West with the Night

When Beryl Markham grew up in Africa, she did not just grow up, she had adventures. While growing up with neighbor boys and being raised by a father, she did not act like a regular girl.
The whole story takes you through her remebrance of growing up adventures to show the reader how she became an airplane flyer. While it is not until over halfway in the book that she tells of her flying experience, she does spell out even the most remarkable of details that she remembered of her somewhat fairy tale life that she lived in Africa.
If you enjoy hearing true stories, then you aught to buy this one. It is worth every second of it. If you enjoy fiction , this one is still worth every second and not a dull moment.

This is one of the best adventure tales ever written.

"There is a feeling of absolute finality about the end of a flight through darkness," Markham writes in her tragic story, "Men with Blackwater Die." "The whole scheme of things with which you have lived acutely, during hours of roaring sound in an element altogether detached from the world, ceases abruptly."

And there is a feeling of absolute finality about coming to the end of this gorgeous book of 24 stories of Africa, each one more magnificent than the last. That is one reason I have gifted this book to others, many times; the pleasure of reading it comes alive again, knowing that someone else is about to share it.

Never mind what Ernest Hemingway had to say. Never mind the petty jealousies, and questions about whether Markham wrote the book. No one else could have written it; No author would have willingly removed their name from this perfect little work. The book is too intensely personal, too brilliant to have been written by another. It was Markham, no question.

In these pages, Markham's life as a child in Africa and later, as a bush pilot, come alive, literally. The clearings blink into the author's horizon half an hour before dawn. And the reader blinks, forgetting that he is not there in Africa with her. One can hear the hum of her Avian as its wheels reach for solid ground and sweep her onto the runway and into "a maelstrom of dust and flickering orange light." Every line is potent, like fine bourbon, but sobering.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

I read this book as an adult, but I wish I had read it as an adolescent (girl). Beryl Markham is a fascinating figure, but I felt kind of silly reading the book because it did seem like something geared to young people. Markham's writing contains some passages of patronizing racism, but overall a surprisingly little amount considering the time and history of colonialism in Africa. I think it would be a good read for a young teen and would hopefully open his or her eyes to the complications and complexities of colonialism and the perpetually surprising way in which you can be true to yourself by shaping an unconventional life.

This women had such an interesting childhood and a full and rich life. What a great writer, I wish she had written more, I didn't want this book to end.