No comments about Sao Tome and Principe (Bradt Travel Guide).

No comments about Through the Heart of Asia: Over the Pamïr to India. With 250 Illustrations by Albert Pépin. Volume 2.

2 comments about Lonely Planet World Food Morocco (Lonely Planet World Food Guides).

1. I have lived in Marrakesh, Morocco for the past ten years, and eagerly picked up this book as soon as I saw it. Both the text and pictures in the book are REALLY lovely. If you are planning to travel in Morocco, it is a wonderful introduction to Moroccan cuisine.

   However, don't try following the recipies given in this book, because some steps have been left out, and your result will not be correct. I found problems with several of the recipies. For example, the author tells you to make tagines (Moroccan stews) by putting meat or chicken in a pot with spices and water, and bringing ot a boil. While her lists of ingredients are correct, she has forgotten the all-important step of searing all sides of the meat in the pan BEFORE adding any water. If you don't do this, it will jsut taste like boiled meat. For correct and easy-to-follow recipies, adjusted to American kitchens, choose Paula Wolfert's book, "Good Food From Morocco."

   The other small problem I found with this book is that some of the author's explanations for Moroccan behaviors are just plain not correct. For example, she states that most Moroccans never eat in restaurants because this would be an insult to the wife's or the mother's cooking. Having lived here for ten years, I can tell you the real reason is that most Moroccans just plain cannot afford even the cheapest restaurants. Upper-class and wealthy Moroccans DO eat in restaurants, nevertheless, often a couple of times a week.

   Overall, however, I think the author has done an excellent job, and this would be a great book to either take with you on your trip to Morocco (it's pocket size), or to read in advance of your trip.




2. This small book is truly a gem. I would not use it as a cookbook or a travel guide--there are other books that cover these bases well. However, this gives excellent cultural insight though one of our most intimate human experiences--the preparation and serving of food.
   
   The author, a woman, is able to go inside a variety of Moroccan kitchens and see Moroccan women in a domain where they are truly in charge. She explains how a wife may use food to communicate feelings and to pass on family customs. She discusses how foods are used in specific Moslem observances. She gives details about the etiquite of eating in a Moroccan home and how to avoid social mis-steps.
   
   There are no specific recommended restaraunts, but she discusses the specialties of different Moroccan regions and does recommend the open air seafood cafes of Essouria. There are some recommendations for vegetarians and an anecdote about how a vegatarian managed during a Moslem observance that involves eating lamb for a number of days. There is general information about food hygeine and water safety. For people who are watching their diet, there is some limited advice on how to manage in Morocco.
   
   This book explains the various cooking pots and other implements used in various types of Moroccan kitchens. When we have visited other countries, such as Vietnam, we had to do a lot more reserch on our own to learn about the various cooking customs and implements used.
   
   When I travel, I like to learn about the culture in advance. I also insist that my children do background reading too. Yes, the kids complain about the tons of mandatory reading and educational DVDs, but it enhances our experience. When children start asking informed questions, guides and residents open doors not available to most tourists. Interestingly enough, my children, aged 11 and 15 liked the book and read the whole thing. My husband and I also enjoyed it and read it from cover to cover.
   
   If you are interested in visiting Morocco, you should suppliment this book with a more general travel guide such as the Lonely Planet Morocco or the Rough Guide to Morocco. If you want to do a lot of Moroccan cooking, you should get a Moroccan cookbook. However, if you want to understand the interaction of food and culture, this is the book for you.

No comments about Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the Year 1792 to 1798.

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.

5 comments about Into Africa: A Journey Through the Ancient Empires.

1. As a seasoned traveller to Africa (on bicycle and 4wd). I was relieved to find this book both informative and enlightening in its excellent balance of past and present times. The lighthearted approach mingled with the odd tribal poem and sometimes witty dialogue will appeal to those for have an affinity for Africa and wish to delve a little deeper. My only real criticism is that the book doesn't delve deep enough - but should it have, then the lighthearted feel would be lost. The style of writing is a joy considering the breadth of Africa and to have the authors own past thrown in at times, reaqlly does purvue a sense of a 'personal account' of this wondrous continent. If you want to feel Africa in your heart and its culture in veins without the security blanket of a tour operator and a 5* hotel this is the book you have been waiting for!



2. This book was extremely entertaining and interesting and most importantly stimulated interest in me for learning more about many of the regions and peoples described. Much in the work, however, seemed a bit over-romanticized. Nevertheless, I highly recommend the book: it was one of the best I read last year. Excellent introduction to the history and current situations in Africa (a little out of date for Zaire, of course)



3. The major highlight of this book is that it mentions every country on the continent; many books which view Africa as a whole tend to stick with maybe a dozen of the 45 countries that make up Africa, but the authors have touched, albeit briefly, along all modern African states, and attempt to bring them together as a whole, and make cohesive conclusions about the continent. The continent - a real study of the continent in all of its incarnations. As an overview of the continent, as a pair of authors taking the long view, and reaching unique and enlightening conclusions, there is no better book.



4. I really enjoyed this book because it was well written history of the African people. The man who wrote this book is an exceptional writter for National Geographic. He seems to have a very good perpective upon the history of the African people. The other great thing is he provides a source for the Pharoah Khufu being an African person. He shows the deepest respect to African people and their culture. He is one of the only white writters on Africa that seem to do this. We have other people like J PHilipe Rushton,John R Baker,and the people behind the bell cruve seem to be on a cultural campain to posion the masses.
   I wish however the writter would have went more indepth into African spirtuality. He does talk about the Mountains of the Moons being the source of the acient Egyptains.



5. "Into Africa" is a wonderful, almost breathless, whirlwind tour of the African continent. The travels described in the book may have begun as a search for what remains of the ancient empires that once existed, but became as much a discovery of what Africa is today, and what it will become.

   Authors Marq De Villiers and Sheila Hirtle divide the book (and the continent) into nine sections, each with its own distinct character and history. Part one looks at southeast Africa, highlights of which include a visit to the impressive stone ruins of Great Zimbabwe, ruins which produce a sound when one's ear is pressed against them, the source unknown. We are introduced to the Makuni or the "Living Stones" of Zambia, named not after the famous explorer and missionary but rather for the fact that a chief begins his duties by swallowing a small stone, which lodges in his gut and becomes an embodiment of his people. This region is also home to the colorful Maasai warriors, often noted by tourists in colorful red garb (so that people will want to photograph them), nomadic pastoralists that have been pushed out of the increasingly artificial wildlife sanctuaries of Ngorongoro and the Serengeti despite having lived there for many hundreds of years.

   Part two looks at the east coast of Africa, the lands of the Swahili speakers. Fabled east Africa, long a tropical coast skirted by (increasingly threatened) coral reefs and (disappearing) dhows, one can still find along it Lamu, near the Somali border, still an island of coral brick buildings and mosques dating back to the 14 century. Even more famous is exotic Zanzibar, fabled island known to the ancients and part of Tanzania in name only, once a famous source of spices.

   The third section looks at southern Africa, a land largely shaped by the Zulus and the migrations they caused in the 1800s thanks to the tyrant Shaka Zulu. We read about mountainous Lesotho, well known for its conical hats, vigorous ponies, and blankets (called Victorians), a distinct national character that is only 150 years old, invented by arguably Africa's wiliest diplomat, Moshoeshoe the Great; and Swaziland, one of the last of the traditional African monarchies, famous for the Umhlanga or Reed Dance, where barely clad young maidens symbolically offer themselves to the king as brides. The enigmatic San or Bushmen of the Kalahari also receive attention.

   Part four looks at the ancient rain forest lands of the Kongo, long a source of slaves for the world and even well into the 20th century under the yoke of forced labor by France (in the Congo) and Belgium (in Zaire). It is a troubled region, but one of great contrasts; separated by the Stanley Pool of the mighty Congo River are two very different capital cities; Brazzaville of Congo the authors describe a sleepy and pleasant town, in vivid contrast to Kinshasa, capital of Zaire, a much larger, angrier, and dangerous city. Some of the most interesting passages in the book are in this section, particularly of his travels up the Congo River, in war torn Angola, and among the pygmies of Cameroon.

   The fifth section looks at the Gulf of Guinea, long fabled as the Gold Coast and dominated by the fierce Ashanti, bold enough to challenge the British Empire and almost win. Of particular interest are violent and overpopulated Nigeria; the country of Benin (growing more into a model of how Africa could be), whose ancient kingdom of Dahomey was once noted for "Amazon" warriors; Togo, where vodun (the African incarnation of Haitian voodoo) still reigns; Ghana, perhaps the most "Christian" of the west African nations and a robust democracy; and Liberia and Sierra Leone, whose prospects are gloomy indeed.

   Section six was quite interesting, examining the peoples and old empires of the Sahel, the grasslands bordering the southern Sahara, as well as the Sahara itself. Once dominated by a series of mighty empires, first Ghana for over 800 years, then Mali, the greatest perhaps of Sub-Saharan African empires, then nearly 400 years later the Songhai. Fabled Timbuktu is covered in this section, the desert city a center of Islamic learning from the 14th century on. The authors' coverage of Mali is especially interesting, notable for Mansa Musa, an African king so extravagantly wealthy he was well known in 14th century Europe after his pilgrimage to Mecca, and his predecessor, Abu Bakari II, the Voyager King, who actually sought to reach lands he believed to exist on the other side of the Atlantic, disappearing from history when he accompanied personally 2000 vessels for a perilous journey into the unknown. Also fascinating was coverage of the Tuareg or "Blue Men" of the Sahara, a fair-skinned desert nomad group where the men go veiled, not the women, and the Dogon tribe, cliff-dwellers in southern Mali that are neither Christian nor Muslim but have instead their own complex religion.

   The later sections of the book are somewhat shorter, but no less interesting. Part seven looks at the Maghreb and the Barbary Coast of North Africa, an area once controlled by the now extinct Carthage, the land of the Berbers, the Bedouin, and the Moors, once dominated by the Almoravid and the Almohad civilizations, in part infused from the Andalucian culture of Islamic Spain. Part eight devotes some time to Egypt, which the authors maintain it is definitively a part of African civilization, and Ethiopia, a fascinating land of rock-hewn churches and according to some the home of the Ark of the Covenant, and once dominated by the powerful Axumite Empire. The book closes with the Great Rift, believed by paleontologists to be the true cradle of mankind, home to the enigmatic Chwezi or BaChwezi empire, the fabled Mountains of the Moon, and the horror that was Idi Amin in Uganda and is the conflict between the Tutsi and the Hutu in Rwanda and Burundi.

   A fantastic book!

No comments about I found Africa,.

3 comments about African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe.

1. This was the only non-travel guide about Africa in my local library branch when I got back from 8 months in East Africa, so I picked it up. Certainly a very interesting picture of the slow death of British colonialism, despite Zimbabwean independence in 1980. And the successive trips provide a living view of changing attitudes and opinions, both of European expatriates and Nationals. Her inner dialogue of changes, good and bad (both very grey categories), is very informative as well.

   That said, there is only a loose thread of continuing story that flows through the entire text. Granted, she's documenting her travels, but it seems a bit more perspective (or a more involved editor) could have helped give the book a bit more flow. I'd recommend it quickly to those interested in an authentic look at Africa, but probably not for those looking for a casual read during lunch breaks.




2. Woof! What a read! 442 pages in 6 days. Ask me anything about Zimbabwe. The home of Lessing's childhood from 5 til 30, when she moved to England. Easy reading, at times not too organized, nor, I think, rewritten too much. Could have been better. But what she is so good at is the small detail - about the dogs, or food, or dress. The small things that make up life. I think she tries hard not to be judgmental, to give both sides of the picture after 1980, when Zimbabwe became an independent nation. But it would seem like many countries in Africa today, riddled with corruption and stupidity and lack of foresight. Or the world in general, for that matter. Nowadays, why single out Africa? Sounds like it once was (is?) a beautiful country with a mild climate because it is so high. Very interesting book.



3. I have never been in Africa and have never read any of the books about the continent except for Nadine Gordiner's fiction. While I loved the begginning of the book, the later parts become a bit sloppy and at time impatient in terms of writing style. The observations, however, about the country of Zimbabwe over the decades, and in the time after declaration of independence are amazing. One is able to follow up on lives of writer's old friends, new people she meets on her trips, amazing animals, plants and food. I have learned a lot about country , it's people and customs, racism, reverse racism, sexism, deseases and corruption a new country is struggling with. Highly recommended read for anyone interested in learning more about this amazing country and African continent.

No comments about Seychelles, 3rd (Bradt Travel Guide).

No comments about The Congo and the Cameroons (Penguin Great Journeys).