The name is Koya-Oyagbola, Mogbolahan Koya-Oyagbola and I’m an addict. I developed the habit quite early on. Mum urged me to try it. She said it would be good for me and like a fool I listened. I looked at the colours, sniffed at it and was hooked. At first I only did it in the daytime but pretty soon I also did it at night. Sometimes I couldn’t sleep as I built up my stash – Homer, Defoe, Stevenson, Dickens, Shakespeare. Mum had turned me into a book addict. If you came to our house you’d often find me, my mum and all three of my brothers in the same room, caught up in the book addict’s hush. Dad’s law books made him immune. In no time at all I was hanging on street corners pushing Steinbeck, Marquez, Roth, Achebe.

“Try this one,” I’d say, “and if it makes you euphoric, control your reading high and don’t crack the spine”. I had gone from book addict to book pusher. Mum cheered on, supplying pure uncut encyclopaedias, dictionaries, thesauruses. At 14 I started to manufacture my own. I gave up on the pursuit of impressive sounding jobs. I’m not a doctor, not a lawyer or engineer in spite of my almost encyclopaedic knowledge. Instead I’m a student of languages and an English language teacher. I’m the worst kind of book addict. I also manufacture my own my stuff. One of them is now available on amazon.com. It’s a highly addictive collection of five poems and 14 short stories called, Some White English Women I’ve Almost Known. It’s one step away from thesaurus – addictive, pure uncut. Go to amazon.com to get yours. But a word of caution - it might give you a reading high which makes you crack the spine. Caveat emptor! You’ve been warned. Hooked by my cautionary tale and want to find out more on my website?