More Books

"Did you read Beryl Markham's book, West with the Night?  I knew her fairly well in Africa and never would have suspected that she could and would put pen to paper except to write in her flyer's log book.  As it is, she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer.  I felt that I was simply a carpenter with words, picking up whatever was furnished on the job and nailing them together and sometimes making an okay pig pen.  But (she) can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers.  The only parts of it that I know about personally, on account of having been there at the time and heard the other people's stories, are absolutely true. . . .I wish you would get it and read it because it is really a bloody wonderful book."

---Ernest Hemingway

I just finished Beryl Markham's autobiography, West with The Night.  It is the book we will be discussing next month when the Book Belles meet.  As I often say, this book was nowhere near my radar;  hearing it described as similar to Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa I couldn't wait to begin.  From the opening paragraph to the last word, I was not disappointed.  She shares with us her love of Africa and heart-stopping adventures.  We are with her when as a young girl she is attacked by a lion and when she becomes the first woman to attempt flying across the Atlantic from Abingdon, England to New York.  

Upon researching Ms. Markham I learned she was abandoned by her mother at the age of four and that she had relationships, marriages and children during the years of which she writes.  While these facts might have added drama and pages to her book I appreciate she chose to tell only the story of her life that defined her as an explorer and which led her to the twenty one hour, twenty five minute Atlantic flight.  She allowed, for whatever reason,  her intimate life to remain private.

I am not as eloquent as Mr. Hemingway, so I will only second his statement...

"I wish you would get it and read it, because it is really a bloody wonderful book."

(The above excerpt is of a letter from Ernest Hemingway to Maxwell Perkins

 taken from the back jacket of Beryl Markham's book)

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Earlier this week I also read A.S. Byatt's The Matisse Stories.

Byatt does not tell us a story about Matisse, but uses several of his paintings as inspiration to create a trio of insightful and timely short stories.  In these beautifully written tales we are confronted with aging, professional jealousy and sexual harassment.

A.S. Byatt never fails to give the reader a wonderful read.

Happy Reading!