Text Book Centre has launched a virtual book club beginning March 1 2015. There will be one book selected per month and discounted at 10 percent in all TBC branches and online shop. Literary enthusiasts will then be encouraged to buy, read the book and carry the conversation online. The club will bring together book lovers to read and discuss the book for a period of one month on Facebook and Twitter under the hash tag #TBCBookClub.
The inaugural selection will be a book titled ‘The Ghosts of Happy Valley; Searching for the Lost World of Africa’s Infamous Aristocrats’ by Juliet Barnes. The book is a blend of travel narrative, social history and one woman’s personal quest to recapture a community’s history.
Happy Valley was the name given to the Wanjohi Valley in the Kenya Highlands, where a small community of affluent, hedonistic white expatriates settled between the wars. Happy Valley became infamous under the influence of troubled socialite, Lady Idina Sackville.
The era culminated with the notorious murder of the Earl of Erroll in 1941, the investigation of which laid bare the Happy Valley set’s decadence and irresponsibility. But what is left now? In a remarkable and indefatigable archaeological quest Juliet Barnes, who has lived in Kenya all her life and whose grandparents knew some of the Happy Valley characters, has set out to explore Happy Valley to find the former homes and haunts of this extraordinary and transient set of people.
Nowadays, these old homes, she discovers, have become tumbledown dwellings for many African families, school buildings, or their ruins have almost disappeared without trace – a revelation of the state of modern Africa that makes the gilded era of the Happy Valley set even more fantastic.
This launch is in line with the company’s policy to connect with customers on an individual level as emphasized by the Managing Director, Mr. Rajiv Chowdhry. ‘We have always prided ourselves
“We have always prided ourselves as having a customer-centric approach to business. As conversations grow in the digital space, we have found the need to keep in touch with our customers and enrich their lives by providing this platform that will bring like minded individuals together to exchange ideas.’
Other book clubs that enjoy global success is the Oprah Book Club that is famed for its ‘Midas touch’ with every book selected becoming a best seller worldwide. Most recently Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook started a book club as his new year’s resolution for 2015. Dubbed ‘A Year of Books’ the online community already commands an impressive followership with book selections recording incredible sales.
