West with the Night - Beryl Markham

West with the Night

By Beryl Markham

  • Release Date: 2012-08-14
  • Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
4.5 Score: 4.5 (From 186 Ratings)

Description

The classic memoir of Africa, aviation, and adventure—the inspiration for Paula McLain’s Circling the Sun and “a bloody wonderful book” (Ernest Hemingway).

 Beryl Markham’s life story is a true epic. Not only did she set records and break barriers as a pilot, she shattered societal expectations, threw herself into torrid love affairs, survived desperate crash landings—and chronicled everything. A contemporary of Karen Blixen (better known as Isak Dinesen, the author of Out of Africa), Markham left an enduring memoir that soars with astounding candor and shimmering insights.
 
A rebel from a young age, the British-born Markham was raised in Kenya’s unforgiving farmlands. She trained as a bush pilot at a time when most Africans had never seen a plane. In 1936, she accepted the ultimate challenge: to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean from east to west, a feat that fellow female aviator Amelia Earhart had completed in reverse just a few years before. Markham’s successes and her failures—and her deep, lifelong love of the “soul of Africa”—are all told here with wrenching honesty and agile wit.
 
Hailed as “one of the greatest adventure books of all time” by Newsweek and “the sort of book that makes you think human beings can do anything” by the New York Times, West with the Night remains a powerful testament to one of the iconic lives of the twentieth century.
 

Reviews

  • Great pilot, great writing

    5
    By C Neill in the DR
    Being a pilot myself, I knew I would love reading about the author’s adventures. But I never expected the book to be such a delightful read!
  • West with the Night

    5
    By Charlie's Nick
    Simply superb.
  • West with the Night

    4
    By Gameydamey
    Totally entertaining. Taking you back in time to the pioneer days of Kenya, the first years of flight and insights into a woman who lived her life as she saw it.
  • West with the night

    5
    By All done blue
    Fantastic book. Markham is a master of language and description as much or more than she was a master of an airplane. This was a high definition, 3D flight with her through her life story.
  • West with the Night

    3
    By Beryl's Story
    An interesting but brief account of the adventures of Beryl Markham, from her childhood days in Kenya to her later years as bush pilot. Markham relates with ease her account of being mauled by a pet lion, training and racing her thoroughbred filly and of her trans-Atlantic flight from east to west. She was a woman before her time. All in all, a good read! Susan Brown, Fair Oaks, California, May 30, 2013
  • West with the Night

    5
    By HeightsHappy
    This book was so powerful that upon my first read I was compelled to fly to Africa and visit Kenya. Through this inspired trip, I felt the passion that Markham wrote so eloquently of her beloved Africa. It truly is a remarkable book of a wonderful life.
  • Being eloquent

    5
    By Tinlizzy55
    Hemingway himself states that Markham's writing makes him want to quit writing out of inadequacy. It's a memoir and at times there are holes, and more needed to have been written. But she captures growing up in east Africa, training race horses there, spear hunting with the bush men and eventually becoming a bush pilot. Not only is the material gripping but her writing is simply stunning. If you liked Out of Africa, this is a must read.

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