Posted on 10/10/2024 in Dorothy Says
Welcome To The Big Reveal Book Club!
As well as being a bestselling author, I am a HUGE reader and I love nothing better than to share when I find a book I adore. So here I am, sharing the book love with you via The Big Reveal Book Club.
This book club is all about helping you to find your next favourite read, so I’ll be recommending all sorts of things from the books I read.
Along with these recommendations, I’m thinking of starting a Facebook page for the book club and I’m hoping to get a monthly online meeting going so we can properly discuss the chosen books.
Also, do let me know via the contact me page, if you’ve read the book and what you thought. And I would absolutely love it if you sent some other book suggestions my way.
That’s it for now folks, all that’s left is to introduce you to the book choice.
Talk to you soon.
Dorothy x
The Big Reveal Book Club Choice:
Anansi’s Gold by Yepoka Yeebo
TBRBC Headline: It’s wonderful. Brilliant, clever and eye-opening.
My thoughts: I don’t normally read non-fiction and/or historical non-fiction unless it’s for research, but this book captured my imagination in a very special way. It doesn’t read like a historical, fact-filled book at all – it’s written in a compulsive, page-turning style that grabs you and won’t let you go.
Anansi’s Gold tells the story of John Ackah Blay-Miezah who managed to convince people across the globe that before he died, Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, had amassed a stash of wealth – gold, jewels, money – and Blay-Miezah was the only person who knew where that treasure was stored. And, he told them, if they helped him out financially, he would give them access to these riches.
Except he knew nothing of the sort – the whole thing was one big con.
Kwame Nkrumah was famously uncorruptable, if he did amass a fortune, it would have been for the good of the Ghanaian people. But just as there was no evidence he had built a massive nest egg, there was none at all that he had anything to do with Blay-Miezah.
However . . . as Yepoka outlines so brilliantly in the book, there is a lot of missing, unaccounted-for wealth from Ghana. A lot of it was stolen by successive British governments who went to extraordinary – and well documented – lengths to make sure the Ghanaian people would never get it back. But even taking that into account, there is still a vast amount of gold that no one can locate, so maybe, just maybe, Blay-Miezah did know something other people didn’t. . .
Blay-Miezah was a very charming conman and some parts of Anansi’s Gold read like caper episodes of Hustle, but some parts are gut-wrenching when you consider the false hope he gave to the people of Ghana who needed the money to repair their country after being colonised for so long.
I spoke to Yepoka recently about her book for Hay Festival book club and she explained how she talked to Blay-Miezah’s ex-wife and children, as well as people who knew him. Her extensive research is there on every page, everything she says is backed up, which makes for eye-opening reading when you learn about various governments’ tactics to keep subjugating African and other colonised peoples.
There is also a lot of insight into the psychology of the con and how people often continue to fall for the con even after it has been exposed.
I had an added affection for this book because my parents are from Ghana, which is why I often throw in a mention of the country in my books.
As I said, this is a wonderful book about a fascinating, flawed man and the history of Ghana. Do pick it up if you can.
TBRBC verdict: Anansi’s Gold is an interesting, intricately researched, page-turning read that will open your eyes to a part of history you probably didn’t know existed.
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