West with the Night
by: Beryl Markham
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Amazon.com Review:
One of the most beautifully crafted books I have ever read,with some of the most poetic prose passages I could imagine, such asthe following, resonating with a statelyand timeless quality so absent in our modern life:
Product Description:
West with the Night is the story of Beryl Markham--aviator, racehorse trainer, beauty--and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and '30s.
One of the most beautifully crafted books I have ever read,with some of the most poetic prose passages I could imagine, such asthe following, resonating with a statelyand timeless quality so absent in our modern life:
There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a differentthing. There is the silence that comes with morning in a forest, andthis is different from the silence of a sleeping city. There issilence after a rainstorm, and before a rainstorm, and these are notthe same. There is the silence of emptiness, the silence of fear, thesilence of doubt. There is a certain silence that can emanate from alifeless object as from a chair lately used, or from a piano with olddust upon its keys, or from anything that has answered to the need ofa man, for pleasure or for work. This kind of silence can speak. Itsvoice may be melancholy, but it is not always so; for the chair mayhave been left by a laughing child or the last notes of the piano mayhave been raucous and gay. Whatever the mood or the circumstance, theessence of its quality may linger in the silence that follows. It is asoundless echo.Born in England in1902, Markham was taken by her father to East Africa in 1906. She spenther childhood playing with native Maruni children and apprenticingwith her father as a trainer and breeder of racehorses. In the 1930s,she became an African bush pilot, and in September 1936, became thefirst person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west.
Product Description:
West with the Night is the story of Beryl Markham--aviator, racehorse trainer, beauty--and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and '30s.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- How I found this ...
I am not quite sure how I happened upon this book but i am glad I did. The writing is a beautiful portrait of Kenya in the early 20th centure. Written from the view of English settlers, Beryl Markham was quite a character. Rumor has it that she may not have penned the book herself. I would like to learn more.
Rating: 
- Beautifully written account of life in East Africa
My grandparents went to East Africa in the 1920s. My grandfather, a Scotsman, was looking for gold, my grandmother, a South African was looking for romance. My mother was born in the year this book opens.
When I was a child my mother regaled me with stories of scorpions, leopards amd pythons, and this book rekindled my memories of childhood.
It is a well-written account of a wild child's life in Kenya, hunting with the local people, being hunted by the local animals, and seeing the tribes ... Read More
Rating: - West With the Night
An excellent book!
Ernest Hemingway wrote, "She writes rings around us!" and he wasn't just being nice!
A good story, well written; what more could you ask for?!
Rating: - West with the Night
I read this book because someone suggested my family might have been related to Beryl Markham, which is not the case, but...
What a woman - this is a true account of one of the first bush pilots in Africa, Beryl Markham, who was the first pilot to fly westward across the Atlantic from England. Although there is some dispute whether she actually wrote this autobiographical account (some say that her paramour, who edited the book, actually wrote it - she never confirmed or denied it), the stories ... Read More
Rating: - Reads like fiction
I agree with Hemingway that this is a piece of high literaturethat reads like fiction and spreads itself before the reader like a well-produced film. It drove me to learn more about the author and her life.
- How I found this ...I am not quite sure how I happened upon this book but i am glad I did. The writing is a beautiful portrait of Kenya in the early 20th centure. Written from the view of English settlers, Beryl Markham was quite a character. Rumor has it that she may not have penned the book herself. I would like to learn more.
- Beautifully written account of life in East AfricaMy grandparents went to East Africa in the 1920s. My grandfather, a Scotsman, was looking for gold, my grandmother, a South African was looking for romance. My mother was born in the year this book opens.
When I was a child my mother regaled me with stories of scorpions, leopards amd pythons, and this book rekindled my memories of childhood.
It is a well-written account of a wild child's life in Kenya, hunting with the local people, being hunted by the local animals, and seeing the tribes ... Read More
- West With the NightAn excellent book!
Ernest Hemingway wrote, "She writes rings around us!" and he wasn't just being nice!
A good story, well written; what more could you ask for?!
- West with the NightI read this book because someone suggested my family might have been related to Beryl Markham, which is not the case, but...
What a woman - this is a true account of one of the first bush pilots in Africa, Beryl Markham, who was the first pilot to fly westward across the Atlantic from England. Although there is some dispute whether she actually wrote this autobiographical account (some say that her paramour, who edited the book, actually wrote it - she never confirmed or denied it), the stories ... Read More
- Reads like fictionI agree with Hemingway that this is a piece of high literaturethat reads like fiction and spreads itself before the reader like a well-produced film. It drove me to learn more about the author and her life.
