Make books gift of choice during this season of love

A young school boy happy with his book gift: This is the season to spoil our loved ones with books. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • We have to make book reading fashionable
  • It is regrettable that there are very few book clubs in our society

Can we make books the next big thing after quail birds? I think this is just the right time to start a revolution.

February is popularly known as the month of love. Indeed, last week, I could smell love in the air and millions of people were trying to find ways of saying a simple three-word sentence “I love you”.

I am also reliably informed that the Valentines season is a time to reconnect with our loved ones and renew our commitment to one another. To love, as Jesus Christ reminded us, is the greatest commandment. It is no wonder that this virtue of love unites all religions of the world.

With love, I wish to suggest that a time has come when we have to do something really fundamental. It is an opportune time to re-engineer society and develop love for the book. The benefit of receiving a gift in the form of a book far much outplays any other thing.

I have always been reminded by William Ellery Channing of the value of what lies between the soft contours of the book. Hear him talk: “It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds.  In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts and pour their souls into ours… They give to all who will faithfully use them in the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race.”

It is, therefore, not an exaggeration to argue that books, whether traditional or electronic, are the greatest source of knowledge. Whichever way you want to look at human civilisation, the truth is that, it has largely been influenced by the book. While other ways of knowing exists, none parallels that one obtained from reading. That is why I can authoritatively say that we may miss our targets in Vision 2030 if we do not develop the urge, the thirst and the desire to know through reading.

Our society stands at a momentous epoch. We have an ambitious plan to take the big leap to middle income status. But we cannot do this if ignorance pervades our minds.

Here is the best way of spreading the “gospel of the book”. We have to make book reading fashionable. Just as it is fashionable to discuss the contents of Mexican soap operas, so should it be to discussing the contents of your latest read in our various chamas. Why should we discuss what is in Corona Delagrimmas, Corazon Indomable and Gabriela yet we cannot engage what John Kiriamiti presents to us in Son of Fate? Those Mexican operas are just what they are – Opium, that make us live outside ourselves.

Indeed, just as it is fashionable to be a fan of any of the English football teams, so should it be with belonging to a book club. My plea is mainly to the youth. It is quite depressing that young people do not look up to widely read and knowledgeable people as their role models. They would rather identify with the filthy rich man who cannot explain the source of his wealth.

But, more importantly, I think this is the season to spoil our loved ones with books. You did not need to give red flowers on Valentine’s Day. Flowers withered the next day. Leave that to Europeans and Americans. You did not need to waste your resources on buying chocolate. It only helps in accelerating the tooth decay of your loved one. Style up and adopt a new agenda; buy a book for her.

There are many categories of books that you can purchase for your loved one. Spoil your Christian friend with a nice book on ideal Christian life. Visit leading bookshops and you will be spoilt for choice. Do not forget to visit Mogaka, my street mitumba book seller perched between Tom Mboya Post Office and Odeon Cinema in Nairobi.

Some people prefer inspirational books. I personally do not believe in the view that this category of books is useless. Those who peddle this lie are prophets of darkness. We have many inspirational writers, both local and foreign.

Believe me, I have read many of them, including Elizabeth Gilberts’ The Signature of All Things, Robert Schuller’s Tough Times Never Last but Tough people do and Dale Carnegie’s How to make Friends and Influence People, among others. Norman Vincent Pearle’s collection is my all time favourite. Locally, there is one author who inspired me and made me learn how to manage my time. Prof Odera Outa’s inspiration bombshell in the 90’s based on the Desiderata changed my life.

CHEAP CLASSICS

To be in love is to be possessed by the spirit of goodness. Love stories that will make you cry tears of joy are many. Some of these books are classics, and they come cheap. All the way from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet through  Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to Thomas Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge. Locally, Mwangi Gicheru’s Across the Bridge will enliven your lover who is young at heart.

Kinyanjui Kombani’s The Last Villains of Molo should make your loved one reflect on the hatred that kills love. Mukoma Ngugi’s Nairobi Heat should help your lover learn about the irony of things through a fast moving story. And yes, Tale of Kasaya should move you to understand that girl who takes care of your child, the maid.

You may want to treat your lover to this book together with David Maillu’s The Ayah for special effect. Francis Imbuga’s Miracle of Remera will enliven your lover if she or he is between the ages of 18 and 26 years old. If you love folklore like me, then Christopher Okemwa’s latest on the Abagusii Riddles will help you connect with traditional wisdom.

Let us excite one another about books as the true keys for unlocking limitless possibilities in our lives. A season such as this is the time to inspire one another to realise that the reading of books should not end with the last examination we take. Remember, once you stop reading then you become illiterate in thought. Those who have stopped thinking are not ashamed of buying love messages for their lovers.

This season of love can also be the season of change. I remember as a Fulbright scholar in residence in Pennsylvania, USA, three years ago, I joined a book club that had existed for 30 years.

Members select a book every month to be read and they discuss it at 2pm on the first Saturday of the month. I had the opportunity to introduce the members of the club to our culture through Margaret Ogola’s The River and the Source. We have the opportunity to form family, local and office book clubs.

It is, however, regrettable that there are very few book clubs in our society. Very few people come together to exchange books and ideas acquired through reading. That is why our national discourses often degenerate to obnoxious and unimaginative exchange of inanities. There is too much of these on FM Radio stations.

School teachers have to contribute to the effort of making their students fall in love with the book this season. It is time for reading competitions. Did you know that less than five per cent of us are still creative by age 18? Developmental psychologists argue that by this age, many of us would have wasted ourselves watching TV and videos. This lifestyle requires us to use little imagination.  Let us change this sorry state of affairs and rise to the book.

Prof Egara Kabaji is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Planning Research and Innovation, at Masinde Muliro University of Science and [email protected]