The latest Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is here! Have to read it...
Edit, April 14, 2009: A collection of short stories. Written with an incredible and so beautiful sadness! Nigeria must be an incredible and also a terrible place to live. There are the ethnic problems between Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani and Hausa; between Christians and Muslims... And there are strange ways how young women have to live. Wealth and poverty so tightly intervowen. And even worse are thoses tories of Nigerians libing in the USA!

I'm making a BookRay with this one. The following Bookcrossers read along:

"Bjorg" from Reykjavík, Reykjavík (Höfuðborgar svæðið), Iceland (worldwide)
"thy" from Nurmijärvi, Uusimaa, Finland (wroldwide)
"klaradyn" from Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa (worldwide)
"arturogrande" from Coalville, Leicestershire, United Kingdom (wroldwide)
"iliotropio" from Brussels, Bruxelles / Brussel, Belgium (Europe)
"mopedhexle" from Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (get in touch with "Book-Man-8" - thanks)

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

This RAY is taking off, first stop Iceland! Enjoy!

The book arrived today and it´s the perfect timing:) I can start on it right away:) Thanks book-man-8:)

The stories in this book are really good, very moving and sad. I specially liked The Arrangers of Marriage and The Thing Around Your Neck.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a great writer. I have got Half of a Yellow Sun waiting in my TBR pile, really look forward to read that one.

I have already contacted thy and am now waiting for an address.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

The book is off to the next reader:)

The book arrived today, thanks Bjorg & book-man-8!
I'm currently reading Half of the Yellow Sun, only about 50 pages left. I'll finish that one first and then continue with Adichie's latest.

I liked the stories a lot. They were easy to read, tell about strong women and it is interesting to know something about what the life is like in Nigeria today.
I especially liked Jumping Monkey Hill and The Arrangers of Marriage.

Sending book to klaradyn, I already have her address

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

on it's way to klaradyn

Arrived today. Thanks for sending, thy, and for starting the ray, book-man-8! I'm really excited about reading this one, since I loved both Adichie's novels.

I don't normally enjoy short stories as much as novels, but this collection was absolutely wonderful, though filled with deep sadness.

The story "Jumping Monkey Hill" will probably stay with me the longest - an examination of cultural identities and what it means to be "African", if indeed one can speak of such a thing. Most of the comments about this story that I've seen on amazon.co.uk revolves around the fact that the lecturer in the story is a white man imposing himself on a group of African writers. However, I think it also concerns the differences in culture between people from various parts of Africa, and the way they perceive one another.

My other favourite story from this book was "The Headstrong Historian", which is a beautiful portrayal of familial love, among other themes.

Thanks again for starting this ray, book-man-8. I already have arturogrande's address, and it will be in the mail by the end of the week.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On the way to the next reader in the UK via surface mail, so will take a few months to arrive. Sorry about that!

My book #47 for guinaveve's Keep Them Moving challenge.

Thnaks for including me on the ring for this book. I've got a couple ahead of this, but I'll try to get to it as soon as I can.

These are very sad and very beautiful stories, filled with incredibly strong, incredibly real people (mostly women, although 'Ghosts' is told from the point of view of a man) dealing with life and everything it throws at them.
Each of them looked at a different facets of life for women living in and out of Nigeria and all of them seemed to get as deeply into their subject in a few pages as it takes a whole novel to do.
Some of them seem to end quite abruptly with no tidy resolution, but Adiche is such a skilful writer that that is a strength of the writing and not a weakness.
A common theme seemed to be people trying to project their values onto others, or trying to fit in with the values laid down by others, and the ways in which this has failed for them, or brought them to some kind of greater self-knowledge.
Life in Nigeria seems hard in these stories, but as book-man-8 said, for those people trying to make their way in America, it is in some ways even harder.
Thank you very much for sharing this great book. It's now on its way to iliotropio.

Arrived safely. Many thanks arturogrande for sending it :0)