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review 2015-01-06 20:12
West with the Night by Beryl Markham
West with the Night - Beryl Markham

 

Description: f the first responsibility of a memoirist is to lead a life worth writing about, Markham succeeded beyond all measure. Born Beryl Clutterbuck in the middle of England, she spent her life defying all expectations of how a woman should live and what a single person can achieve.

Markham and her father moved to Kenya when she was a girl, and she grew up with a zebra for a pet, horses for friends, and baboons, lions, leopards, and gazelles for neighbors. She made money by scouting elephants from a tiny plane and would spend most of the rest of her life in East Africa as an adventurer, a racehorse trainer, and an aviatrix — she became the first person to fly nonstop from Europe to America.


Dedication: For My Father

Opening quote:
I speak of Africa and golden joys
HENRY IV, Act V, Sc.3
Opening: BOOK ONE: I: Message from Nungwe:
How is it possible to bring order out of memory? I should like to begin at the beginning, paiently, like a weaver at his loom. I should like to say, 'This is the place to start; there can be no other.'


MUTHAIGA COUNTRY CLUB

I remained so happily provincial I was unable to discuss the boredom of being alive with any intelligence until I had gone to London and lived there a year. Boredom, like hookworm, is endemic.

Denys Finch Hatton

How quick this reads; it is over almost before it has begun. The typeset and size is easy on the eyes.

Now there is the either/or question

Blixen or Markham

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review 2014-07-07 05:34
The Ruins by Scott B. Smith
The Ruins - Scott B. Smith

bookshelves: mexico, boo-scary, tbr-busting-2012, autumn-2012, adventure, mystery-thriller, sci-fi, published-2006, fraudio, library-in-norway, ouch, gorefest

Read from September 23 to 24, 2012

 



hah! look at all those 1* ratings, nonetheless here I go... full tilt.

Just when I realised that this reads as an old text adventure where actions must be done in the right order and a whole lot of there is a shovel with telescopic handle leaning against the shaft wall: GET SHOVEL, along came a full inventory of all the contents of the rucksack down to the last banana.



There is a l-o-n-g heart-string-pulling down the bottom of the shaft, don't know about Pablo the Greek but I was giving up the will to live. Phrases repeated over and over, indulgent digressional tales by an author who is not the best of story-tellers to start with.

Some baad stories keep your attention for a while because mind and memories freestyle along parallel lines:

Feed Me Seymour: http://youtu.be/L7SkrYF8lCU
Day of the Triffids: http://youtu.be/aVXEA7_y344
The Hole (not the party bit but where it starts going horribly wrong: http://youtu.be/m0E75vi3ETc

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