Benjamin Zephaniah, Haruki Murakami and a White Horse

Hello all!!

I am very lucky. As I work in a school, I am lucky to have half term and two week breaks every few months. The job is rewarding but very, very stressful at times, and believe me, by the time it comes to half term, we are more than ready to take a break and forget the children, the teaching, the arguments, the noise,...

And so in preparation to the upcoming two week break I have armed myself with some seriously interesting reads. From next week I will be spending most of my days filling an arts application to the British Arts Council and another one to a Theatre Festival in Manchester. I find these things difficult to do and it will take a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get them right. But hopefully at the end of that, I will have receive money to fund the performance I am working on immigration in the UK.

First book on my coffee table is Pointing the Finger about Islam and Muslims in the British media. It is very rare that Muslims receive a positive treatment in the newspapers here (across the board; even the left wing press has its suspicious moments). This is a collection of essays about the press's misrepresentation of Muslims in the West, that in my view contribute to the ever growing Islamophobia. I stumbled upon this book in my local library and I can't wait to start reading it and using it as part of my research for the performance:

Next on the list is Refugee Boy by Benjamin Zephaniah. In this country he is more known for his poetry than his prose. This book is about a refugee boy coming from Ethiopia to England, running away from war. Not easy when you are left without parents in a strange land where you don't know anybody. Again, this will feed right into my research for the performance on life of people fleeing their country and looking for safety in strange lands where politicians decide your faith and want to send you back to war zone:

Then I have Haruki Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart. I read this book years ago, but I need something that I know is good and will cheer me up. Of course, it is not a happy book, (it is Murakami after all), but I know I will enjoy the writing and the story. I rarely re read books, but this one is an exception.

So, my next two weeks are sorted. It won't exactly be a holiday as I will be working every day, but I will be doing something I love and am interested in.

What book is on your coffee table? A novel, a book of poems, or something political you can get your teeth into?

I leave you with this:

Random? Sure. But random is good, right?

Have a wonderfully random and happy rest of the week.

Red xx