No comments about The Hawkins' Voyages during the Reigns of Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth, and James I.

2 comments about The Adventures and Misadventures of Peter Beard in Africa.

1. "The Adventures and Misadventures of Peter Beard in Africa" is a spectacular look at the life of this well-known photagrapher and author. The writing is vivid and fascinating. The book is also illustrated throughout with Mr.Beard's excellent photographs. This book is a history lesson, ecology lesson, and art lesson all rolled up in one book, and is well worth reading. A real gem, about an amazing personality!



2. Peter Beard has not gotten wiser in his old age. He has given into his vices and chosen the superficial payoffs over any morals. He has found no escape from his aimlessness, no direction from his chaotic meanderings. Where has this man ever really gone? Why has he become so tragic? This book reveals the illusion of greatness, the anticipation of accomplishment. But sadly, decades later, we see how withered and little this man has become. One wonders, was he ever even exceptional? He seemed fearless and passionate. Now, he just seems fatally emphatic and senseless. He is like a machine grinding to a halt.

No comments about Insight Guide Tanzania & Zanzibar (Insight Guides).

1 comments about Safari: Journeys Through Wild Africa.

1. This has got to be one of the most impressive book designs and cover I've ever seen. The same photo that is on the dust jacket is on the hard cover itself. This is a very large book. It appears that the publisher spared no expense in the quality of printing this book! It it top quality!Inside... contains interesting photographs and true life adventures through much of Southern Africa.

No comments about St. Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, 2nd (Bradt Travel Guides).

No comments about Mozambique Travel Pack (Globetrotter Travel Packs).

2 comments about DARK STAR SAFARI.

1. Forty years after being a Peace Corps worker in Malawi and a teacher in Uganda, Paul Theroux returns to Africa and finds things changed--for the worse. Now approaching his sixtieth birthday and wanting to escape from cell phones, answering machines, the daily newspaper, and being "put on hold," he is determined to travel from Cairo to Cape Town. He believes that the continent "contain[s] many untold tales and some hope and comedy and sweetness, too," and that there is "more to Africa than misery and terror."
   
   Traveling alone by cattle truck, "chicken bus," bush train, matatu, rental car, ferry, and even dugout canoe, he tries to blend in as much as possible, buying clothing at secondhand stalls in public markets, carrying only one small bag, and avoiding the tourist destinations. He is an observant and insightful writer, and his descriptions of his travails are so vivid the reader can experience them vicariously. His interviews with residents are perceptive and very revealing of the political and social climate of these places, and his character sketches of Sister Alexandra from Ethiopia (a nun who "has loved") and of two charming Ethiopian traders, a father and son, who take Theroux to the Kenyan border, are delightful.
   
   For most of the countries of Africa, however, he has no kind words. Kenya is "one of the most corrupt...countries in Africa," everything in Kampala, Uganda, has changed for the worse, and in Tanzania "there was only decline--simple linear decrepitude, and in some villages collapse." At the U.S. embassy in Malawi, he finds an "overpaid, officious, disingenuous, blame-shifting...embassy hack" and, in pique, he wonders, "Had she, like me, been abused, terrified, stranded, harassed, cheated, bitten, flooded, insulted, exhausted, robbed, browbeaten, poisoned?"
   
   Theroux has become waspish, and it is difficult to "travel with" a man who sees himself as a hero for making the trip at all, especially after he refuses to give a half-eaten apple to a hungry child when she begs for it. He makes snide remarks and demeans other writers. He admires Rimbaud, who lived in Ethiopia in the 1880's, he visits Naguib Mahfouz in Egypt, and he spends his sixtieth birthday with Nadine Gordimer, an old friend. But Hemingway ("bent on proving his manhood"), Isak Dinesen ("a sentimental memoirist"), Kuki Gallman (a "mythomaniac of the present day"), and V.S. Naipaul ("an outsider who feels weak") are abruptly dismissed. When he ultimately refers to his own "safari-as-struggle," it is hard not compare his temporary and entirely voluntary "struggle" to those of the African people he meets along the way. "Being in Africa was like being on a dark star," he says. His book reflects this darkness--and his own. Mary Whipple



2. I found the Audio book to be exceptionally well done. Norman Dietz, the reader, is terrific. He "acts" the narratives using his voice, making the 23 hours wonderfully listenable.
   
   Paul Theroux's means and mode of travel, ability to communicate in native languages, description of landscape, and encounters with peoples, police, bureacrats, etc. extremely interesting and educational.
   Theroux at one point says an author's greatest accomplishment is tell the story so the reader feels he is there and experiencing what is being described. Theroux acomplishes this beautifully. I see vividly the scenes and feel I know personnally the people he meets.
   Terrific book to learn about the countries of Africa, their politics,different cultures between African countries, the institutionalized violence and histories.
   His views on the various "charity industries"of Africa is compelling. His view of their self-interest overiding any good that is accomplished by them. In fact they are counter productive and to so some degree responsible for the lack of any real educational, economic or political progress in most African countries.
   It is not a "happy" story that will leave readers with an optimistic view of the future for the continent. You will,however, have a feeling for Africa's potential with leadership. Leadership capable of providing education for the masses, developing economic resources for the benefit of their countries rather than the politicians in power at any given time.

No comments about Among the Ibos of Nigeria (Travellers, Explorers & Pioneers).

4 comments about Big Game Hunting and Collecting In East Africa, 1903-1926 (Peter Capstick's Library).

1. For any one who is really interested in Africa this is a good read. It is not the usual safari book written about the glorious hunts of a "Great White Hunter." This is a book by a man who literally made a large part of his life in the wilds of Africa hunting and collecting all forms of wildlife. The sheer humility of Kalman's writing makes you fell as if you were setting around a campfire after the hunt discussing it leisurely. There is nothing overblown or braggert about the man. I did get a little bored with some of the detail he went into on the smaller animals and birds, however it is just this attention to detail that makes him so worthwhile to read. Overall I found this book to be both entertaining and informative.



2. Early explorers of the dark continent described Africa as a land "boiling with oppurtunities." Upon this conclusion they further remarked "what a pity." Kittenberger came to Africa as a explorer in search of wild game specimens for the Hungerian Natural History Museum and to document the native people and culture. What he discovered was a uniqueness, a land radiating of genuine nature, and land that needed to be perserved for the future. In his book he describes this land, its people and game, its culture, and the very aura that stays in a individuals soul calling them back, to the upmost detail.
   
   Kittenberger was on a scientific exploration and yes his book is deemed a scientific novel. But as great as he was a scientist, he was an even greater writer. The scientific data, experimentation, and jargon are blended throughout with anecdotes from his diary and accounts of adventure. The book flows smoothly, with adeaqute explanations accompaning anything that may cause confusion. The author provides vivid detail, and the reader, upon completion, is left with a new found knowledge of Africa. Several unique observations were made by Kittenberger, along with many extraordinary scientific breakthroughs. By incorperating these into the novel interest is maintained and a vibrate zest dances through the pages.
   
   Kittenberger gives the reader a accurate account of Africa through the text. The reader sometimes finds himself in a daydreaming esctasy surrounded by Africa. You can hear the lion roar, smell the campfire, and see the sunsets. Upon conclusion a little piece of Africa occupies the reader's soul calling them there.



3. The author seems observant and honest. He admits his mistakes and wants to describe more than just hunting. But there is plenty of hunting if that is what you are looking for, especially for dangerous game. He claims to have killed over 200 of the "big 5," and there is much useful information with regards to those species. Some of it is a little dated (old cartridges, many of the species are very rarely hunted), but I enjoyed getting the flavor of old Africa.



4. There is no fabrication or romaticizing in this book. An honest, straight forward story who I think would have been a good bloke to go hunting with.

No comments about Voyages du chevalier Chardin en Perse et autres lieux de l\'Orient: Nouvelle édition, conférée sur les trois éditions originales et augmentée par L. Langlès. Tome 8.