African Diary

I am a huge Bill Bryson fan and have read most of his books.  I’m sure that they will end up here over time.  I am also a traveller.  Well, I was.  I did spend 20 months travelling around the world, alone.  Bryson has been a real travel inspiration for me.

When I unwrapped Bryson’s African Diary on Christmas I couldn’t wait to tuck in.  Bryson was invited by the charity CARE to visit their various camps and projects across Africa and to write a book about to raise money.  How could this be better?  You buy a book, have the joy of reading it, and manage to donate money to a worthy cause at the same time?  I know that you can buy books in charity shops, and I sometimes do, but this book was printed to raise money, it didn’t happen to  be given away and end up on a shelf in a shop.  

This book was short, too short.  Well, I often find books are too short or, as I’ll complain to my friends, it felt unfinished.  This rarely actually the problem, despite having turned the last page I’m not always ready to be finished the book. This often happens with Bryson’s books.  I want one more antidote, one more tale of beers with locals.  What can I say, I’m greedy when it comes to books! I kept having to  remind myself, that this was only a week long trip for Bryson, how much could there be to say?

Even though it was short, I enjoyed it.  You can get yours here.