It’s been a minute… I haven’t written any “book club” blogs in several months, and I have been very busy reading. Here are some short summaries of the six books I’ve completed since the last one of these blog posts in March.
THE SIGN AND THE SEAL
BY GRAHAM HANCOCK
This one came highly recommended to me by one of my Ethiopian Church brothers. That was long before the recent controversy over Graham Hancock’s “Ancient Apocalypse” Netflix series (the book sat on my shelf for years) and I didn’t even realize it was the same man until I was halfway through this book and telling everyone about it. The Sign and the Seal is an investigation into the whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant, one that reads like a detective story spanning several decades of Hancock’s life and several thousand years of humanity’s. Much of the book is focused on the grand mythical history of Ethiopia and how that has seeped into European culture over the millennia. Hancock connects the entire tradition of Holy Grail quests to the search for the Ark, hypothesizing that the Grail and the Ark are really one and the same. Evidence for this comes from Gothic cathedrals in Europe, excavations in the vicinity of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem, and Ethiopian castle ruins. He also brings in little tidbits about the Knights Templar, which are always fun for me because one of my favorite bands as a teenager was New York’s “Templars”, an Oi! band whose singer is still a friend of mine, and I like to send him mentions like this when I find them:
LET YOUR LIFE SPEAK
BY PARKER J. PALMER
This one came to me on the recommendation of one of my fitness clients, and it’s actually one of the most inspiring books about purpose that I’ve ever encountered. The author speaks from his own wisdom and experience as an elder in his circles of college and university administrators, someone who has spent a lot of time examining his own purpose and helping others discover theirs. He ties in eclectic quotes and powerful true stories to reinforce his inferences.
I was taking a lot of notes while reading this book, and sending screenshots to my friends. I even posted some on social media. That means I was excited and enthusiastic about the ideas I encountered here, and the new thoughts they brought to life in me. This is a book I will send others to read.
TRIED & TRUE
BY DUTTY BOOKMAN
Dutty Bookman has a publishing company, Jamaican-owned, with an emphasis on African diaspora authors. A year or two ago, I ordered 2 copies of every book that he’s published: one to keep at home for myself and read; one to send to the Rastafari Community Development Office in Mombasa, of which I am a founder, and where we have a small library. The books made it to the library in Kenya long before I had a chance to read all of them. For some reason, this was the last one I read. It fitted perfectly between “Let Your Life Speak” and “Think and Grow Rich” because it too is a book about purpose and determination. I see a lot of parallels between my life, my personality, and Dutty Bookman’s a continent away, in a different generation. We’re both vibing with the same grand ideas, inspired by some of the same powerful figures of history, and listening to the same musicians. I smiled to read this on page 154, just a month after I’d been in Jamaica telling people basically the same thing, and writing proposals to create a Rastafari Film Studio:
THINK AND GROW RICH
BY NAPOLEON HILL
This is a true classic, first published in 1937, a foundation stone of the “self-help” book industry and the bedrock upon which many a consultant, success coach, or “prosperity gospel” preacher has built their careers. Legend has it that this book inspired the Bad Brains to start their band and name it that, influencing their philosophy of PMA (Positive Mental Attitude). I’d read it before when I was really young and could barely understand some of it, so it was well worth revisiting now. Check out some of these gems:
There are sections of this book that punched me right in the gut, drawing out a lot of deep feelings and valuable reflections. I have filled my notebooks with notes based on the prompts in this book, and I’m still going back through and processing some of it over and over again. He says that the books is meant to be read at least three times, and there are self-analysis and personal inventory questions that are meant to be revisited annually, or even more frequently. I took pictures, of course, and texted some of these to my friends or posted them on socials. Check out this one, which speaks so strongly to the work I do as a fitness coach, and has a kind of prophetic, dreadful resonance with the times we now live in:
CONTEMPLATIONS ON THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, VOLUME 1
BY H.H. POPE SHENOUDA III
A lot of people don’t know that there is more than one active Pope, that there are in fact many Popes outside of Rome and the Roman Catholic Church. This book was written by one of them, Pope Shenouda III, one of the Popes of Alexandria, a former Patriarch of the Coptic Church, and a life-long companion and ally of Haile Selassie I.
Almost nobody knows that I am a Sunday School teacher. It is somehow shocking even to me, that I–who was once shunned and condemned in a Sunday School class–would end up teaching one of them. It just kind of fell into my lap. When our regular Sunday School teacher disappeared during the COVID pandemic and never returned to the post, I was called in occasionally to cover for class, mainly because of my skill with English and a knack for scholarship that stood out to the priests in charge. Now we are working with a lot more structure than before. We have a regular teaching staff, a schedule, and a curriculum. My classes in Christian Ethics are based on a series of four books from Pope Shenouda III, this being the first. The book is a well-considered and in-depth analysis of the significance of the Ten Commandments to Orthodox Christians, why we should still heed them in these times, and how we should go about following them.
THE PILLARS OF HERCULES
BY PAUL THEROUX
On its surface, this is a travel book about the Mediterranean. An author sets out to circumnavigate the great sea at the “middle” of the world, leaving from one Pillar of Hercules (Gibraltar) and moving clockwise around until he reaches the opposite pillar in Morocco. But this is so much more than a travel book. This book epitomizes for me what I love about both traveling and writing. It is history and culture and food and contemporary events (of the early 90s when it was written). It’s an economic critique of the tourism industry and retirement communities, an examination of post-communist fugue, an intimate look at race and morality, at war, and at peace, in an area of the world where everyone’s history lays side by side and one on top of the other in a complex mess of grudges and interdependencies. Theroux pulls no punches in touching all the taboo subjects and expressing his true feelings. Here’s a sample:
Nic Nakis 