I have begun reading Beryl Markham�s book, West With the Night, and I recommend it highly. She writes the following (p. 8) about Africa:





So there are many Africas. There are as many Africas as there are books about Africa � and as many books about it as you could read in a leisurely lifetime. Whoever writes a new one can afford a certain complacency in the knowledge that his is a new picture agreeing with no one else�s, but likely to be haughtily disagreed with by all those who believe in some other Africa.



Doctor Livingstone�s Africa was a pretty dark one. There have been a lot of Africas since that, some darker, some bright, most of them full of animals and pygmies, and a few mildly hysterical about the weather, the jungle, and the trials of safari.



All of these books, or at least as many of them as I have read, are accurate in their various portrayals of Africa � not my Africa, perhaps, nor that of an early settler, nor of a veteran of the Boer War, nor of an American millionaire who went there and shot zebra and lion, but of an Africa true to each writer of each book. Being thus all things to all authors, it follows, I suppose, that Africa must be all things to all readers.



Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer�s paradise, a hunter�s Valhalla, an escapist�s Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just �home.� It is all these things but one thing � it is never dull.





Another great book about Africa, for anyone who doesn�t already know it, is V.S. Naipaul�s A Bend In the River. It�s a novel about Mobutu and Zaire, although they are never actually mentioned or identified in the book. Some consider this book to be the greatest novel of the decade in which it was written (first published 1979).

Where are you finding these books. I have an extensive collection and am having a hard time locating books at reasonable cost?

LE270,
A GREAT book. In the late 80's there was a made for TV movie, "Beryl Markham, A Shadow on the Sun" starring Stephanie Powers as Beryl Markham. The movie was based upon Beryl's memoirs. The movie was suprisingly good and well worth watching if it is shown again.

Beryl was a contemporary of Karen & Bror Blixen, Denys Finch Hatton, the Happy Valley crowd, etc.

In the movie "Out of Africa" they changed Beryl's name to Felicity because Beryl was still alive. What an incredible life she lived.

Kathi ----- I just finished the book also, a very good read indeed. I also read Bror Blixen's two books, one by a nephew the other by Bror. It was quite interesting to read about the same event from each author's viewpoint. Brien Herne's book about the great White Hunters was a fantastic overview of the industry. I am on Elgin Gates africa book now with the Bunny Allen tale next. I have found all my books through www.abebooks.com. Good reading