A Random Observation on a Wednesday Evening

I recently finished reading two books Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor - which incidently plagerises its title from a much earlier book also, surprising since we are talking about plagerism here, called Bitter Fruit about the CIA sponsored 1954 coup d'état in Guatemala,* and Beasts of No Nation, by Uzodinma Iweala, both published by Harper Perennial. The Bitter Fruit in question is about a black family's efforts to come to grips in post-apartheid Africa, while Beasts is the first-hand [fictional] account of a child's abduction by, and experience in, a brutal African guerilla army. Both uppers, obviously! Bitter was okay while Beasts was excellent. Very difficult to read, particularly the first couple of chapters, but excellent.

But these are not my observations for this evening. Rather, my observation is that the book industry is obviously trying to copy the DVD industry as these books both have "extras" tucked away for the reader to enjoy post-reading. The extras in Bitter included About the Author [Author Biography]; About the Book [The Final Days of Writing Bitter Fruit: Excerpts from a Writer's Diary; and Myth, Myth-making and Fiction]; and Read On [Also by Achmat Dangor; and Further Reading]. Beasts includes About the Author [Meet Uzodinma Iweala]; About the Book [Writing Beasts of No Nation]; and Read On [Author's Picks: Ten Favourite Books]. Both sets of extras close in at close to twenty pages. I guess that the extras are a good idea, but it pains me that the book industry should feel it needs to be in competition with the DVD industry.

* Turns out that there are lots o' books with the title Bitter Fruit - on subjects as varied as black politics in Chicago, Africa American women during World War II, Korean-Black relations in New York City, women and unplanned pregnacies and a whole slew of dime store novels. You'd figure that either the authors or the publishers would do a quick google search before agreeing to print yet another book called Bitter Fruit, but again, I digress...