Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The book-packing journey reaches Nigeria, in the early sixties, a time of post-colonial optimism and promise for the lead characters in this novel – two Nigerians and an Englishman who has made the country his home.

Ugwu has just landed a plum job as houseboy to Odenigbo, an academic at the regional university, and sees it as a great opportunity to make his way in the world. In and out of the house is the beautiful Olanna, Odenigbo’s girlfriend; she comes from a wealthy and well-connected family who think she is slumming it with a lecturer when there are richer suitors available. Richard Churchill is a would-be writer obsessed with the ethnic artefacts of the country, who finds himself at odds with the ex-pat community he has landed in.

That social sphere overlaps the Nigerian elite, which is how he meets and falls for Kainene. Olanna’s non-identical but equally striking twin sister. Ugwu is not without love interest too, as he reaches adolescence and dabbles with the local servant girls while holding a torch for an old friend in the village. All in all, things are looking good for the trio, and any wobbles are of their own making.

But ethnic and religious divides in the new republic cause tension, envy, suspicion and eventually violent revolt, civil war and the secession of East Nigeria. That is where Ugwu, Olanna and Richard live, and they soon take up roles in the newly declared state of Biafra, flying its flag featuring the eponymous half a yellow sun.

We know how that ends; not well for Biafra. For the likes of Ugwu, Olanna and Richard the initial inconveniences and shortages soon give way to life changing events, brought vividly to life by the author (Adichie drawing on her family history).

The characters are well drawn, there is investment in the well-being of the trio, and the setting convinces as authentic, which all makes for a compulsive page-turning read.

Uncommon Type – Tom Hanks

Thirteen stories, some linked, and a series of small-town newspaper diary pieces (‘Our Town Today, with Hank Fiset’), form this collection by actor, now author, Tom Hanks.

The subject matters are generally slices of contemporary American life, though some take the author’s showbiz world as their milieu. The stories are well constructed with authentic characters, plots that lead somewhere interesting and conclude satisfactorily. And while that may be unfashionably old school, it works for this reviewer; the newspaper pieces, less so. The reference in each story to an old model of typewriter (Hanks collects them) is forgivably unobtrusive and serves to provide a title for the anthology.

A pleasurable and varied collection inevitably read with Hanks’ distinctive voice in mind, which does no harm to the experience at all.