BOOK KLUB: "BORN A CRIME" BY TREVOR NOAH

Studying law doesn't give you that much time to read books, besides the books that you are supposed to read for your studies. And to be honest, most of the time you probably don't have that much energy or patience left to indulge in books. Well, at least that was my excuse. But no more! Studies are over and work can't be the next excuse.

As much as I love YouTube and "visual media" in general - quite an addict to be honest - they can't give me the same kind of relaxation and knowledge as books do. That's why, I am starting my very own "book klub". The name is a combination of two words, an Englisch ("book") and a German ("klub", meaning club) one. So sometimes, there will be English books I want to discuss or books written in German. The goal is to read one book every or every second month and educate myself or ourselves about climate change, fair fashion, feminism, racism, identity, human rights and any other social topic. Feel free to join!

Today, I would like to start this off with a book about empowerment, racism and feminism. When I started to read Trevor Noah's book "Born a Crime", I never thought that it would be about all of these three topics. It's an autobiographic book about his experience growing up as a mixed race kid in a South Africa that was in the midst of apartheid. The title "Born a Crime" is significant to describe Noah's life but also apartheid. As a mixed race child, being born to a black mother and a white man in a system that strictly forbids relationships between blacks and whites, he was born a crime.

Through sharing stories from his childhood, he manages to describe many facets of a manmade system that was build to categorize people into races and ultimately into being of worth or worthless. Besides him giving insights of how he maneuvered his life of being neither black nor white, fitting in and just growing up, it's an amazing love story about the relationship between him and his mother. Introducing his mother as the other protagonist in his book, he's introducing a strong female black person who always made her own choices, lived against all the odds and always with dignity.

Overall it's a great book full of Noah's charm, wittiness and humor that explains apartheid through everyday life and sets through Noah's story telling an example of how a man raised by a strong woman can be a feminist.

The only thing I didn't like about the book was that it had to end. As cheesy as it might sound, but Noah's writing and stories are really captivating and make you addicted. Luckily, he's the host of "The Daily Show with Trevor Noah" and I was able to binge watch in order to satisfy my addiction.

For everyone who I made interested in the book, but doesn't have that much time to read it, there is also a great audio book version with Noah narrating.

Next book I'm going to discuss is "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari on the 13th of April!!! Subscribe to my Facebook and Instagram, where I'm going to remind you about the date!

xo, MadVoyage

Photo credit: http://www.trevornoah.com/store/