As a lifelong lover of the written word, I've read many great books. I've also read some not-so-great ones. But I've never read a book that didn't offer something, even a little toops of learning and/or pleasure. Even if it's just the simple joy of acquiring another new word to bolster my always evolving active vocabulary, or the thrill of discovering a fresh and delightful turn of phrase. I get pleasure from almost everything I read. Even the stuff I don't like becomes useful because if nothing else, it helps me to be clearer about what I don't like and why.

As a child growing up in the inner-city, under what could be best described as less-than-ideal living conditions, books have also been great source of escape for me. Yeah, man! Whenever reality became too heavy and hurtful, I knew I could always open a book and shut out the world. Every book was an open doorway leading to another world where justice usually prevails, and the nice guy invariably wins the prize. And, look here nuh, from childhood days till now, I get turned on by lines of books on a bookshelf. And, a library is like a heavenly hallway with hundreds of daring and delightful doorways.

I know a few women who actually use a man's attitude to books and his love for reading as the ultimate deciding factor in determining if he is 'the right man'. Yeah, man! simply put, how dem sister deh run dem ting, any guy who no really book up, nah go really get the hook up! Yu zimme? And, I'm kinda with them on that. Mi nah lie, I love a person who loves to read. And I'm always encouraging young people to read.

"You mean me fi read off a whole book? Me one?," that's what one youngster asked me incredulously once, as I gave him a book and that 'readers become leaders' line. "Yu mussi mad, sir! And it don't even have een any pickcha? Dat too boring!," he continued, as he dismissed me with an extra long 'kiss-teeth'. But hey, mi still a try wid di youth dem.

So imagine the joy of my encouraging encounter with a bright, deeply spiritual and positive youth, who not only understands the power and pleasure involved in reading a book, but he also has the courage, agency and audacity to actually write a book. People, I had to pause and pree, and take a more than casual look. I'm talking about a youth name Gladstone Taylor. Who's Gladstone Taylor? He's a prolific writer in his early 20s, who dropped out of a double major in biology and chemistry to pursue his passion for writing. And he's the author of Kingsun - The Testament Of Sunlight and Water - an interesting little book that I'm now reading. And it's brand new, or it is a new brand, or both!

Published early this year by independent local press, Bookman Express, the book was launched recently at Nanook, a dynamic creative hub in Half-Way Tree. It's available mainly online via Amazon and seems to be receiving good support from the creative community. Kingsun is a collection of poems, short stories, essays and philosophical expressions, and includes homage or 'icon sketches' in tribute to young leaders or stalwarts among the author's contemporaries, such as Kabaka Pyramid and Donisha Prendergast. It is visually attractive and though deep and introspective, it is easy to read. According to Taylor, "it is heavily collaborative with a number of visual artists [involved] and ends up feeling like conversations between young creatives."

In many ways this book challenges description and definition. It has been described as an 'atmospheric and experimental literary work' that tells stories of contemporary Jamaican reality and 'nuanced ode to the concrete jungles of Kingston'. One release says it's a 'literary-graphic hybrid chapbook'. Me? I would just say is a wicked lickle book that everybody should read. Yeah, man! And hey, it have een pictures too!

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