Books for/about - Africa

Publisher: Anchor
Authors: Chinua Achebe

ISBN: 0385474547
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Summary: Hard to read, and very worthwhile
This was required reading for a world literature class that I took. But I read for enjoyment, and so I opened this book up to see what it had to offer me. I was rewarded with a very thought-provoking story. I should say here that I attend a Christian college associated with the 'missionary' denomination, and books that challenge the missionaries' ethics and purpose are handled very carefully by the faculty. Because I spent three months in Africa and because I have been on missions trips, Achebe's tale spoke directly to me about the way that we as Christians tend to handle the people that we are supposedly 'evangelizing'. I do not call myself a missionary by any definition of the word, but 'Things Fall Apart' was an eye-opener to the way that we treat people who are different regardles of how we may feel about them.

Summary: Wonderful Coming of Age Story
Although I had to read "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, I found it nothing but enjoyable. This book consists of Okonkwo, a man who has made his living on his own and has become one of the major leaders of his tribe, as he struggles to understand the white mens' motives for coming to the tribes. The story consists of the tribes of lower Nigeria couping with what happens when the white missonaries enter their land. The story was engrossing in points, in part, because of the rich the culture the tribes bring to the book. The book is filled with numerous fables, and facts from the tribes of lower Nigeria. I enjoyed the journey of Okonkwo, and the ending causes me to think and ponder his questions.

Summary: An African Masterpiece
I just finished reading this exceptional work by Chinua Achebe. I was hesitant at first, but once I got a chapter or two in to the text, man I was hooked.

We find ourselves in Africa in the land Umuofia. We watch as the tribe lives and breathes and we specifically follow one man, Onkokwo. He is best described as a "man's man". His fear of failure and following in his father's footsteps produces a man who appears rough and drastic in his approach to life. However, as the novel progresses we see he is actually quite attune to his feelings and emotions. He is also philisophical in his thinking and is able to use common sense when others are still dreaming of tomorrows.

The plot revolves around the change in the land of Umuofia with the arrival of Christian missionaries. The reader can see how culture, tradition and society can change by just a few small occurences. We see the effect each us has on the other.

Mr. Achebe made me keenly aware of how I may view others whom I assume to be lower socially or civilly than myself. I strongly recommend this book not only as a great lasting piece of fiction, but as an insight into the complex enviroment we all live in.

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Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

Publisher: Hay House
Authors: Immaculee Ilibagiza

ISBN: 1401908969
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Summary: Amazing!!
Wonderful book! Immaculee is awesome. Never will I complain about my "hardships." A must read for everyone!

Summary: A Must-Read for Virtually All Readers. A Classic.
Immaculee Ilibagiza's "Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust" is magnificent, a must-read for almost all audiences. Young children should not read this book. (One can hope that a version suitable for children will be developed.)

Other than children, though, men, women, Americans, Africans, citizens of all nations, resistant and voracious readers, readers of pop literature and readers of the Western Canon, persons of faith and absolute atheists - all can enjoy this book, be moved by it, and grow from it. "Left to Tell" is a classic worthy to be placed next to Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" and Corrie ten Boom's "The Hiding Place." Buy ten copies, and hand them out as gifts.

"I was born in paradise," reports Immaculee Ilibagiza. Child of loving parents, sister to loving brothers, this Tutsi girl began her days swimming in Lake Kivu and concluded them praying together with her devout Catholic family. She worked hard at school and, in spite of great odds arrayed against her by government programs, she earned a spot at university. In 1994, when she was a university student, the unspeakably horrible Rwandan genocide broke out.

It was hell on earth. Using machetes, Interahamwe killers committed the quickest genocide in recorded history, murdering, often in the most gruesome ways imaginable, approximately a million Tutsi and Hutu who refused to join in killing their Tutsi neighbors.

"Left to Tell" recounts Immaculee's survival of this hell, and her family's less fortunate fate.

The book's language is basic. Advanced vocabulary and complex figures of speech and storytelling forms are not used. An adolescent, or someone for whom English is a second language, could understand this book.

The book's basic language is not indicative of shallow depth. Some of the toughest questions human beings face confront Immaculee as she hides from killers who call for her by name, she deals with these questions with power and sophistication. In that, "Left to Tell" is like the Bible, which also often uses basic vocabulary to speak deep truths.

"Left to Tell" is a page turner. It moves as quickly and relentlessly as a thriller. With raw language, it depicts many close calls, including Immaculee's being inches from men who would kill her, who draw sparks by sharpening their machetes on pavement.

The book is also an emotional roller coaster. This reader did, truly, out loud, laugh, and cry, and gasp, not just on one or two pages, but on page after page, from the beginning to the end. There are no boring parts.

In short, virtually any reader can pick up this book and have a rewarding experience.

Students of genocide will find here a valuable asset to understanding atrocity. In Belgium-colonized Rwanda, Tutsi occupied a "middleman minority" status, to use the language of Edna Bonacich. Like the Jews in Eastern Europe, minority Tutsi occupied a fragile niche. Evil men dehumanized Tutsi via radio broadcasts, in which Tutsi were completely dehumanized - labeled "cockroaches" - and blamed for all of impoverished Rwanda's problems. The "final solution" to Rwanda's problems was to eliminate the Hutu. "Left to Tell" is a brief, but informative, snapshot of the genocide mentality.

Immaculee is a Christian, specifically, a Catholic. She survives the genocide with her faith intact. "Left to Tell" recounts Immaculee's spiritual survival, as well as her biological one. As such, this book is one of the most remarkable testimonies to faith that you can possibly read.

Some readers here have objected to Immaculee's stated belief that God protected her. Why didn't God protect the million others killed? This is a reasonable question. Immaculee makes clear that her relatives who were sadistically murdered were, like her, devout Catholics, good people, and undeserving of death. It is not an accurate assessment of "Left to Tell" to imply that the book's author's faith is so simple that she does not understand that good people, who pray very hard, die. The book, rather, wrestles with a very complex, and sometimes very evil world, and provides a beautiful, uplifting, inspirational, and challenging example - and invitation to every one of us - that the author, and her story, has deeply earned.

On a final note: it is gratifying to me, as a reader, that the most important book I've read this year was written by an African woman, depicting African family life, and an African historical event. Having worked in Africa, I appreciate the hard fate African women shoulder with their every breath. I hope that more such works make their way to us.

Summary: where is paperback?
I want to send this to a relative in jail, but they can only receive paperback. Could you please print in paperback so that I may buy this and ship it directly to him?

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	A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons Publisher: Scribner Authors: Robert M. Sapolsky
ISBN: 0743202414 List Price: $14.00 Amazon Price: $10.50 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: A Fearful Symmetry Sapolsky artfully interweaves 3 stories. The parallels are amazing as he recounts his experiences studying a baboon troop in Kenya, and the human troops he encounters in his work and travels throughout Africa. The third story is his development from adolescent subadult to mature scientist and fully adult, competent human. This book reads like an action packed novel, while imparting scientific truth within the context of a broad systemic paradigm. Sapolsky is able to think objectively, while acknowledging the compelling power of his own emotional responses. He is clear about which is which and the limitations of each. The choice to rigorously utilize both results in a rich tale that offers the reader a view of complex connections, vivid similarities and profound humbling differences. This pattern of both and, holds true at the level of the individual, the community, the culture as well as across species. Summary: INFORMATIVE AND DELIGHTFUL This is a book for anyone who is fascinated by animals and their behavior (I include the human animal too). Although it centers on the baboon troop chosen by Dr. Sapolsky for study, it also illuminates what life is really like for researchers "in the field," and does so with a lot of honesty, wit and humor. The author does not sentimentalize the animals he's studying but he does respect and have a lot of compassion for them, which I personally don't think is out of place in a researcher. Altogether, this is a delightful and informative book and I highly recommend to everyone. And anyone particularly interested in primates, I also suggest as a companion piece Shirley Strum's "Almost Human." Summary: 100 stars.... This was one of the best books I've ever read (I'm 50). Well written, humorous, touching and informative. Thank you Dr. Sapolsky. Summary:

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The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story

Publisher: Anchor
Authors: Richard Preston

ISBN: 0385479565
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Summary: Not the Hottest Read, But Interesting Nonetheless
I got through this book in a day, so in terms of readability and overall interest of subject matter, this book is top-notch. Preston does a remarkable job of documenting the rise of particular strains of Ebola and Marburg and provides a great description of the way that people who encounter Level 4 Bioagents function when dealing with somehting dangerous. I learned oodles about the way new filoviruses grow and how quickly they can affect a monbkey or human population. My major problem was the 'story' itself. When Preston switches gears and moves away from a chronology of particular cases to the meat of the book, an account of the discovery of Ebola Reston, the build-up and climax is underwhelming. He attempts to create the kind of drama you find in a Stephen King novel (someone who endorses the book with a quote on the backcover), but fails because fo the restrictions of non-ficiton. The book would have been far more powerful if he had kept the same tone and pacing at the beginning of the book, chronicling and chrating the dangers of the virus instead of trying to give us the way the virus affected the people and families involved with controlling the outbreak.

Summary: The scariest book ever written!
Awesome Book! But you will never want to enter a public place again, the scariest thing about this book is the fact that it is true!

Summary: Meh
Jesus, talk about the little girl crying "wolf." When I picked up this book, I expected to read a truly terrifying tale about how people got sick with a horrifying disease that no one knew/knows how to deal with. What I got instead was a lot of perseverating and a lot of emotional presumption.

The book starts out promisingly, even if Preston surrenders freely to flowery prose. We're given the account of Charles Monet, one of the first documented cases of the Ebola virus. From there on, Preston gives a description of the virus, what it does, how it does it - the works. Then, he moves on to the Human Component, the cast of characters, so to speak, for the big story.

The big story is, alas, not so impressive. It's a case of an Ebola outbreak amongst a shipment of monkeys that everyone thinks is going to cause awful problems to come about, but nothing of the sort happens. Basically, people run around in bio-hazard gear, fret a lot, and monkeys die. In between, Preston manages to surpass his self-indulgence to talk about other cases of the Ebola virus, cases of people being infected, "crashing and bleeding out," cases that are a lot more interesting than a shipment of monkeys, unless you're a PETA type.

The worst thing about The Hot Zone is just how self-indulgent Preston is. He starts to novelize his subjects a few chapters into the book, which is a noble idea, but not when they don't die at the end. Basically, he's trying to make you care about these people, and all for naught. And by the time that you're supposed to be truly concerned, you actually WANT them to die, because you're tired of hearing about him describe, in active detail, what they eat in the morning, what they do in the afternoon, and how they lie in bed with their spouses at night. When you're addressing a subject as fascinating as a Level 4 virus, why are you spending time talking about Nancy Jaax's hands and karate prowess? Moreover, when you've finally gotten to the monkeys, why are you talking about what kind of monkeys they are and how they dwell in the wild? Does anyone really care?

I wish I could say that this book moved me in ways other than to reverse my peristalsis, but I can't. Preston's ornate metaphors that pepper almost every page of this book are tiresome and unnecessary; he had the chance to write a compact little thriller about an averted crisis of global proportions, but he instead chose to "get into the minds" of his subjects. And what a bore that became. There were only two redeeming aspects of this book: one was the description of the African, human Ebola victims, and the other was the description of the virus itself, although, again, both were sabotaged by Preston's inability to write.

If you want to know something about Ebola, go get An Idiot's Guide to Dangerous Diseases and Epidemics. If you're pining for the namby-pambiness of the Human Element, read The Hot Zone. Personally, I like to avoid rereading the Uncle Tom's Cabins of scientific accounting.

Summary:

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Cry, the Beloved Country (Oprah's Book Club)

Publisher: Scribner
Authors: Alan Paton

ISBN: 0743262174
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Summary: dull!! boring
I'm more than mid-way in this novel.. I'm struggling to finish it.
the core of the story is fine. I mean a man looking for his son.
but the temptation of the writer to make this book into a history book of south africa is killingly borring.
and what's whith the repeated parts ! no one needs to read the same paragraph twice!

I've heard soooo much about this book that got me interested into it. now I wish I just continued being interested without reading it.

seriously, know the main part. which u can know from the back of the book.

Summary: A remarkable novel
It is too simple to simply report this as a book about apartheid. The novel depicts human nature beautifully--the fact that the story line is about South Africa is just a prop to describe how and why people acts as they do. So much of this story applies today and in so many settings=--and in our own backyards.

This is a remarkable novel and while I don't see it on too many lists of the greatest 100 novels--it belongs there.

Unconditionally recommended for the thoughtful reader.

Summary: Moving Story
Reading some of the reviews for this book has been interesting to say the least. In CBC Paton writes in verse, not prose. This is something that not many pick up on, but it is shown through his use of repetition and imagery. This book is somewhat tragic in that it paints a hopeful picture for South Africa's future only a few years before apartheid was established. CBC is not a book for those who don't have the patience for Paton's wonderful use of verse.

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	Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Authors: Alexandra Fuller
ISBN: 0375758992 List Price: $14.95 Amazon Price: $9.72 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 4 Reviews: Summary: Best of Fuller's Books Having personal knowledge of the area and time she writes about, I enjoyed the read very much. Fuller writes in a unique style which takes a little getting used to but you do so quickly and enjoy her form and the reader gets quickly engaged. Unlike her next book, Scribbling the Cat (which I do not recommend), this is factual as far as I could determine and well worth the read. I still think that MUKIWA is still superior but this is a close second. Summary: Into Africa From a socio-economic vantage point, a comparison to Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa applies in that Karen Blickson's husband, the Baron, is the archetypical remnant of decaying European aristocracy; name and title, but without means. One reads the Fuller account of life in colonial Africa as a 20th century continuation of the same mind-set which caused genocide in the Americas in the 16th through 19th centuries: a Neolithic hunter-gatherer society suddenly confronted by, and welcoming of, a military-industrial-religious juggernaut, claiming everything in it's path as the divine right of acquisition. The Fuller Family, avatars of the crumbled empire were out of time and out of place. No place but England could have produced their embodiment of resilience, arrogance and atavism. Theirs was an earlier England, a world that no longer existed. But the tropism of Africa, the lure of its sheer fecundity overcame heat, hell and hallucination. Alexandra Fuller (Bobo) writes, "The Valley represented the insanity of the tropics so precarious for the fragile European psyche. The Valley could send you into a spiral of madness overnight if you were white and high strung. And we were." What Dinesen wrote of Berkeley Cole and Denys Finch-Hutton applies to the Fullers: "In the present epoch they had no home, but had got to wander here and there... Of this they were not themselves aware. They had, on the contrary, a feeling of guilt towards their existence in England which they had left, as if, just because they were bored with it, they had been running away from a duty with which their friends had put up." Bobo writes, "My soul has no home. I am neither African nor English, nor am I of the sea." Better than the boredom of England were the smells of Africa. "Mum caught the spicy, woody scent of Africa on the changing wind. She smelled the people: raw onions and salt, the smell of people who are not afraid to eat meat, and who smoke fish over open fires on the beach and who pound maize into meal and who work out-of-doors. She held me up to face the earthy air so that the fingers of warmth pushed back my black curls of hair, and her pale green eyes went clear-glassy. `Smell that,' she whispered. `That's home.'" And at Bobo's whites-only school, " the playground smelled like sweat on metal from the chipped-paint swings and slides." Their home in the Burma Valley of Zimbabwe was humid, and thick with jungle and creepers, "and it was fertile-foul smelling (as if on the verge of rotting) and held a green leafy lie of prosperity in its jeweled fist." All of which partially explains why the comfort of England held no candle to the extreme discomforture in interrelationships of black and white Africans. Blacks referred to the conflict between them as Chimuranga. Whites didn't call it that. They called it The Troubles, This Bloody Nonsense, and sometimes The War. A war instigated by "uppity blacks," "cheeky kaffirs" "bobby muntus" "restless natives," and "the houts." For the black Africans' part, "When they saw the Europeans were the kind of guests who slept with your wife, enslaved your children, and stole your cattle, they saw that they needed sharp spears and young men who knew how to use them." The land over which they fought, however, had no interest in who named it. "You can call it what you like, fight all the wars you want in its name.... The land is still unblinking under the African sky. It will absorb white man's blood and the blood of African men, it will absorb blood from slaughtered cattle and the blood from a woman's birthing with equal thirst. It doesn't care." The Land was equally becalmed when the Fullers lost children. "Adrian dies before he is old enough to talk." Mum said, "The nurse at the hospital in Salisbury told us we could either go and get something to eat or watch our baby die." They eat, and when they return Adrian, who was very sick with meningitis an hour earlier, is now dead. The Family Story changes contingent upon what Mum's drinking. The worst in when she drinks everything she can find in the house. But another child is born, a beautiful little girl, Olivia. She grows to be a toddler when one day "it is almost lunch before anyone notices Olivia is missing. She is floating face down in the pond. The ducks are used to her body by now, paddling and waddling around it, throwing back their heads and drinking the water that is full of her last breaths." And Africa? Africa serenely, violently breathes assaults on the senses; smells "like black tea, cut tobacco, fresh fire, old sweat, young grass," and sounds: "At dawn there is an explosion of birds, a fierce fight for territory, for females, for food." A change in the tone, an increase in the intensity of the birds' activity, break into one's everyday world, and you know that there is a snake nearby. Then there is the sound of heat; " the grasshoppers and crickets sing and whine. Drying grass crackles. Dogs pant. There is the sound of breath and breathing, of an entire world collapsed under the apathy of the tropics." Summary: Excellent read I picked up this book at a Barnes and Noble, mainly because the title looked interesting, and began leafing through it. After 2 pages, I was hooked and bought it. I don't usually read memoirs but this one is a fascinating account of a life so far outside the realm of my reality that it almost seems like fiction. I highly recommend this book. Summary:

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West with the Night

Publisher: North Point Press
Authors: Beryl Markham

ISBN: 0865471185
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Summary: Beautifully Written
West With the night is Beryl Markham's memoir of life as a bush pilot in 1930s Africa. The beautifully written prose paints evocative pictures of the Serengeti in the reader's brain, and each paragraph is dense and satisfying. A wonderful read, especially for fans of Out of Africa - and some of the same people are mentioned in this book.

If you really love this book, then don't read a biography of Beryl Markham. You'll only be disappointed.

Summary: Probably the most beautifully written book I have ever read.
The exceptional wordcrafting in West With The Night brings Africa alive and makes it almost a personal experience. Beryl Markham was a most interesting individual and her life growing up in Africa is the beautiful background for this book. I have only reread one book in my sixty-some years and this is it. I enjoyed it at least as much the second time around.

I recommend this book to anyone, especially those interested in Africa, horses, aviation or just splendid writing.

Summary: Wonderful.
I adored the feeling I got reading West with the Night.
It is difficult to describe the characteristics of its structure or the poetic spirit that is marbled throughout its chapters. I feel (am) completely unable to express why I think West with the Night is so beautiful. Check it out.

Summary:

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Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela Tag: The International Bestseller

Publisher: Back Bay Books
Authors: Nelson Mandela

ISBN: 0316548189
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Summary: The Greatest Man in the World

After reading this book, I was absolutely thrilled. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is this remarkable person that you kind of feel a personal relationship to as you go through this great piece of work. Mandela represents the struggle of the oppressed South Africans to regain their pride and freedom and it is fantastic that Mandela has lived his ideals, a unique achievement by a mere mortal.

Going through the book reveals that you are reading about someone who is not trying to exalt himself but someone who is really human and makes mistakes, is man enough to admit to them and goes to show that even after spending a generation in prison, he neither lost his humanity nor was brutalised by the nasty experience.

Mandela was the first president of a truly democratic South Africa but as soon as he was President, be broke with traditional African leaders practice and started grooming a successor. After only one term in office, he voluntarily gave up power, a rarity on the continent.

Mandela is a man of disarming simplicity, very honest and has done Africa proud. I sometimes day dream of what the African continent would be like if most countries were blessed with half a Mandela leader each (it would be asking too much to ask for a full Mandela.

This is an inspirational book to the whole of humanity that is well written that I strongly recommend to everyone.

Summary: Amazing book
This account of Nelson Mandela's life is brutually honest. A complex and totally inspiring person.

One for everyone's bookshelf. It really is essential reading for anyone in any country of any race, religion or political persuasion.

Summary: The story of greatness: A suprisingly honest and unflinching look at the life of Nelson Mandela
Great men and women of history seldom are able to tell their stories effectively and truthfully. Most often it is left to the historians to tell the stories behind the greatness, but in the case of Nelson Mandela, he is able to tell his unique story directly to the world without the filter of decades gone by. What we get is honest, raw, and unflinching, and occasionally dull in spots. Long Walk to Freedom provides the reader a glimpse into the man behind the legend.

The story of Mandela's early life is interesting but reads slowly, and we don't gain much insight into any dawning or awakening of consciousness as to his political and social views. Perhaps this is due to Mandela's having wrote this section while in captivity on Robben's Island. What we do get is the portrait of a well-to-do upper class Xhosa man, born into relative priviledge, who defies tradition and strikes out on his own as a lawyer.

Mandela's burdgeoning involvement in the African National Congress and its political activities provides us a glimpse of the outspoken Mandela we know now. Based on his memories, there was no one distinct moment where Mandela realized the course his life would take; It was an understanding that gradually emerged after numerous injustices at the hands of the Afrikaaner minority government and failed attempts at peaceful solutions. Mandela's story, like any life, is one of excitement and boredom, of days filled with events and months that pass by without a whisper. This book covers almost 70 years of Mandela's personal history, and does so in a manner that never loses the reader.

Mandela makes no bones about his decisions for armed rebellion. He is clear about things he regrets, about poor decisions he made, and offers no excuses; Mandela is his own harshest critic at times. Mandela takes comfort in the knowledge that his decisions and his leadership helped destroy apartheid and give the African and Indian populace in South Africa an equal chance. Mandela shows that 27 years in prison can't silence the spirit of someone who is certain of the righteousness of their actions. Man can oppress, but those that refuse to accept injustice can never be chained down for ever. This is a great book by a great man.

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