When Shiva Naipaul (younger brother of V.S. Naipaul) went to East Africa in the 1970s to investigate the inflated rhetoric of the newly independent nations — to see whether the promises of the new leaders had been kept — what he found was both disheartening and very funny. It is the younger Naipaul's special gift to make the tragic so comic, and
North of South is one of the best travel books out there.