Africa Books - Page 6

The Heartless Stone: A Journey Through the World of Diamonds, Deceit, and Desire

Tom Zoellner

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Perhaps it should titled Monopoly, Marketing, & Murder 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Here's a few questions you might ask your jeweler before buying a diamond ring. What's the diamond's history? Where was it mined? Was it swallowed and stolen by a mine worker? Was it taked from the bowels of a murdered mine worker? Did it finance a war? Was it grown in a machine? Was it cut by children in India? How many diamonds does De Beers hold in inventory to keep prices high?

A fascinating, well written expose of the diamond industry.

Editorial Review:

An American Library Association Notable Book
 
When he proposed to his girlfriend, Tom Zoellner gave what is expected of every American man--a diamond engagement ring. But when the relationship broke apart, he was left with a used diamond that began to haunt him. His obsession carried him around the globe; from the "blood diamond" rings of Africa; to the sweltering polishing factories of India; to mines above the Arctic Circle; to illegal diggings in Brazil; to the London headquarters of De Beers, the secretive global colossus that has dominated the industry for more than a century and permanently carved the phrase "A diamond is forever" on the psyche. An adventure story in the tradition of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, The Heartless Stone is a voyage into the cold heart of the world's most unyielding gem.

The Rough Guide to South Africa 5 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

Tony Pinchuck, Barbara McCrea, Donald Reid

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Editorial Review:

Make the most of your time with The Rough Guide to South Africa Lesotho & Swaziland, the ultimate guide to this stunning country. The full-colour section introduces the country''s highlights, from the game trails of Kruger National Park to the picturesque Garden Route towns of the Western Cape and seclusion of the Eastern Cape. With informed accounts and unparalleled coverage, clue-up on all the top sights and experiences from the colourful residential streets of Cape Towns Bo-Kapp district to the fine and affordable vintages of the wine routes. The guide takes a detailed look at South African history, literature, culture and wildlife with expert background on everything from Cape dutch architecture to Zulu traditions. There are plenty of practical tips and information on all the best accommodation, transportation and restaurants and lively reviews of hundreds of shops, bars and clubs. Discover every corner of South Africa with the clearest maps of any guide.

I Dreamed of Africa

Kuki Gallmann

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 61 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

I Dreamed of Kuki's Africa-so I went 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I did volunteer work at Kuki's Ol Ari Nyrio in 11/07 and it was the most amazing experience of my life. I also had dinner with Kuki and she is an artist- attentive, creative, intelligent, and misses nothing. Africa is a place like no other-you cannot expect the norm - truth is always more interesting & stranger than fiction, remember. Kuki is an amazing person and the work she has done for the people & animals in the area, without spoiling the natural habitat or trying to change the people's ways, is well told. The death of her son and husband, so tragic, has led her to different levels in life, where so much work has been done for the good of generations to come. Read her books-they are wonderful!

Editorial Review:

At the age of 25, Kuki Gallmann moved to Kenya with her future husband, where they established a vast ranch. But Africa's beauty does't come without a price, and when tragedy struck, Kuki found herself pregnant and alone with her young son and 90,000 acres of Africa to oversee. 32 pages of photos, half in full color.

Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier

Alexandra Fuller

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Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Disingeneous writing 1 out of 5 stars.
10 of 13 people found this review helpful.

"Scribbling the Cat" feels like an excuse that a bored married woman gave her husband to go have an adventure. Never before have I been so acutely aware of (or speculated on) a writer's ulterior motives in the telling of her story.

It felt as if she was censoring her writing. Was this to protect husband/children? Was this because she was being dishonest with herself? Whatever the reason, I felt as though she was being dishonest with me, the reader.

The story of 'K' is laid bare across the pages of her book in, at times, painful reading. Fuller claims that she undertook this journey with 'K' to confront her own Rhodesian past and tell 'K's story. Yet, at the end, I know as little about Fuller as I did in the beginning. She reveals nothing of herself -- other than the occasional "thin" explanation that to me felt more like rationalization than anything else.

I find the work fundamentally disingenuous, although Fuller is undoubtedly a skillful word smith and creates a compelling narrative.

Editorial Review:

With the same disarmingly unguarded prose that won her critical acclaim for Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller tells of her unusual friendship with “K”—a white African and veteran of the brutal, racially divided Rhodesian War. An engrossing and haunting tale of love, godliness, hate, war, and survival, Scribbling the Cat recounts the journey she makes with K into the lands that hold the scars of their war, from Zambia through Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and into Mozambique. Driven by memories, they venture deeper into the countries’ remote bush, where they encounter other veterans and survivors and confront the demons of K’s past: a violent war marked by racial strife, jungle battles, torture, and the murdering of innocent civilians.

The Rough Guide to Morocco

Mark Ellingham, Daniel Jacobs, Hamish Brown, Shaun McVeigh

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Covers the whole country in a depth unmatched by other guidebooks, and up-to-date too 4 out of 5 stars.
24 of 24 people found this review helpful.

During a recent visit to Morocco, hitchhiking across the whole of the country from north to south, I used the 8th edition of THE ROUGH GUIDE TO MOROCCO (published October 2007) and its main competitor, the 2007 edition of Lonely Planet Morocco.

For the independent traveler who wants to explore Morocco in depth, the Rough Guide is clearly the best option among current guidebooks. It is much more detailed than the Lonely Planet, covering charming smaller towns left out of the LP and other guidebooks. If you are planning to go from Morocco to Mauritania overland, the Rough Guide is extremely helpful. While Lonely Planet didn't even update their Western Sahara cover in the latest edition, Rough Guide gives information on the new opportunities for those without their own vehicle. (Be aware, however, that the Mauritanian visa must now be requested in Rabat, not in Casablanca as RG advises.) Unlike Lonely Planet, which is now abandoning its traditional demographic of backpackers on a budget, the Rough Guide has as much guidance for shoestring travelers as for people with money to spend.

If you are curious about Morrocan history and culture, the Rough Guide makes other guidebooks look like they were meant for rude and insensitive package tourists. It contains a hundred-page supplement which not only explains the whole of Moroccan history and its prominent writers and artists, but it even gives some short pieces by Morrocan traditional storytellers. The Rough Guide does a good job throughout of trying to put tourists in contact with the locals. The hammams (Turkish-style baths) listed in the book are those frequented by ordinary Moroccans, not expensive spa-type locations as in other guidebooks. I was unhappy, however, with the Rough Guide's mention of hitchhiking. While it does mention it as an option, and doesn't try to scare people away from it, it suggests that it is difficult and requires payment. That's odd indeed, since hitchhikers consider Morroco one of the easiest countries on Earth, and my usual waiting type was just a couple of minutes, and I didn't have to pay a dime.

If you are an independent traveler, the Rough Guide is probably the only book you need. Lonely Planet does have a whole section dedicated to trekking, but even for those keen on trekking this may not be worth it. All in all it's funny how the Rough Guides, held in scorn for so long because they contain ads and are published by a major corporation (Penguin), now seem the best guidebooks for solo shoestring travelers.

Editorial Review:

From the Meditteranean coast, through four mountain ranges, to the empty sand and scrub of the Sahara, explore this extraordinary country with The Rough Guide to Morrocco. This fully-revised 8th edition contains insider tips and colour sections on architecture, markets, shopping, festivals and music, plus expanded coverage of Marrakesh. The full- colour section introduces the best Morrocco has on offer from the blue-washed walls of Chefchaouen to the vibrant craft displays of the souks. You’ll find evocative accounts of all the main sights including Casablanca’s Art Deco architecture to the unique Djemaa El Fna in Marrakesh, and the ancient monuments of Fes as well as practical information on trekking in the High Atlas, surfing on the Atlantic coast and camel-riding in the desert. Be inspired by dozens of photos and explore every corner with the clearest maps of any guide.

The Rough Guide to Morrocco is like having a local friend plan your trip!

West Africa (Multi Country Guide)

Anthony Ham

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

From a returned Peace Corps Volunteer 5 out of 5 stars.
31 of 32 people found this review helpful.

This book is practically the bible for W. Africa travel. I lived and worked in W. Africa for 3 years (2 years as a Peace Corps volunteer) and I never went anywhere without consulting LP. The information is as accurate as anything out there. It offers you suggested itineraries and "off the beaten path" suggestions as well as the traditionally touristy destinations. Many parts are less objective than other parts and the writers tend to harp on corruption. But W. Africa is a pretty corrupt place in general. If you don't like the editorial sections, skip 'em, the info you need is still there.

Editorial Review:

Salt caravans in the Sahara, imposing forts on the Ghanaian coast, urban buzz in Lagos, the steamy lushness of Casamance- West Africa's attractions are as diverse as they are intriguing. Whether you want to set out for Timbuktu, laze on a sandy beach or overland it from desert to jungle, Lonely Planet shows you the what, where and how.

MOVE TO THE GROOVE- our expert music chapter tell who's who, where it's happening and what's hot

BE INSPIRED- highlights, itineraries and planning sections help you plot your path

GET THE BACKGROUND with in-depth discussion of West Africa's history, manifold cultures and distinctive arts and crafts

TALK THE TALK- our language chapter will have you greeting locals in 25 regional languages

GO YOUR OWN WAY with detailed transport information and 150 user-friendly maps

All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (Unabridged)

Maya Angelou

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Through Angelou's Eyes 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

From purely a literary standpoint, I find ALL GOD'S CHILDREN NEED TRAVELING SHOES perhaps the best of Angelou's series of autobiographical works that I have encountered thus far. It is the fifth "installment," having been preceded by I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS, GATHER TOGETHER IN MY NAME, SINGIN' AND SWINGIN' AND GETTIN' MERRY LIKE CHRISTMAS, and THE HEART OF A WOMAN. While I suppose that any of these could be read in isolation, to do so would be analogous to reading a single chapter from a full-length novel. One may enjoy the contents of that single chapter but will miss all the background material that explains how the characters reached that point in time and space as well as everything that follows to explain and wrap-up the story. For the same reasons, one really should read each of Angelou's books and in chronological order, too. Consequently, if one is examining reader reviews before purchasing ALL GOD'S CHILDREN, and if this is the first of Angelou's books being considered, please wait. Reading the others first will enhance significantly the reader's enjoyment of this one.

Pure autobiographies tend, in my experience, to be rather dull reading for the most part. Where is the excitement in a list of events and dates? That sort of dry recitation of historical facts is the reason that most of us were likely bored to somnambulance by our high school history textbooks. Happily, this is not at all that sort of autobiography. What one finds in Angelou's books is the world seen through her eyes and interpreted by her mind, and she carries with her the filters built strand by strand by her life experiences.

What "life experiences"? Being born Black into a legally, socially, culturally and thoroughly segregated country. Being abandoned by one's father. Being shipped across country by one's mother to be raised by an aging grandparent. Feeling the constant scorn and belittlement fostered by racial segregation. Bearing a child when one is still herself a child. Being duped by another into prostitution. Failing at an attempt at marriage. On the other hand, conversing with such figures as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Touring Europe as member of a musical cast. Living in Africa. Angelou's experiences, both negative and positive, were emotionally extreme, or at least significant, events, and they created interpretative filters that are quite different from those of essentially all of her readers. This difference is what makes her books captivating to read and worthy of her readers' consideration.

I suggest that the epitome of Angelou's skill as a prose author of the first five books I have mentioned above comes in the closing chapter of ALL GOD'S CHILDREN. Her encounter with the Ewe tribal women in the marketplace in Ghana's village of Keta is expressed in nearly supernatural terms. In the actual event, she is merely mistaken for another person, but, to Angelou, the encounter firmly establishes Africa as her spiritual homeland, the origin of her own ancestors who, generations earlier, were sold into slavery in a strange land across the ocean. The skill with which she describes her feelings at this encounter is one to which any writer might aspire.

I must admit to another aspect of Angelou's writing that I find almost annoying, however, and that is her repeated and continuous reference to the effects of slavery. If any evil exists in the universe, if sin seeks an embodiment, if a cause for all the misery in the contemporary world must be identified, Angelou finds it in slavery. Judging solely by the attitude revealed in these five books, one could conclude only that all Caucasians are blue-eyed devils, that they alone made possible the eternal and unforgivable sin of enslavement, that no redemption is possible and that racial integration is never achievable or even desirable. If there is such a concept as "original sin," it has nothing to do with a mythological Adam or Eve in a "garden of Eden" but rather with the insufferable conceit of Whites and the horror of slavery, most particularly slavery in the United States. To judge by the attitude that pervades these five books, one would think that Angelou was herself born into slavery, exploited economically and sexually by her White masters, and denigrated to the very edge of sanity. Not to excuse or to minimize in any way the physical and emotional pain of slavery, its immorality or absence of any ethical justification whatsoever, but "methinks the lady doth protest too much." She claims for herself an understanding of the debasement of slavery that her own history does not support. She assumes a mantle as spokesperson for long dead generations that she is not qualified to wear. To what extent historical slavery and racial prejudice may bear the blame for what were her own poor choices in life I am hardly qualified to say, yet I would caution the reader to bear in mind the fact that we are seeing events through the author's intellectual filters and that no one's filters are totally objective.

Having said that, I hurriedly add that my critical observation should in no way deter anyone from reading Angelou's books. On the contrary, while I may feel that she is at times presumptuous in assuming spokesperson status on the topics of slavery and contemporary racial bigotry, her perceptions provide many revelations for her readers and are worth noting. On now to the next book of this series, A SONG FLUNG UP TO HEAVEN.

Editorial Review:

"Thoroughly enjoyable . . . an important document drawing more much-needed attention to the hidden history of a people both African and American."--Los Angeles Times Book Review.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

All Things Must Fight to Live: Stories of War and Deliverance in Congo

Bryan Mealer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Personal Memoir Of A Humanitarian Catastrophe 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Bryan Mealer has penned a brutal memoir of his three years as a reporter in the Congo, three years when teenage gunboys roamed the countryside and city streets, when UN peacekeeping forces faced mystical leaders operating from jungle mountaintops, when rebel militias and government forces alike pillaged their own nation. It was a horrible time in the history of a country that has seen little else for the last hundred years.

While Mealer writes about the bloody atrocities he witnessed, the real story he tells is about himself. He's drawn back to the Congo three times, apparently addicted to the extreme discomfort and random violence he endures. His travels cover nearly the entire country from the capital of Kinshasa to the mineral-rich southern provinces to the guerilla-infested eastern region where an alphabet-soup of militias, foreign armies, and UN forces fight a never-ending war of terror, rape, and mutilation. He rides a newly-reconstructed rail line and even follows Conrad's trail up the Congo River via barge. At one point, he and his adventure-junkie buddies take off through the jungle on bicycles.

While Mealer tells us the names and stories of many Congolese he meets along the way, he never really gives much insight into them as anything other than victims. He says as much when he reflects on his bicycle journey:

"...once in the jungle, my own basic needs and level of comfort had stood in the way of learning anything. I didn't even know my riders' last names or anything about their families. I'd simply been too exhausted and hungry to care. It wasn't my proudest moment, and even now, those last days on the trail leave a sting of regret."

Still, All Things Must Fight To Live puts the reader close to the action and accurately reflects the aftermath of war and colonialism in one of the world's greatest humanitarian catastrophes.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds: A Novel of Scandal, Love and Death in the Congo

Editorial Review:

A foreign correspondent’s gripping account of his experiences in Congo, told through the long scope of the country’s dark and brutal history.
After covering a brutal war that claimed four million lives, journalist Bryan Mealer takes readers on a harrowing two-thousand-mile journey through Congo, where gun-toting militia still rape and kill with impunity. Amid burned-out battlefields, the dark corners of the forests, and the high savanna, where thousands have been massacred and quickly forgotten, Mealer searches for signs that Africa’s most troubled nation will soon rise from ruin.
At once illuminating and startling, All Things Must Fight to Live is a searing portrait of an emerging country devastated by a decade of war and horror and now facing almost impossible odds at recovery, as well as an unflinching look at the darkness and greed that exists in the hearts of men. It is nonfiction at its finest—powerful, moving, necessary.

Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda

Rosamond Halsey Carr, Ann Howard Halsey

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Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"A remarkable life story, reminiscent of Out of Africa."--Vogue

In 1949, Rosamond Halsey Carr, a young fashion illustrator living in New York City, accompanied her dashing hunter-explorer husband to what was then the Belgian Congo. When the marriage fell apart, she decided to stay on in neighboring Rwanda, as the manager of a flower plantation.

Land of a Thousand Hills is Carr's thrilling memoir of her life in Rwanda-a love affair with a country and a people that has spanned half a century. During those years, she has experienced everything from stalking leopards to rampaging elephants, drought, the mysterious murder of her friend Dian Fossey, and near-bankruptcy. She has chugged up the Congo River on a paddle-wheel steamboat, been serenaded by pygmies, and witnessed firsthand the collapse of colonialism. Following 1994's Hutu-Tutsi genocide, Carr turned her plantation into a shelter for the lost and orphaned children-work she continues to this day, at the age of eighty-seven.

"Carr's book is a testament to the courage, perseverance, and resilience of the land to which she has given her heart."--San Francisco Examiner

Secrets of the Savanna: Twenty-three Years in the African Wilderness Unraveling the Mysteries of Elephants and People

Mark James Owens, Cordelia Dykes Owens

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Total reviews: 11 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Turning the Tide 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This book tells of Mark and Delia Owens' work with the animals and humans in the Luangwa Valley of Zambia. Poachers have decimated the animal population (particularly the elephants), and the Owens work toward animal repopulation and human education. They follow a good business plan in reeducating the Zambians. Those relying on poaching for a living must be taught alternative means of support, and the Owens are very creative in this regard. Their self sacrifice during 23 years of residence is amazing!

Editorial Review:

In this riveting real-life adventure, Mark and Delia Owens tell the dramatic story of their last years in Africa, fighting to save elephants, villagers, and -- in the end -- themselves. The award-winning zoologists and pioneering conservationists describe their work in the remote and ruggedly beautiful Luangwa Valley, in northeastern Zambia. There they studied the mysteries of the elephant population's recovery after poaching, discovering remarkable similarities between humans and elephants. A young elephant named Gift provided the clue to help them crack the animals' secret of survival. A stirring portrait of life in Africa, Secrets of the Savanna is a remarkable record of the Owenses' unique passions.