2015 Goodreads Best Book Choice Awards

Good reads announced the winners of the 2015 Goodreads Choice Awards for best books. Over the year there have been some good books coming through and I am sure if you are a follower of Good reads, some of these books might have caught your sight.

Luckily, I read a few of them but those I read unfortunately didn't make the winners list. Maybe yours made the list but might not know so I bring you the complete list of all the winners categorized by the various genres.

Here we go;

FOOD & COOKBOOKS --     THE PIONEER WOMAN COOKS: DINNERTIME: COMFORT CLASSICS, FREEZER FOOD, 16-MINUTE MEALS, AND OTHER DELICIOUS WAYS TO SOLVE SUPPER

                                                    BY: REE DRUMMOND

 

POETRY                                 THE DOGS I HAVE KISSED

                                                  BY: TRISTA MATEER

 

GRAPHIC NOVELS              SAGA VOLUME 4

& COMICS                              BY: BRIAN K. VAUGHAN (Writer), FIONA STAPLES (Artist)

 

HISTORY & BIOGRAPHY    DEAD WAKE: THE LAST CROSSING OF THE    LUSITANIA

                                                    BY: ERIC LARSON

 

NONFICTION                       MODERN ROMANCE

                                                BY: AZIZ ANSARI, ERIK KLINENBERG

 

HORROR                              SAINT ODD

                                                BY: DEAN KOONTZ

 

MEMOIR &                           A WORK IN PROGRESS

AUTOBIOGRAPHY             BY: CONNOR FRANTA

 

ROMANCE                           CONFESS

                                                BY: COLLEN HOOVER

 

FICTION                               GO SET A WATCHMAN

                                                BY: HARPER LEE

 

FANTASY                              TRIGGER WARNING

                                                BY: NEIL GAIMAN

 

MYSTERY &                          THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

THRILLER                              BY: PAULA HAWKINS

 

SCIENCE FICTION            GOLDEN SON

                                                BY: PIERCE BROWN

 

HUMOUR                               WHY NOT ME?

                                                 BY: MINDY KALING

 

YOUNG ADULT                     ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES

FICTION                                  BY: JENNIFER NIVEN

 

MIDDLE GRADE &               THE SWORD OF SUMMER

CHILDREN                             BY: RICK RIORDAN

 

PICTURE BOOKS                  THE DAY THE CRAYONS CAME HOME

                                                   BY: DREW DAYWALT, OLIVER JEFFERS

 

SCINECE &                             BENEATH THE SURFACE: KILLER WHALES, SEA WORLD, AND THE TRUTH BEYOND BLACKFISH 

 TECHNOLOGY                      BY: JOHN HARGROVE, HOWARD CHUA-EOAN

 

HISTORICAL FICTION         THE NIGHTINGALE

                                                   BY: KRISTIN HANNAH

 

YOUNG ADULT FANTASY     QUEEN OF SHADOWS

                                                     BY: SARAH J. MAAS

 

DEBUT GOOD READS             RED QUEEN

  AUTHOR                                   BY: VICTORIA AVEYARD

 

Did any of the books you read during the year feature in the list? Well I had just one book that I read all year making the list and it is that of KRISTIN HANNAH’S; THE NIGHTINGALE.

 

The Reconnection

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Does this popular saying ring a bell? "Anything that is meant to be will definitely be"

Some years back when snail mail pen palling was the in thing and a way of forming friendship all over the world was prime I met a young lady from Jamaica. Ok hold on, she didn't become my girlfriend or anything of that sort.

I received her letter in my mailbox box some 10 years or so, I had placed my details and mailing address on a lot of platforms. We begun communication by the exchange of letters and later became very close friends for which we exchanged a lot of items from photos, stamps, and some artistic pieces that I still have with me. She always stated that we will be friends forever and I saw it as one of the words that are used in the heat of any good friendship.

At some point of our friendship, we exchange telephone numbers and we spoke a few times on phone where I had the opportunity to speak to some her family members in Jamaica. The friendship grew that she at so many times wanted to come Ghana. I always wanted here to also come visit as she said if this is how sweet all Ghanaians were, then she'll want to experience it for herself.

In between time we lost contact, and for over 18 months or so communication was cut, anytime I called her, it was either a connection problem, call dropped and a lot that couldn't be explained then. So I decided to send her through our initial communication channel a mail to her address and wrote my cell phone number in the letter that if she got the mail, she could contact me so we rekindle our friendship once again. I never heard from her until somewhere third year in university when I received a foreign call and decided to pick it. She called her name that, "hey! Asheka here from Jamaica, remember me?"

My initial response was, " sure I do remember Asheka...where have you been?" the rest of the story was about reconnecting back as friends.

We had another friendship span for over 24 months there about and we lost contacting each other again. And for this time, it was for a long long time. I lost her number through losing my cellphone  and also lost some of the her letters - Eerm I didn't lose mine via an Alajo tsunami oo.

This time it was over seven years of no communication of a sort, I wrote a letter or two if I remember and had no response so I thought it wise to leave it. I tried several searches online trying to get to meet my only Jamaican connection but all proved futile. Since I had tried a lot of ways to reconnect with her and never had any promising response, I gave up and said to myself that maybe she had decided the least of putting an end to the long distance friendship.

On December 21, 2013 at around 12:56 pm, I received a whatsapp notification on my cell phone and decided to check it out immediately, it had a pretty girl on the Display profile and a +1 country code number followed by the call digits. I wondered who she was as she had changed(before I got to know who she was) so,I decided to ignore the message initially but later decided to play calm and see how the conversation goes with whoever it was. The initial message went like "Hi, how are you doing" which sounded like I was known in a way. I then replied " Hi, I am well thank you. You? "

In the next minute she was online to reply me and the next thing she said was " I am well. It's been years" well the preceding conversation brought our friendship back after seven years or so of non communication. We relived the past of how we shared things, showed her a few of the gifts I still had from her.

It was great reconnecting with her as all through our friendship, she has been such a good person with a good heart, no wonder I always went though almost every corner to try and reconnect with her again. Good friendship do exist!!

My First Book Launch Attendance

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I have always liked reading and as we all know, knowledge is power.
I was invited by my good friend Bright to attend a program. It was a book launch event. I accepted the request and bookmarked the date so it didn't pass me by.
The day of the event came and I was there to observe. I was a little late.
The program was very precise and straight to the point. The chairman for the event was Dr. Michael Agyekum Addo.
His chairmanship response was so on point and that showcased his passion and zeal for entreprenuership to thrive on our economy and country as a whole.

He interlaced his speech with the seasons and centurion times with its accompanying state of development. The age and it's entrepreneurship ventures at the time, using Kwame Nkrumah's era of vision and ideologies.

He is one entrepreneur I really respect and admire because he has the VIM vibe and desire to see a lot of people decide and be entrepreneurs.

Then came the main speaker for the event. She was in the person of Mrs. Hannah Armo Haimson who is the HR Director of NBSSI. Her speech was spot on and she shared more light on the ventures that the NBSSI were into. She later delved into the reason and motive for the book as well as some excepts  of the book. She later made a great assertion that, " When the last entrepreneur dies, the last man dies" taking a cue from "When the last tree dies, the last man dies".

Comments were made from the chairman where he conducted a few illustrations of us as a people using our left side imaginative brain of thinking than we using the right to help us reach higher heights. He mentioned situations where he made various interventions to push entrepreneurship dreams by exposing them to the general public but to no avail. He conducted many of those that some of the audience had wrong hence confirming his sentiments.

Another observation i encountered was that of the invited guest not showing up after confirming and promising to be there. One of those was the minister of Youth & Sports, Elvis Ankrah, Dr. Gifty Anti and a few more for which some funny reasons were given therefore not worthy of me putting up in this post.

The book launch proper started and the procedure was an open bid then. People made very meaningful bids and raised a very respectable contribution to the young writer. In as much as this was going on, we we enjoying some sweet melodies from a pianist brought to spice up things in the hall. It was such soothing especially as these melodies were from home. This made a lot of people in the hall got acquainted to that as well.

It was an experience and I enjoyed every session of it. I made a few new friends, networking and acquaintances during the refreshment session.

The next thing was to find my way home to call it a day.

Book Tittle : THE STUDENT ENTREPRENEUR

Author :        Mary Ayisi

Copies can be attained in all the major bookshops in the country. Grab a copy and trust me the book is full of knowledge worth attaining and sharing.