2 comments about African Nature Notes and Reminiscences (The Library of African Adventure).

1. I have read plenty of elephant hunting volumes in the likes of Bell, Stigand and several others but this Selous book is different. It's not entirely an account of Selous' adventures with his rifle but rather as the first portion of the book's title suggests, an informative wrap-up of the ways and characteristics of various African game. Selous is a unsurpassable raconteur when it comes to telling of big game, as this book proves. There's a chapter on Selous' search for the elusive inyala antelope, and it is of great interest. A book well worth parting with your cash for. Simply a true must-buy !



2. Frederick C. Selous was one of the giants of Vitorian Africa and in this work, written at the urging of President Theodore Roosevelt, he compiles many of his most keen observations about life and wildlife in Africa. Fascinating not only as a period piece, Selous's thoughts are remarkably prescient about the state of game in Africa even today. Though it was written before the rise of the commercial poaching that has ravaged so much of the continent, the book gives an excellent insight into the need to carefully observe, record, and interpret the ecological signs found in the wild. Clear and lively in style, the tales told within encompass everything from dietary habits of hyaena to the effects of sleeping sickness on agriculture. Especially interesting are the authors remarkably forward-thinking ideas on race relations, ideas that would not become the rule in southern Africa for over 75 years. An altogether satisfying read.

No comments about Our Grandmothers' Drums.

No comments about Africa Dances.

1 comments about 52 Days by Camel: My Sahara Adventure (Adventure Travel).

1. This inspiring book tells an awesome story of someone's trek across the Sahara. Leaves you spellbound, and amazed, very good book!

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5 comments about Culture Shock!: Morocco.

1. In anticipation of accompanying my close Moroccon friend to his homeland on a business trip with another American, I read this book in one sitting and read it twice more before leaving for Morocco. It proved to be an invaluable tool to better understanding my Moroccan friend here in the states and it provided knowledge, information and tips that proved priceless during my recent stay in Morocco. I have no doubt that had I not read this book, I would have had a very different experience. This book enabled me to have the most incredible travel experience of my life despite the fact that I don't speak arabic or french. At the very least I had an understanding of this wonderfully rich culture steeped in tradition. I recommend this book to anyone interested in Morocco whether for travelling or simply interested in the country, their people and customs. While this book is ideal for someone relocating, I found it to be more useful than any of the other travel companions I purchased for my trip. Any future travel plans of mine will start with a purchase of "Culture Shock..." for that country.



2. I have spent 3 summers in Morocco and 5 years with my husband who is Moroccan and this book clarified a lot aspects of Moroccan life for me. No matter how objective one may be about cultural differences, it helps to have a neutral party explain what is happening in a given interaction. I didn't even realize how much I suffered from culture shock until I read "Culture Shock!" Particually helpful were the author's comments on the difference in Western and Eastern concepts of personal space, public space and privacy.



3. After reading this book, now I'm all the more excited to go to Morocco. Hargraves paints such a vivid picture of the people, the culture. It is a complicated society, very foreign to my understanding and experience. And yet, as I read through it, so many times, page after page, I realize that the culture is so familiar, so like my experience. Most of all, I now understand that it will take a lifetime to learn to adapt to Moroccan culture. I am eager to see how the words lift off the pages and into reality.
   
   Almost every page has nuggets and key points to learn and understand, and my copy is mostly yellow from highlighting. One aspect that I wish were different, though- Hargraves appears too often to accept the stratification in Moroccan culture, and the mistreatment of the lower classes, as par the course, and something Moroccans accept, and therefore something that we should accept, and something culturally neutral. There is so much good in Moroccan society, but, just as in any society, some that is not as good as well.
   
   But that's only one small detraction in an otherwise great text. Particularly interesting is the quiz at the end of the book, where you test one's knowledge gained through reading. I've never seen this in any other culture or travel book, and it should really be more common! Hargraves doesn't just repeat information here either- rather, he asks the reader to intuit the answers not yet given, from the information that he's previously provided- and then of course, he provides all the possible correct answers.
   
   I want to learn how to live and eat and talk and think, Moroccan. I want to see what it means to be a Moroccan who is so adept at adaptation to so many different cultural situations. I want to learn to engage in real Arab relationship, and to learn how to politely refuse a request, and how to be a good guest, and a good host. I want to learn how to serve the Moroccan peoples. If you're interested in this as well, then this is a book you need to get.



4. It is all very well, but the main vehicle of culture is the language. This book is helpful in highlighting cultural features but a good section on the language would also be a good idea.



5. Very useful if you want to go there and understand the real Morocco. Well written, too.

1 comments about Morocco Map.

1. Very detailed. Sturdy paper and easily foldable. Large map designed for use in an open area and would not be practical in a car.

1 comments about Animals of Africa.

1. I have a child who is Autistic and 3 1/2 years old who fell in love with this book. He carries it around with him, although it is a bit big. His father (me) is a well known wildlife photographer who is an admirer of the photographic talent displayed in this publication. I recommend this publication highly to those who have an interest in African wildlife and the preservation of endangered and threatened animal populations. The only way this book may have been improved is if they used some of the photos that my sons father took. I still give it 5 stars!

4 comments about MAN EATERS' MOTEL CL.

1. I read Boyles's other African book (African Lives) and loved it. When we decided to visit Kenya this year on vacation, I started looking for this book, which I had found discussed in some newsgroups, but it was "out of stock" (whatever that means!). My local public library did a search for it, but couldn't locate the book before we left. When we got home, it was there and I read it. I can't tell you how much I wish I'd had this book before I went. Not only is the writing wonderful, but since the book follows the railroad (telling the story and describing the places along the way) from the coast to Lake Victoria, the details are exactly the kind of things a visitor really needs. Our vacation was expensive and tame, even though we enjoyed the people and the scenery. This book was better than the trip, since it was free (from the library) and very exciting (funny, too).

   The best things in it are hard to pick out, but I recommend the story of Patterson and the man-eaters (better than the hokie movie, by far), the depiction of Zanzibar, the social scene in Nairobi and the description of Lake Victoria. If we had known about the little winery in Naivasha, we would have gone there. This book is full of things I wish I'd known, but didn't. Find this book if you can.




2. I am planning a trip to Africa, so I bought this book (used) and "Ghosts of Tsavo" by Phillip Caputo and "Man Eaters," which is Patterson's book (he is the British officer who shot the man eating lions). I liked this one best of the three. It is really exciting in some places and tells the story of the man eating lions in Tsavo better than Paterson does, and he was there! I enjoyed the travel aspect too, where Boyles takes the train ride from Mombassa to Lake Victoria and gives a stop-by-stop account of the journey. This book is also very funny in places. I'm glad I took the trouble to get this book. I recommend it completely.



3. I lived in Africa for many years - Rhodesia, also I've spent time in Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Angola - but to my eternal regret I never travelled to Kenya. This author's history of the British-built railway there and how it opened up towns and cities and agriculture and other forms of development there, is very good and very interesting.
   
   Many years ago I read Patterson's memoir THE MAN-EATERS OF TSAVO of his days building parts of the railway and his attempts to stop man-eating lions who were steadily devouring his Indian labour force and many tribal locals too, even dragging off at least one white colonial. It is still available in the modern Capstick library edition and other re-issues.
   
   The present author does cite Patterson quite a bit as well as provides many fascinating details which he unearthed to round out the story of the man-eaters quite a bit more. Additionally, he provides much modern information on the tourist industry and conditions on Zanzibar, at Mombassa and Nairobi, and points in between and beyond. Refreshingly, there is little of the all too common colonialism-bashing political correctness found in other works on Africa, and that alone gives this another star.
   
   Altogether it is a great book to read and I highly recommend it. I am now going to find and read the author's earlier AFRICAN LIVES.



4. _Man Eaters Motel_ is a fun, quirky, entertaining book about Kenya, or perhaps more specifically, the railroad that created it. "To appreciate fully Kenya's enormous success," wrote author Denis Boyles, "it must be seen in the odd manner in which it was achieved." Kenya was essentially almost accidentally created. To bridge the "unhappy gap" between the East African coast, particularly the region once controlled by the then mighty and storied Zanzibar, and the lakes of Uganda, a railroad was created. The railroad was originally constructed to help safeguard the route to India and the headwaters of the Nile but had huge unintended consequences. "One thing lead to another" and people started to disembark from the train early, first to farm, then to hunt, and later for tourism, along the way making the final destination of the railway, a sleepy town on the shores of Lake Victoria, "somewhat incidental." Essentially, "Kenya was invented in the space of a lifetime along the tracks of a railway going nowhere." Without the railroad, there would have been little or no development of Kenya and Uganda, and indirectly, Tanganyika.
   
   For those looking for a technical history of the railway from Mombassa to Kisumu they will be somewhat disappointed, as the author's admits in his introduction that he used the railway as essentially a plot device to provide a framework for stories from Kenya's past and the author's own observations. This is not to say that railroad is not covered, as Boyles discussed the railway stations, those who built the railway and operate it today, and what it is like to ride the train, noting what might be seen (and not seen) along the railway.
   
   One of the things not seen, and something that may surprise tourists, is just about anything marking the famed attacks of the man-eaters of Tsavo. The author searched high and low in the area where the attacks occurred and interviewed a number of people resident in the area but found any memorial or indication of the attacks hard to come by (other than the hotel mentioned in the book's title). Happily, this did not stop the author from telling the tale of how two man-eaters held up the construction of the Uganda railway for nearly a year (in 1898), of the fight against the lions, and the personalities involved in the famed incident, notably of course Colonel John Henry Patterson (who was known for many things, the fight against the man-eaters being only one incident; other things he was noted for include fighting in the Boer War, commanding the Jewish Legion in World War I, and being a keen supporter of the foundation of Israel).
   
   The Tsavo man-eaters were easily my favorite part of the book and read like a great adventure story (did you know that twice the workmen of the railway tried to murder Patterson?) but it is not by any means the only thing in this book. Boyles gives the reader a tour of Zanzibar, once a rich and influential island kingdom that ruled over much of the East African coast, at one time the richest place in Africa, sort of a "Hong Kong" for Africa, though boasting a wealth that was acquired in "hideous ways," from not only the ivory trade but most especially the slave trade. Now it is a sleepy, rundown place of ornate though neglected fascinating architecture, reeking and rusting ancient freighters in the harbor, and sleepy dreams of becoming a booming tourist resort (at least this was the case in 1991, I don't know what it is now).
   
   Boyles interviewed a number of Kenyan whites, an odd class of people, descendents from the days when Britain ruled Kenya (if not resident themselves during British rule), a people unsure of their place and future in a black Kenya, an unease shared by many black Kenyans as well. Boyles never came to any firm conclusions as to their future, as some whites felt discriminated against and others felt quite the opposite. He did however have some pointed words about a few famous white Kenyans and others, such as Karen Blixen, the "precious, affected, patronizing, self-absorbed Dane" who was more worried about her aristocratic title than anything else in her life, portrayed on the silver screen by Meryl Streep in the "only version of her life that matters," and Henry Morton Stanley, a "murderous" explorer who was unfortunately "canonized" in the movies by Spencer Tracy.
   
   The author spent some time on President Daniel arap Moi, the dictator who shaped much of post-colonial Kenya, discussing his corruption, a corruption that is suspected to include covering up the murder of political rivals.
   
   The history of tourism - particularly of the safari - in Kenya is well-covered,, from the early days of the large, expensive practically paramilitary hunting expeditions, ones with many porters, trucks, good china, professional chefs, and often lasting months, to the modern economical package tours of today, in large part made affordable to the middle-class thanks to the advent of low-cost international jet travel. Interestingly, Boyles wrote that the abolition of hunting in Kenya in 1977 had the opposite effect intended, as many former hunters stated that without hunters to keep tabs on animal numbers and to go after poachers many thousands of elephants and hundreds of rhinos were slaughtered. Without a hunter police force, not even Kenya's military can keep poachers in check, though others dispute this, noting that many Kenyan law enforcement officials are neck-deep in corrupt ties with the poachers.

No comments about Insight Guides Egypt.