** spoiler alert ** 
 Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a book that was assigned to me during a Modern Africa course I took at the junior college. To be honest, I was entirely too busy working to actually read the book so I just followed the conversation and didn't actually read it until just now after it sat on my book shelf for 3 years. To be honest, I'm only mildly pleased that I read the book. There were translation issues that made some parts of the book hard to read and it was a little too non-fiction for me. 
 The Ibo people are so wrapped up in their religion and so terribly violent. They abandon twin babies in the "evil forest" where they die because multiple births can be nothing but "evil." I was mortified. Personally, I'm not a fan of multiples (or, at least of me having them), but I would never call a baby evil. They also believe that when a woman miscarries or has a baby that dies, that it is an evil spirit that repeatedly returns to torture the mother. Their recourse is to mutilate the child and drag it through the village before dumping it in the evil forest. Please understand that this part of Africa does not have proper medical care for infant babies or mothers so the death rate is exceptionally high. 
 This book follows the life and story of Okonkwo who is an exceptionally selfish and highly respected man in the village. He makes the mistake of killing someone and is banished by his people to his mother's land. If any of his three (3) wives fail to keep him happy, even for an instant, there is physical punishment to the offender. He is incredibly selfish and expects to be honored and spoiled 24/7. Should Okonkwo come to the USA in 2010, he would be rejected by 99% of the women as being too needy. He expects his wives to each cook him a meal three times each day and then also that he have so many wives.