Book World: Resisting The Irresistible

NJOKU MACDONALD OBINNA

 I have always fought so hard to resist the temptation of buying new books until I am done reading already stockpile of old books I had bought previously, but to no avail. 

Admittedly, it is one of my flaws as a news reporter and avowed reader, as I keep searching for new ideas, new vista, new experience, new horizon in the media and the latest English lexicon not captured in our contemporary published dictionaries, through reading of new books.

On arrival at the Port Harcourt International Airport (left wing), before boarding a flight to Lagos State for the Igbo New Yam Festival in Ghana, I saw two irresistible powerful books on business strategy and political memoir.

1. The Art Of The Strategist: A book on  business leadership and boardroom strategies, which captured very clearly the business world as ever competitive, complex and intense. As the author, William A. Cohen, PhD, through his lucid masterpiece, provided a solid way to deal with complex issues and to keep all organisations moving toward a common goal despite the many pressures and associated distractions occasioned by fierce competitive dynamic business environment.

From the battlefield to the boardroom, there has never been a victory without a successful strategy behind it as William Cohen forcefully argued in this book.

2. The Commanders: 
From my favourite author and New York bestseller of all times, Bob Woodward, PhD.

With his unmatched investigative skills, Bob Woodward tells the behind-the- scenes story of how President Bush and his Military High Command made their decisions. ‘The Commanders’ is an extraordinary work of contemporary history, based on more than two years of exhaustive reporting on the inner workings of the Bush administration.

Through this captivating and all engaging political memoir, I was kept in the know about the Gorilla Kind -Of- Warfare Policy of the Bush administration in his first two years in office, the United States Military and its leaders that dominated the world’s attention to such degree not seen since the Vietnam war.

The two books cost me a little above N15,000.00 (Airport price😃), which was part of my budget for hotel accommodation if I had spent a night in Ikeja, Lagos, before heading for Accra, the capital of the Republic of Ghana. 

Impulse order for books is one purchase  decision I have never regretted one bit even when my purse doesn’t agree with me sometimes. With the two books added to my library, I have 38 new books that I haven’t read, over 50 old ones I haven’t completed and about 66 books I have read half way. 

It is a big challenge, isn’t it? Anyways, if you have a better and effective reading plan for one year, kindly come up with it.
Thank you!

– Njoku MacDonald Obinna, 

Media Consultant|PR-Expert, 
Publisher, 4thestatereporters