best Tizita. In the audience is tabloid journalist John Thandi Manfredi, who is enthralled by their renditions of the Ethiopian blues.
Desperate to learn more, he follows the musicians back to Ethiopia, hoping to uncover the secret to this haunting music. Manfredi’s search takes him from the idyllic Ethiopian countryside to vibrant juke joints and raucous parties in Addis Ababa, set to a soundtrack of stirring Tizita performances.
3. Do Not Disturb by Michela Wrong – 2,250
In the old version, an idealistic group of young rebels overthrows a genocidal regime in Kigali, ushering in an era of peace and stability that makes Rwanda the donor darling of the West, winning comparisons with Switzerland and Singapore. The new version examines afresh questions which dog the recent past: Why do so many ex-rebels scoff at official explanations of who fired the missile that killed the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi? Why didn’t the mass killings end when the rebels took control? Why did those same rebels, victory secured, turn so ruthlessly on one another?
4. House of Rust by Khadija Abdalla Bajaber – 1,800
The first Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize winner, a story of a girl’s fantastical sea voyage to rescue her father
The House of Rust is an enchanting novel about a Hadrami girl in Mombasa. When her fisherman father goes missing, Aisha takes to the sea on a magical boat made of a skeleton to rescue him. She is guided by a talking scholar’s cat (and soon crows, goats, and other animals all have their say, too). On this journey Aisha meets three terrifying sea monsters. After she survives a final confrontation with Baba wa Papa, the father of all sharks, she rescues her own father, and hopes that life will return to normal. But at home, things only grow stranger.
Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s debut is a magical realist coming-of-age tale told through the lens of the Swahili and diasporic Hadrami culture in Mombasa, Kenya. Richly descriptive and written with an imaginative hand and sharp eye for unusual detail, The House of Rust is a memorable novel by a thrilling new voice.
5. The Sex Lives of African Women by Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah – 2,390
The Sex Lives of African Women uniquely amplifies individual women from across the African continent and its global diaspora, as they speak of their diverse experiences of sex, sexualities and relationships. Many of the women who tell their stories in this collection recall the journeys they have travelled in order to own their own sexualities. They do this by grappling with experiences of child sexual abuse, resisting the religious edicts of their childhood, and by asserting their sexual power.
6. Born in Blackness by Howard W. French – 3,850
Revealing the central yet intentionally obliterated role of Africa in the creation of modernity, Born in Blackness vitally reframes our understanding of world history.
In a sweeping narrative that traverses 600 years, one that eloquently weaves precise historical detail with poignant personal reportage, Pulitzer Prize finalist Howard W. French retells the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in America, and the fulfilment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe’s dehumanising engagement with the “darkest” continent.
Born in Blackness dramatically retrieves the lives of major African historical figures whose stories have been repeatedly etiolated and erased over centuries, from unimaginably rich medieval African emperors who traded with Asia; to Kongo sovereigns who heroically battled seventeenth-century European powers; to ex-slaves who liberated Haitians from bondage. In doing so, French tells the story of gold, tobacco, sugar, and cotton – and the greatest “commodity” of all, the millions of people brought in chains from Africa to the New World, whose reclaimed histories fundamentally help explain our present world.
7. How to Rig an Election by Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas – 2,190
An engrossing analysis of the pseudo-democratic methods employed by despots around the world to retain control.
Contrary to what is commonly believed, authoritarian leaders who agree to hold elections are generally able to remain in power longer than autocrats who refuse to allow the populace to vote. In this engaging and provocative book, Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization, and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves. Based on their first-hand experiences as election watchers and their hundreds of interviews with presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, election officials, and conspirators, Cheeseman and Klaas document instances of election rigging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, including notable examples from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States―touching on the 2016 election. This eye-opening study offers a sobering overview of corrupted professional politics, while providing fertile intellectual ground for the development of new solutions for protecting democracy from authoritarian subversion.
8. Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney – 2,500
Alice, a novelist, meets Felix, who works in a warehouse, and asks him if he’d like to travel to Rome with her. In Dublin, her best friend Eileen is getting over a break-up and slips back into flirting with Simon, a man she has known since childhood.
Alice, Felix, Eileen and Simon are still young – but life is catching up with them. They desire each other, they delude each other, they get together, they break apart. They worry about sex and friendship and the world they live in. Are they standing in the last lighted room before the darkness, bearing witness to something? Will they find a way to believe in a beautiful world?
9. Secrets of Divine Love by A. Helwa – 2,500
Secrets of Divine Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Heart of Islam is an inspiring guide that will lead you towards the hidden meaning of the Qur’an through passion and joy. Written with care and precision, Helwa’s metaphoric insights invite you on her earnest search for truth and understanding. By accessing the inner workings of Islamic tradition, your struggles in faith will be met with a deeper connection to Allah rooted in compassion.
10. What Happened to You? By Oprah Winfrey and Dr.Bruce Perry – 3,000
Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain development and trauma expert, Dr Bruce Perry, discuss the impact of trauma and adverse experiences and how healing must begin with a shift to asking ‘What happened to you?’ rather than ‘What’s wrong with you?’.
Through wide-ranging and often deeply personal conversation, Oprah Winfrey and Dr Perry explore how what happens to us in early childhood – both good and bad – influences the people we become. They challenge us to shift from focusing on ‘What’s wrong with you?’ or ‘Why are you behaving that way?’ to asking ‘What happened to you?’. This simple change in perspective can open up a new and hopeful understanding for millions about why we do the things we do, why we are the way we are, providing a road map for repairing relationships, overcoming what seems insurmountable, and ultimately living better and more fulfilling lives.
11. Love in Colour by Bolu Babalola – 1,550
Bolu Babalola takes the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology and rewrites them with incredible new detail and vivacity in her debut collection. Focusing on the magical folktales of West Africa, Babalola also reimagines iconic Greek myths, ancient legends from the Middle East, and stories from countries that no longer exist in our world. A high-born Nigerian goddess feels beaten down and unappreciated by her gregarious lover and longs to be truly seen. A young businesswoman attempts to make a great leap in her company, and an even greater one in her love life. A powerful Ghanaian spokeswoman is forced to decide whether to uphold her family’s politics, or to be true to her heart.
Whether captured in the passion of love at first sight, or realising that self-love takes precedent over the latter, the characters in these vibrant stories try to navigate this most complex human emotion and understand why it holds them hostage. Moving exhilaratingly across perspectives, continents and genres, from the historic to the vividly current, Love in Colour is a celebration of romance in all of its forms.
12. Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohammed – 2,350
Mahmood Mattan is a fixture in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay, 1952, which bustles with Somali and West Indian sailors, Maltese businessmen and Jewish families. He is a father, chancer, some-time petty thief. He is many things, in fact, but he is not a murderer.
So when a shopkeeper is brutally killed and all eyes fall on him, Mahmood isn’t too worried. It is true that he has been getting into trouble more often since his Welsh wife Laura left him. But Mahmood is secure in his innocence in a country where, he thinks, justice is served.
It is only in the run-up to the trial, as the prospect of freedom dwindles, that it will dawn on Mahmood that he is in a terrifying fight for his life – against conspiracy, prejudice and the inhumanity of the state. And, under the shadow of the hangman’s noose, he begins to realise that the truth may not be enough to save him.
13. How to do the Work by Nicole Lepera – 2,090
In How to Do the Work, she offers both a manifesto for self-healing and an essential guide to creating a more vibrant, authentic, and joyful life. Drawing on the latest research from both scientific research and healing modalities, Dr LePera helps us recognise how adverse experiences and trauma in childhood live with us, keeping us stuck engaging in patterns of co-dependency, emotional immaturity, and trauma bonds. Unless addressed, these self-sabotaging behaviours can quickly become cyclical, leaving people feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, and unwell.
14. Afterlives by Abdulrazak Gurnah – 1,450
BY THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE 2021
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION 2021
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE 2021
While he was still a little boy, Ilyas was stolen from his parents by the German colonial troops. After years away, fighting in a war against his own people, he returns to his village to find his parents gone, and his sister Afiya given away.Another young man returns at the same time. Hamza was not stolen for the war, but sold into it; he has grown up at the right hand of an officer whose protection has marked him life. With nothing but the clothes on his back, he seeks only work and security – and the love of the beautiful Afiya. As fate knots these young people together, as they live and work and fall in love, the shadow of a new war on another continent lengthens and darkens, ready to snatch them up and carry them away.
15.THEY WERE US: Stories of Victims and Survivors of Police Brutality in Kenya
A publication by the Mothers of Victims and Survivors Network
By Benna Buluma, Wyban Kanyi, and Betty Press
They Were Us is the product of a documentary project that reveals the systemic causes of extrajudicial executions through the stories of those most impacted by Kenya’s informal policy of state-sanctioned violence in the name of safety.
In these cases, police officers are simply an extension of security policies crafted by the political elite, policies that essentially make poverty itself a crime. Police might be the ones pulling the trigger, but popular narratives of security legitimize ‘shoot-to-kill’ policing. Instead of protecting fundamental human rights, policing is imagined as an urgent response to the need to “stabilize,” “control,” and “eliminate.”
100% of proceeds go to an economic empowerment program for MVSN members.
16. It Ends with Us by Coleen Hoover – 1,150
Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up – she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So, when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.
Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily, but Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.
As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan – her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened. With this bold and deeply personal novel, It Ends With Us is a heart-wrenching story and an unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price.
17. Everyday Hero Manifesto by Robin Sharma – 2,250
For over twenty-five years, leadership legend and personal mastery trailblazer Robin Sharma has mentored billionaires, business titans, professional sports superstars and entertainment royalty via a revolutionary methodology that has caused them to accomplish rare-air results. Now, in this ground-breaking book, he makes this transformational system available to anyone ready for undefeatable positivity, monumental productivity, deep spiritual freedom and a life of helpfulness to many. Part memoir on a life richly lived, part instruction manual for virtuoso-grade performance and part handbook for spiritual freedom in an age of high-velocity change, The Everyday Hero Manifesto will completely transform your life. Forever.
18. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid – 1,750
From the author of Daisy Jones & The Six in which a legendary film actress reflects on her relentless rise to the top and the risks she took, the loves she lost, and the long-held secrets the public could never imagine.Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a mesmerizing journey through the splendour of old Hollywood into the harsh realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means and what it costs to face the truth.
19. His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie – 1,450
In one of the most talked about and hilarious debuts of the year, Afi Tekple, a bright young seamstress from a small town in Ghana, is convinced by her family to marry a man she has never met. Elikem Ganyo is a wealthy businessman whose family has chosen Afi in the hope that she will distract him from a relationship with another woman they think is inappropriate.
The fact that she doesn’t know Elikem seems a small price to pay for a marriage that offers her family financial security and provides the key to a lifestyle she has always wanted. But when Afi arrives in Accra, Ghana’s gleaming capital, she realises her fairy-tale ending might not be all she had hoped for…
His Only Wife is a life-affirming, must-read novel about a young woman’s search for independence in a man’s world, and the rules she just might have to break along the way.
20. The Daily Laws by Robert Green – 3,100
Over the last 22 years, Robert Greene has provided insights into every aspect of being human whether that be getting what you want, understanding others’ motivations, mastering your impulses, and recognizing strengths and weaknesses. The Daily Laws distils that wisdom into daily entries. Each entry delivers refined and concise wisdom from one of his books, in an easy to digest lesson that will only take a few minutes to read, as well as a Commandment — a prescription or prompt for the reader to follow.
Not only is The Daily Laws the perfect entry point for those new to Greene’s penetrating insight, but it will also help the many Greene fans throughout the world understanding and internalizing the many lessons that fill his books. It is a guide to a lifetime of reading and re-reading about power, seduction, strategy, psychology and human nature.
21. Nairobi Noir edited by Peter Kimani – 1,850
Brand-new stories by: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Stanley Gazemba, Ngumi Kibera, Peter Kimani, Winfred Kiunga, Kinyanjui Kombani, Caroline Mose, Kevin Mwachiro, Wanjikũ wa Ngũgĩ, Faith Oneya, Makena Onjerika, Troy Onyango, J.E. Sibi-Okumu, and Rasna Warah.
From the introduction by Peter Kimani:
Nairobi Noir is an act of excavation, rediscovering the city’s ossified past and infusing life to preserve it for future generations. It is also an act of celebration, reminding readers of the brilliance of the best-known writers to emerge from this part of the world, and heralding the birth of new writers whose gifts, we can safely predict, will shine brightly in the years ahead.
The oldest writer in this anthology is eighty-one, the youngest is only twenty-four; if there is any inference one can draw from this demographic it is that this anthology offers an entire spectrum of Kenyan writing: the past, present, and future. If we can allow one extravagant claim, a collection of this nature is unprecedented in Kenya’s literary history.
Although the range of issues explored in Nairobi Noir is as diverse as its contributors, it all gestures toward a common theme. In this concrete jungle, the hunters and herders live on. As do the hunted…
22. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw – 2,500
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church’s double standards and their own needs and passions.
There is fourteen-year-old Jael, who has a crush on the preacher’s wife. At forty-two, Lyra realizes that her discomfort with her own body stands between her and a new love. As Y2K looms, Caroletta’s “same time next year” arrangement with her childhood best friend is tenuous. A serial mistress lays down the ground rules for her married lovers. In the dark shadows of a hospice parking lot, grieving strangers find comfort in each other. With their secret longings, new love, and forbidden affairs, these church ladies are as seductive as they want to be, as vulnerable as they need to be, as unfaithful and unrepentant as they care to be, and as free as they deserve to be.
23. Woman Evolve by Sarah Jakes Roberts – 2,090
Reimagining the story of Eve, Sarah Jakes Roberts draws lessons from Scripture and from her own life that show women how to use the mistakes of their past to overcome the challenges of today.
Sarah Jakes Roberts, with life-lessons she’s learned and new insights from the story of Eve, shows you how the disappointments and even mistakes of your past can be used today to help you become the woman God intended. Who would imagine being friends with Eve—the woman who’s been held solely responsible for the fall of humanity (and cramps) for thousands of years? Certainly not Sarah Jakes Roberts. That is, not until Sarah discovered she is more like Eve than she cares to admit.
Everyone faces trials, and everyone will mess up. But failure should not be the focus. Your focus should not be on who you were but rather the pursuit of who you can become. In Woman Evolve, Sarah helps you to understand that your purpose in life does not change; it evolves.
24. Up and Ahead by Sunny Bindra – 1,890
Sunny Bindra, with decades of international experience as a strategy advisor and straight-shooting writer and speaker, delivers simple and practical lessons to help you apply strategic thinking to your work and life.
The strategist looks up and looks ahead. The strategist is not distracted by noise. The strategist wonders about the causes of things. The strategist painstakingly assembles the pieces to see the whole puzzle. This book is about making you that strategist.
STRATEGY. We know we need to know it and use it. Yet this crucial life-skill is often taught in complex and impractical ways. There are deep insights here, written with a light touch, to help you understand and use strategy. And once you put the book down, you won’t wait to get started with strategy in your life.
25. The Judge’s List by John Grisham – 2,590
Nonstop suspense from the Sunday Times bestselling author: Investigator Lacy Stoltz follows the trail of a serial killer, and closes in on a shocking suspect – a sitting judge.
Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law. He is a judge, in Florida – under Lacy’s jurisdiction.
He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list?
The Judge’s List is by any measure John Grisham’s most surprising, chilling novel yet.
26. J. E. Sibi-Okumu Collected Plays (2004-2014) – 1,500
Kenyan playwright, J.E. Sibi Okumu, explores otherness, empathy, and understanding in this collection of plays.
Role Play, which was best performed in 2004, gives us a ‘zoomed out’ perspective of Kenya’s history and society and gives African drama, and posterity, a new point of reference.
Kaggia depicts a man who offered all his life to his nation but who became a victim of betrayal by compatriots and a new African leadership too preoccupied with sleaze, squandering a lifetime opportunity to change the lives of the people they led.
Elements tells the story of Dana, a woman of mixed-race heritage who, despite her wide travels around the world, still faces a conflict of belonging as she navigates the maze of identities.
27. The Nine Lives of Pakistan by Declan Walsh – 3,000
The demise of Pakistan – a country with a reputation for volatility, brutality and radical Islam – is regularly predicted. But things rarely turn out as expected, as renowned journalist Declan Walsh knows well. Over a decade covering the country, his travels took him from the raucous port of Karachi to the gilded salons of Lahore to the lawless frontier of Waziristan, encountering Pakistanis whose lives offer a compelling portrait of this land of contradictions.
He meets a crusading lawyer who risks her life to fight for society’s most marginalised, taking on everyone including the powerful military establishment; an imperious chieftain spouting poetry at his desert fort; a roguish politician waging a mini-war against the Taliban; and a charismatic business tycoon who moves into politics and seems to be riding high – till he takes up the wrong cause. Lastly, Walsh meets a spy whose orders once involved following him, and who might finally be able to answer the question that haunts him: why the Pakistanis suddenly expelled him from their country.
Intimate and complex, unravelling the many mysteries of state and religion, this formidable book offers an arresting account of life in a country that, often as not, seems to be at war with itself.
28. No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer – 1,890
It’s time to do things differently. Trust your team. Be radically honest. And never, ever try to please your boss. These are some of the ground rules if you work at Netflix. They are part of a unique cultural experiment that explains how the company has transformed itself at lightning speed from a DVD mail order service into a streaming superpower – with 190 million fervent subscribers and a market capitalisation that rivals the likes of Disney.
Finally Reed Hastings, Netflix Chairman and CEO, is sharing the secrets that have revolutionised the entertainment and tech industries. With INSEAD business school professor Erin Meyer, he will explore his leadership philosophy – which begins by rejecting the accepted beliefs under which most companies operate – and how it plays out in practice at Netflix.
From unlimited holidays to abolishing approvals, Netflix offers a fundamentally different way to run any organisation, one far more in tune with an ever-changing fast-paced world. For anyone interested in creativity, productivity and innovation, the Netflix culture is something close to a holy grail. This book will make it, and its creator, fully accessible for the first time.
29. Equipoise, edited by Makena Onjerika – 850
Ten new stories from Kenya. Herein are to be found vampires and gods; sex toys and exhibitionists; divorces and soon-to-be divorcees; heart attacks and heartbreaks; grief unending, bad decisions and unexpected salvation; the unemployed, troubled expatriates, hustlers and conmen; adventures in Nairobi, Dar es Salam, Mt. Elgon and everywhere in between; friends who are not just friends, unruly relatives and beloved but complicated parents. Featured authors are: Miriam Amoit, Rumona Apiyo, Nyasili Atetwe, Clarie Gor, Alvin Kathembe, Duncan Mwangi, Aggrey Oriwo, Gladwell Pamba, Natalie Sifuma, Kiprono Tonui.
30. Caste by Isabel Wilkerson – 2,400
Beyond race or class, our lives are defined by a powerful, unspoken system of divisions. In Caste, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson gives an astounding portrait of this hidden phenomenon. Linking America, India and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson reveals how our world has been shaped by caste – and how its rigid, arbitrary hierarchies still divide us today.
With clear-sighted rigour, Wilkerson unearths the eight pillars that connect caste systems across civilizations, and demonstrates how our own era of intensifying conflict and upheaval has arisen as a consequence of caste. Weaving in stories of real people, she shows how its insidious undertow emerges every day; she documents its surprising health costs; and she explores its effects on culture and politics. Finally, Wilkerson points forward to the ways we can – and must – move beyond its artificial divisions, towards our common humanity.
Beautifully written and deeply original, Caste is an eye-opening examination of what lies beneath the surface of ordinary lives. No one can afford to ignore the moral clarity of its insights, or its urgent call for a freer, fairer world.
31. Educated by Tara Westover – 1,500
Tara Westover and her family grew up preparing for the End of Days but, according to the government, she didn’t exist. She hadn’t been registered for a birth certificate. She had no school records because she’d never set foot in a classroom, and no medical records because her father didn’t believe in hospitals.
As she grew older, her father became more radical and her brother more violent. At sixteen, Tara knew she had to leave home. In doing so she discovered both the transformative power of education, and the price she had to pay for it.
32. Higher is Waiting by Tyler Perry – 3,150
Higher Is Waiting is a spiritual guidebook, a collection of teachings culled from the experiences of a lifetime, meant to inspire readers to climb higher in their own lives and pull themselves up to a better, more fulfilling place.
Beginning with his earliest memories of growing up a shy boy in New Orleans, Perry recalls the moments of grace and beauty in a childhood marked by brutality, deprivation, and fear. With tenderness he sketches portraits of the people who sustained him and taught him indelible lessons about integrity, trust in God, and the power of forgiveness: his aunt Mae, who cared for her grandfather, who was born a slave, and sewed quilts that told a story of generations; Mr. Butler, a blind man of remarkable dignity and elegance, who sold penny candies on a street corner; and his beloved mother, Maxine, who endured abuse, financial hardship, and the daily injustices of growing up in the Jim Crow South yet whose fierce love for her son burned bright and never dimmed. Perry writes of how he nurtured his dreams and discovered solace in nature, and of his resolute determination to reach ever higher.
33. Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Adichie – 1,500
A devastating essay on loss and the people we love from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the bestselling author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.
‘Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language’
On 10 June 2020, the scholar James Nwoye Adichie died suddenly in Nigeria.
In this tender and powerful essay, expanded from the original New Yorker text, his daughter, a self-confessed daddy’s girl, remembers her beloved father. Notes on Grief is at once a tribute to a long life of grace and wisdom, the story of a daughter’s fierce love for a parent, and a revealing examination of the layers of loss and the nature of grief.
34. 50 Years of Central Banking in Kenya by Patrick Njoroge – 5,000
This book documents important milestones in the epic journey traversed by the Central Bank of Kenya over the last 50 years, putting into perspective the evolution of central banking globally and within the East African region, and contemplating future prospects and challenges. The book is timely, mainly because the global financial landscape has shifted. Central bankers have expanded their mandates, beyond the singular focus on inflation and consider economic growth as their other important objective
