Read: West With the Night

This is a beautiful book I’ve read many times. Africa, 1930’s. Author is a pilot, an adventurer, pioneer. She writes SO well it makes me somewhat ill knowing I will never be able to do something so good. Check out the back cover blurb. Ya, pesky little writer named Hemingway. The author being praised is Beryl Markham, and the book is West With the Night. Her writing about flying is art work, as is her description of Africa itself. I’ve always dreamed of this era in Africa, but she writes that it was changing even then, and at a rate that nobody could have charted. My copy has a nice handwritten letter from a prior reader to a friend. I loved their handwriting so I included it.
There are paragraphs in this book that are so good I had to put the book down and walk away. That’s a rare thing. GET IT, READ IT.