So, yesterday was the official kick-off of the Keep Portland Weird festival here in Paris, which meant that I had a reading/screening in the...
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"Did you read Beryl Markham's book, West with the Night? I knew her fairly well in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer's log book. As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers. The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people's stories, are absolutely true....I wish you would get it and read it because it is really a bloody wonderful book." Ernest Hemingway, in a letter to Maxwell Perkins
Review:
"With the skill of someone who has filled long nights with stories, Markham recounts her adventures — discoveries, rescues, and narrow escapes, the glint of an airplane abandoned in the desert, the look of a lion about to pounce....Much more than a pilot's memoir, West With the Night is a wise, funny, and inspiring exploration of a life well lived." The Nation
Review:
"Though Markham is known for setting an aviation record for a solo flight across the Atlantic from East to West...she was also a bush pilot in Africa, sharing adventures with Blor Blixen and Denys Finch-Hatton of Out of Africa fame." Library Journal
Synopsis:
Originally published in 1942 and then reissued in 1983, this is the unabridged best-selling autobiography of the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo from east to west. But it is much more than a story of aviation, revealing a poet's feeling for the land, an adventurer's engagement with life, and a philosopher's insights into the human condition. Julie Harris's evocative reading evokes the sights, sounds, and feelings of a remarkable life lived far outside the mainstream.
Synopsis:
West with the Night is the story of Beryl Markham--aviator, racehorse trainer, beauty--and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and '30s.
Beryl Markham is also the author of The Splendid Outcast: The African Stories of Beryl Markham.
Growing up in East Africa, the author describes her life as a pioneer aviator, a horse breeder, pilot of passengers and supplies in a small plane to remote corners of Africa, and became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west.
"The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people's stories, are absolutely true . . . I wish you would get it and read it because it is really a bloody wonderful book."—Ernest Hemingway
"Did you read Beryl Markham's book, West with the Night? I knew her fairly well in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer's log book. As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers. The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people's stories, are absolutely true . . . I wish you would get it and read it because it is really a bloody wonderful book."—Ernest Hemingway
"With the skill of someone who has filled long nights with stories, Markham recounts her adventures—discoveries, rescues, and narrow escapes, the glint of an airplane abandoned in the desert, the look of a lion about to pounce . . . Much more than a pilot's memoir, West With the Night is a wise, funny, and inspiring exploration of a life well lived."—The Nation
Synopsis:
West with the Night is the story of Beryl Markham--aviator, racehorse trainer, beauty--and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and '30s.
jeanmolly, November 20, 2008 (view all comments by jeanmolly)
Wonderful for use in a classroom or with home-schoolers. Wrapped in the geography of Africa and rich in African history, Markham draws stark contrasts between western concepts of life and those of African natives. Markham's book also depicts a strong, courageous woman in a world changing more quickly than at any other period in history, as well as her feelings about those changes.
Markham's relationship to her horses will draw in school-aged youths who share an affinity for horses, regardless of differences in time and perspective.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (4 of 7 readers found this comment helpful)
Deanna Knoll, October 4, 2006 (view all comments by Deanna Knoll)
This travel writer is like no other. The moment I began to read her memoir, the descriptions of Africa came to life and I felt like I was aloft with her in her bush plane. She approaches the changes in Africa because of European influence matter-of-factly, albeit with some nostalgia for the way it used to be. If you want to get lost a place you've never been, fly with Beryl Markham on her delivery routes.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (6 of 15 readers found this comment helpful)
Product details
320 pages
North Point Press -
English9780865471184
Reviews:
"Review"
by The Nation,
"With the skill of someone who has filled long nights with stories, Markham recounts her adventures — discoveries, rescues, and narrow escapes, the glint of an airplane abandoned in the desert, the look of a lion about to pounce....Much more than a pilot's memoir, West With the Night is a wise, funny, and inspiring exploration of a life well lived."
"Review"
by Library Journal,
"Though Markham is known for setting an aviation record for a solo flight across the Atlantic from East to West...she was also a bush pilot in Africa, sharing adventures with Blor Blixen and Denys Finch-Hatton of Out of Africa fame."
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
Originally published in 1942 and then reissued in 1983, this is the unabridged best-selling autobiography of the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo from east to west. But it is much more than a story of aviation, revealing a poet's feeling for the land, an adventurer's engagement with life, and a philosopher's insights into the human condition. Julie Harris's evocative reading evokes the sights, sounds, and feelings of a remarkable life lived far outside the mainstream.
"Synopsis"
by Macmillan,
West with the Night is the story of Beryl Markham--aviator, racehorse trainer, beauty--and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and '30s.
Beryl Markham is also the author of The Splendid Outcast: The African Stories of Beryl Markham.
Growing up in East Africa, the author describes her life as a pioneer aviator, a horse breeder, pilot of passengers and supplies in a small plane to remote corners of Africa, and became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west.
"The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people's stories, are absolutely true . . . I wish you would get it and read it because it is really a bloody wonderful book."—Ernest Hemingway
"Did you read Beryl Markham's book, West with the Night? I knew her fairly well in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer's log book. As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer. I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen. But [she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers. The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people's stories, are absolutely true . . . I wish you would get it and read it because it is really a bloody wonderful book."—Ernest Hemingway
"With the skill of someone who has filled long nights with stories, Markham recounts her adventures—discoveries, rescues, and narrow escapes, the glint of an airplane abandoned in the desert, the look of a lion about to pounce . . . Much more than a pilot's memoir, West With the Night is a wise, funny, and inspiring exploration of a life well lived."—The Nation
"Synopsis"
by Netread,
West with the Night is the story of Beryl Markham--aviator, racehorse trainer, beauty--and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and '30s.
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