by Daoud Hari. A chilling first-hand account of the Darfur genocide wreaked by the Sudanese government in 2003. But coincidence, Sudan’s President, Omar al-Bashir, was finally ousted as I was reading this book in 2019, news which did much to … Continue reading
Category Archives: Africa
Last Train to Zona Verde
by Paul Theroux. Paul Theroux returns to Africa after ten years away, and travels overland from Cape Town to Angola for what he expects to be his final visit. The book begins on a bush-hike with the traditionally dressed Ju/’hoansi … Continue reading

13th August 2017
by Leigh Forbes
Comments Off on Caliban’s Shore: The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors
Caliban’s Shore: The Wreck of the Grosvenor and the Strange Fate of Her Survivors
by Stephen Taylor. The Caliban Shore accompanies the survivors of the East India Company’s schooner, “Grosvenor”, after she was wrecked on the south-east African coast in August 1782. The story starts in India as passengers and crew make preparations to … Continue reading
The Badass Librarians of Timbuktu
by Joshua Hammer. The Bad Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells two stories: one about thousands of ancient manuscripts – on such subjects as history, science, Islamic law, conflict resolution, and poetry – and the librarians who sought to first preserve, then … Continue reading
Walking the Nile
by Levison Wood. We all know the longest river in the world is the Nile (or is it the Amazon?), but we don’t actually know how long that is. From it’s (disputed) source in Rwanda, to Egypt’s Mediterranean coast, the … Continue reading

12th April 2016
by Leigh Forbes
Comments Off on Land of Second Chances: the Impossible Rise of Rwanda’s Cycling Team
Land of Second Chances: the Impossible Rise of Rwanda’s Cycling Team
by Tim Lewis. Land of Second Chances weaves a wonderful path between cycling and Rwanda, managing to concentrate on both and show how intertwined they are. Although there is inevitably some detail about the genocide, there is much more about … Continue reading