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.

 

#MusicWeDeyFeel, My Playlist

Good to be back once again. As promised, another Monday is here and today isn't any exception than to bring you my picks of wonderful tunes from the motherland.

This week I take you all the way to two beautiful countries with great talent. They are Angola and Uganda. Here we go;

1. Bruna Tatiana - Eu Falhei (ANGOLA)


If you love Kizomba, then this artist's tunes shouldn't escape your African music playlist. The song title trams;ated in to English means " I FAILED". She sings very well and the rhythm is always on point even if the language seems to be a barrier.


2. Bebe Cool - Loving You Everyday (UGANDA)



Personally one of my favorite from this artist. Great video, this song has a reggae vibe to it and message is straight forward on what his intentions are.

Still waiting for your playlist so I share with my readers. Till I come your way again, next week, Enjoy these tunes.

Credits:
Videos : www.youtube.com

Link to Bruna Tatiana artist profile.

Link to Bebe Cool artist profile.

#MusicWeDeyFeel For Another #MusicMonday

It's another Monday and I am sure you had a great weekend.

As promised, another #MusicMonday post comes your way for you to enjoy another #MusicWeDeyFeel moment.

Going straight into the list for today are;


1. DARK SUBURB feat NOELLA WIYAALA - MAMA



2. MZVEE featuring EFYA - ABOFRA (Child)

For this week I decided to go somehow bias a little. These two tunes making up the list for this week are artists all from Ghana even the ones that featured. These are great tunes and I believe if you check them out, you'll love the beauty of Ghanaian music.

I will be checking out more tunes from the continent and as usual share with you next Monday.

CHEERS !!!

Credits:
Videos: www.youtube.com

Link to Dark Suburb artist profile.

Link to MzVee artist profile

Another Music Monday- #MusicWedeyFeel

African music in its entirety is one to revere. Its rich drums especially, create wonderful sound for which people being entertained by it can dance to the rhythm it produces.

Some few years back I started to even appreciate it the more when it earned its new face. African music nowadays, for which some call it Afro Pop as well as genres like Kwaito, House, Hip Life and the likes, really tickles my fancy and I am sure it does to you also.

A few years on social media, I found a running hashtag on Mondays which sounded interesting. Want to know? #MusicMondays it is –it highlights the various songs people are grooving to, downloading or enjoying at that moment.

So the little African in me decided to check out f there were any African tunes being shared. That led me to the hashtag #MusicWeDeyFeel. Following it keenly especially in twitter, I realized it was targeted towards tunes from our continent. I later found out that it was spear-headed by Museke. Over the period I had contributed to the trend of sharing my favorite African music.

Now I want to bring it to my platform here. So every Monday hopefully, I should bring you my pick of tunes from the continent so you also check it out.

So for this week, I start with these two tunes, I am sure you’ll love. And for your enjoyment pleasure, watch it right here;

     1. Seyi Shay featuring Iyanya and Banky W – Right Now (Remix) –  Nigeria

    

2. Mi Casa featuring Sauti Sol – Tuale Fofofo   –          South Africa/Kenya

Stay tuned till I come your way next week Monday for another set of enjoyable African music. If no one will celebrate us, we will celebrate ourselves.

Link to Seyi Shay artist profile

Link to Mi Casa artist profile.

Credits:

Video – www.youtube.com

GHANA NEEDS $22.6 BILLION TO IMPLEMENT CLIMATE ACTIONS

Ghana needs $22.6 billion in investments from domestic and international public and private sources to finance its climate mitigation and adaptation actions.

The country's 31 programme of actions will drive the strategic focus of a “10-year post-2020 enhanced climate action plan” that would be developed after the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris.

This is contained in Ghana’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) submitted on September 23, 2015 to the UNFCCC, ahead of the deadline.
An INDC is a government's proposed 'contribution' to the UNFCCC as to what it will do about climate change.

COP 21 CLIMATE CHANGE

The Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC invited parties to communicate to the secretariat their INDCs well in advance of the Paris climate summit in December 2015 “in a manner that facilitates the clarity, transparency and understanding of the INDCs.
As at October 1, there were 108 submitted INDCs on the UNFCCC website, including that of Ghana.

Ghana's INDC is anchored on the medium-term development agenda (Ghana Shared Growth Development Agenda II – GSGDA 2), National Climate Change Policy and the Low Carbon Development Strategy, as well as the anticipated 40-year long-term development and the universal sustainable development goals.

According to the document,“the proposed measures to achieve the INDC goal will build on existing measures and strategies”.
In all, 20 mitigation and 11 adaptation programme of actions in 7 priority economic sectors are being proposed for implementation in the 10-year period (2020-2030).

The implementation of the actions are expected to help attain low carbon climate resilience through effective adaptation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction in the priority sectors: Sustainable land use including food security; Climate proof infrastructure; Equitable social development; Sustainable mass transportation; Sustainable energy security; Sustainable forest management; and Alternative urban waste management.

Ghana's emission reduction goal is to unconditionally lower its GHG emissions by 15% relative to a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario emission of 73.95 MtCO2e by 2030.

An additional 30 percent emission reduction is attainable on condition that external support is made available to Ghana to cover the full cost of implementing the mitigation action (finance, technology transfer, capacity building).
With this external support, a total emission reduction of 45% below the BUA emission levels can be achieved by 2030.

The total investment cost for implementing the 20 transformational mitigation actions is $9.81 billion – representing 45% of the total investment. Out of this, Ghana will mobilize $2.02 billion (21% of the total investment cost) to finance the two unconditional INDCs. An additional $7.79 billion will be needed to finance the remaining 18 mitigation actions in order to achieve more ambitious emission reductions in the 10 year period.

The long-term goal of Ghana’s adaptation is to increase climate resilience and decrease vulnerability for enhanced sustainable development.
Ghana will require $12.79 billion for adaptation – $4.21 billion (34%) will be mobilized at the national level, whilst the remaining $8.29 billion is the international contribution Ghana is looking for in order to meet the cost of implementing its adaptation actions.

Adaptation under Ghana’s INDC is informed by: good governance and inter-sectoral coordination; capacity-building, the role of science, technology and innovation; adequate finance from both domestic sources and international cooperation; promoting outreach by informing, communicating and educating the citizenry; and adhering to accountable monitoring and reporting.

Ambitious climate resilient economy
Africa and other developing countries remain vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

In Ghana, the agricultural and food economy are already under threat as local farmers reel under the severity of the weather.
Achieving a 2oC global temperature target is ambitious but means for adaptation and mitigation remain critical to the vulnerable.

In preparing and submitting its INDC, Ghana is mindful of its international obligations as a Party to the UNFCCC while simultaneously pursuing a national development agenda that seeks to achieve the long-standing objective of becoming a fully-fledged middle-income economy.

Ghana’s response to the threats posed to this objective by the impacts of climate change has been to pursue coordinated domestic policy actions that in effect seek to develop a policy framework that integrates adaptation, mitigation and other climate related policies within broader development policies and planning.

This is in order to safeguard developmental gains from the impacts of climate change and build a climate resilient economy.
Ghana holds the view that the INDCs should cover mitigation, adaptation, finance technology, capacity building and transparency and agrees with the common position of Africa.

Original story: ghanaweb.com

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