Africa Books

I found this book very powerful and very moving! It is unbelievable that anyone could live through such an experience and come out a loving person!! I can't imagine how difficult it must be to forgive for such atrocities!! Loved loved loved the book - it's a must read

This book taught me more about the Spirit within all humans and how we can stay in one place and allow that spirit to be mamed or how we hold fast to the Higer Spirit and trust our future to that Spirit and triump over the evils and atrosicities in this world.

Fantastic book. Talk about forgiveness!! We can all learn from this remarkable woman.

This is a must read for everyone who has suffered pain and loss. Imaculata is amazing!

Immaculee is an inspiration! Her amazing courage and faith in the face of such unbelievable evil is awesome. This is a book that you will read more than once, high-liting much for future reference.

This book is amazing. It gives a really good explanation of the crisis in Africa. I love this book and highly recommend it!!!

I couldn't finish Eggers's other big book ("A Heartbreaking Work..."), but a colleague recommended this novel, so I decided to take a chance on it and was glad I did. The remarkable and true (though novelized) odyssey of Valentino Deng, one of the generation of Sudanese "Lost Boys," makes for compelling reading as we cross Sudan with Deng and his peers through hazard after hazard (thirst, starvation, animal attacks, gunship attacks). I like that kind of book where a lion eats some of the characters and a crocodile eats some others. (I won't tell you which.) I'd probably give it five stars except that the last third, where the survival stakes are not as high, loses steam. Still, this book prevails as an inspiring survival story.

I really enjoyed the way that Eggers is able to contrast the kinds of difficulties that exist across very different cultural experiences. It seems very illogical that the young men who had survived through the kinds of death and destruction that reigned in their homeland could come to a place like the United States and face challenges that often end in similar tragedy, that difficult obstacles exist no matter what the environment and wrong choices can end in disaster whether in a refugee camp or in an Atlanta apartment. How can you survive famine, lions, the SPLA the thugs of Khartoum only to fall victim of random crime in a so-called civilized, Western country? But when it happens it is only the beginning. The story is very much Homer's Oddysey without a home to come back to and with only an outside chance of creating one in a new place. Heartbreaking yet hopeful.

The book is a captivating story of one lost boy's journey. It is at times funny, sad, heartwarming. The reader adds a dimension of accessibility and warmth that makes the whole experience wonderful. I highly recommend it.

This book opened an entire world unknown to me, I absolutely adored this book for the gift of knowledge it gave me. After reading this I went directly to the National Geographic website and ate up anything and everything I could on Sudan, I then went to Valentino's website and donated what I could for the schools he is building. Never has a book moved me so much. This pairing of minds could not be a better match, I am elated these two men were brought together to tell such an important story.

Some books are like the best of cats, they end up in your lap whenever you have a spare moment; they seek your company even as you desire theirs. Stealing Karma will be that book that one gives to a dozen friends - and they will all be grateful for it. Amazing.

Aneesha Capur's novel, Stealing Karma, is a story brimming with characters and situations that feel fresh, unexplored, and compelling. The dynamics here may mirror others in contemporary fiction concerned with domestic complexities, however, Stealing Karma spins them on their head and uses the cultural milieu to show us human interaction as we have never seen it before. I want to be here, in this world, and get to know its characters and how they will ultimately resolve the issues they face. The writing is clear, lyrical, steeped in place and feeling, and makes you thirst for more. Capur offers a delightful antidote to the kinds of fiction we have seen so much of in the past few years. This is a book that many readers of all backgrounds will be sure to find satisfying.

A pity that one can only read a few pages of what promises to be a most interesting story! Capur catches the reader's imagination and holds it with tantalizing imagery and dialogue, moving the plot forward, leaving one wanting for more. What happens to Mira? How does she cope? I look forward to reading the novel in its entirety.

In a world where so many of us have been driven by a sense of adventure or desperation or opportunity to seek our fortunes abroad, Stealing Karma weaves the story of the expatriate into the life of Mira who loses nearly all connection to India after she leaves for Africa. Mira is suddenly widowed and the precariousness of her adopted world, her erstwhile world of choice, is stark. In her excerpt, Aneesha Capur skillfully sets the plot for the reader: karma will transform the comfortable, even opulent, lives of Mira and her young child. But Mira now belongs to neither the world she left nor the world that has left her.......

After reading the manuscript review by Publishers Weekly provided in the Editorial Reviews concerning the novel `Stealing Karma' by Aneesha Capur I couldn't wait to read the nine pages submitted to Amazon's ABNA contest. Here is a book containing a plethora of subject matter near and dear to my heart; prophetic dreams, Hindu deities, astrological omens, African tribal beliefs and Jungian psychology and reincarnation. It was almost too much to ask for.

With such high hopes in place I must admit that I was extremely disappointed after reading the excerpt. Not because the writing is bad or the story uninteresting. To the contrary, both writing and storyline are excellent. The disappointment experienced was due to the discovery that none of those tantalizing spiritual/occult matters already mentioned were included within the available nine pages.

Moving beyond my initial dismay, I did enjoy this excerpt and look forward to reading the novel at some later date. The characters are well developed and I found Mira an intriguing, beautiful and incredibly sympathetic figure. To create such an alluring and complex character in a short nine pages is a credit to the author and makes the reader hungry for more pages to explore.

"If you want to be a writer, don't listen to your high school English teacher", Pete Townshend once told a caller on a syndicated radio program. In this instance, I emphatically agree! I never knew what my high school English teachers wanted either. I can just imagine them with their red pencils, crossing out one line after another if they would ever bother to read a book like this. But in actual fact Mr. Capstick spins his yarns so well in this, his first book, that most of his readers could not put it down.

Reading in the safety of your own home, as you are sitting in your recliner chair sipping an iced drink, I daresay you will look over your shoulder once or twice. Even if the hair doesn't stand up on the back of your neck.

I won't go into the content here, as there is more than enough info in the other reviews. I've read about half of his books and I suspect that this first one is his best. You just have to start here. He writes so engagingly that even the foreword is required reading!

PHC is a spinner of hair raising yarns. He is quite a creative storyteller with a style that makes you feel like you're part of the hunt. His descriptions and details bring you face to face with dangerous game on a safari adventure. I've read and re-read this book many times and each time I am always wanting to know what will happen next.

I read a lot in my profession, and therefore have a difficult time finding books for recreational reading that keep my interest. This book kept me turning pages well into the evening. Capstick's prose and style, along with his wit, make it seem like you are right next to him as he is walking you through the before, during, and after of a hunt. This book enlarged my respect for safari guides and the predators they stalk. The context can be quite graphic as Capstick accurately (but not gratuitously) describes the unbelievably effective ability of these animals to protect themselves when threatened; not to mention when they're wounded or if man is in their prey. It's a reality check for those of us who have only experienced this type of wildlife at the zoo. Personally, I now would not consider hunting lions, elephant, cape buffalo, or for that matter most of the animals he describes. And just when you've completed the list of his typical safari animals, he explains the other sources of trouble that can come your way in the jungle. If you like this kind of reading, better start the book on a weekend or plan to go into work the next day with limited sleep.

Peter Hathaway Capstick is a very experienced professional hunter turned writer. This book covers his experiences with some of the deadliest game animals in the world. From the big five (lion, elephant, leopard, cape buffalo, rhino) to other dangerous species that inhabit Africa, Capstick tells in detail the horrifying, brutal, and deadly nature of these animals from his first-hand accounts of hunting them, guiding hunts, and witnessing attacks.

The author tells several hunting and attack stories for each species of animal. His style for telling these stories becomes a bit repetitive, but it in no way takes away from his stories. Each story will completely shock you when the author describes just how dangerous, brutal, powerful, intelligent, and cunning these animals can be. The lion chapter covering "man-eating" lions is especially good at describing the sheer terror of the vicious attacks.

Along with some of the best hunting and attack stories on dangerous big game, the author also includes some basic information on the different animals, and a few ecological facts and the importance of hunting to the ecosystem, all with some slight dark humor.

Whether you're interested in big game hunting or not, this book will certainly be an entertaining and interesting read. You will definitely have a newfound respect for these creatures.

I believe this to be THE best book ever about hunting the most dangerous animals on earth.There is something about hearing first hand about being mere feet from man-eaters in the wild. Capstick has a way of using humor that makes the book even more fun to read. A very brave man, a great writer and what a life he lived!!

This book is hard to classify: Is it autobiography? Primatolgy? Travel adventures? Humanist philosophy? Humor? Basically it is all of these and more. It is a real page turner. Sapolsky has a truly marvelous sense of humor that includes knowing how to laugh at himself. I rank it with in the top 10 favorite books I've ever read. Bravo!

This book is an excellent insight into the 20 year life of a biologist who grow as a person while studying baboons and navigating the up and downs of life in Kenya.

This is a fun recollection of Sapolsky's experiences in Africa.

Somebody looking for data might want to avoid it as the information is more about things that struck him through his observations with his baboon troop. Some would be reminded of Goodall's earlier books when he writes about his interactions with the baboon.

There are many chapters on what he went through and the people he meet and interacted.

Some are great such as Thomas who had the great ability to pull endless fish out of a river but it was offset by his other great ability to attract buffalo. As Sapolsky wrote: "Buffalo would scamper in from miles away to nail Thomas, toss him over their shoulders, and send his fish sailing into mudholes, thorn bushes, high into trees." Sapolsky comments about looking for him and find him cursing and spitting and cackling at some buffalo, threatening it with his trademark an astounding pelvic grind, as the monster approached.

That whole imagery made me laugh.

His own personal reflections of living in Africa are rather interesting as he interjects himself into the community. Some of his comments bring another picture to the Masai who many times are pictured as the noble warriors and yet they do questionable things.

Probably one disheartening thing is the corruption that existed and probably still exists. As he prided himself on being a New Yorker; he finds himself being conned and regularly pressed for bribes. And yet, he himself takes to conning people when his money runs out.

An outbreak of Bovine TB ravishes a Baboon troop and eventually hits his troop. Sapolsky finds himself unenviable task of killing Baboons as he tries to discover what is killing the Baboons and where is it coming from. Eventually, he figures it out and it involves corruption and the Masai. He can't even tell people about it because wealthy British hotel owners are against it and the local government is against it as it would hurt the tourist trade.

One thing I thought was interesting was his comments about Fosse. He is not a fan.

Overall it's a fun read.

This is a beautiful, poignant, fascinating and enlightening read. It's also a bit heart-wrenching. Despite the fact that it is ostensibly about baboons, each sentence within this book contains more humanity and feeling than a typical week of day to day living on our strange modern worlds.

I am a student of Bio-Anthropology, and I have to say that when it comes to bio-anthro, especially my specialty- Primatology- the textbooks NEVER tell you everything you need to know in order to be a good Primatologist, but Robert Sapolsky does in "A Primate's Memoir."

Sapolsky delivers a narrative that is at once fanciful and credible. Too bizarre to be taken as anything other than reality. The experience of the author as a budding scientist in the Kenyan Serengeti, coming of age amidst the incongruous corruption and stark beauty of the African continent, as he works his way through the American Academic Dominance Hierarchy while conducting a long-term study on Savannah Baboons. He mixes cross-cultural social commentary with humorous storytelling. It is literally a laugh-out loud kind of book, particularly for the budding anthropologist. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the field. In a way, it is like the primatological equivalent of "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," except that is all true. A brilliant book, which every anthropologist should read.

BTW, all anthro textbooks should have chapters dedicated to the trials and tribulations one must endure while living among other cultures, dealing with third world corruption, and knowing how to negotiate the African social arena. I feel more worldly for having read this masterpiece.

great book - heard David Simon on NPR and he knows the streets of BMore

Journalist David Simon's homicidic tome, published in 1991, follows a group of detectives from the Baltimore Police Department's Homicide Unit for an entire year, beginning in January 1988. It is a gritty, great read about the matter-of-factness of murder in a city with one of the highest rates in the nation. An article in a recent (April 19, 2008) issue of New Economist highlights a recent drop in that rate (from 282 homicides in 2007). During the year of Simon's internship, there were 234 murders, followed by (p 618) 262 in 1989 and 302 in 1990. Based on those four years, that's an average of one violent death every 18 hours.

What Simon was able to put together from his year's worth of journalistic scribblings on life with the good guys and the bad guys is a fantastic fly on the wall's eye view: the graphic violence of crime scenes, the raunchy humor of and banter between the detectives, the despair of the victims' family members, and the utter stupidity of many of the criminals: (p 16) "the investigator's saving grace is the killer's overwhelming disposition toward incompetence or, at the very least, gross error." His Guidebook of Death Investigation Rules are remarkable: (p 34) "Rule Number One...the page 1 entry in a detective's lexicon: Everyone lies." Rule Five is equally profound (p 237), "It's good to be good: it's better to be lucky." Best of the book: Simon's ability to capture the events in a comprehensive and cohesive manner, even with several welcome change ups to the overall chronological format. Covering every aspect of "life on the killer streets" Homicide is a perfect read for tome-loving crime buffs, neither category of which I belong. Also good, In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer, and Green River, Running Red by Ann Rule.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love Mr. Simon's writing style, which is both intresting and easy to follow. The only negative about this book is the language, which may offend some people.

I really have to be neutral about this product. I sent it back-I never ordered it, it got to me by mistake.

In 1998, David Simon got unprecedented access to the Baltimore's homicide unit, and shadowed its detectives during the entire year. It was a tough year in a tough city, with a total of 234 murders. It would be easy to describe Simon's approach as "a fly on the wall," but that would be to belittle the extraordinary work he did.

Simon manages to give us both the large picture (how the homicide unit works, the flaws and strengths of the judicial system in Baltimore, the meaning behind the crime statistics) and the small picture (the greatness and pettiness of this group of detectives, the emotional detachment they need to have in order to face homicide after homicide, the heartbreaking effects that the murder of one little girl has on a veteran detective). During his year of reporting, and the two years he spent writing the book, he was able to see the cases from a distance, and also from inside the skin of the detectives trying to solve them.

"Homicide" is a tremendous achievement and, in my opinion, a true-crime classic. Anybody interested in learning more about crime or police work--or simply interested in an excellent work of non-fiction--should read Simon's book.

When I picked it up I didnt know it was written written by the boys themselves. This made it very original. It makes me realize that every piece of food I put into my mouth has a value X times greater to a starving child.

This is a great book and difficult to put down. These boys are absolutely amazing and it's hard to think about what they and others were going through just to survive while most of us on this earth were carrying about our daily lives. Young boys, some toddlers, separated from their parents, traveling miles in the hopes of making it to a better, safe place. The ways that these young children adapt to their situations (thirst, hunger, illness, death, captivity)and the way that they help each other is inspirational, but so sad at the same time. Everyone should read this book. I would love to know what they are doing now.....

This was an incredible story written by three incredible boys. The entire
time I ws reading it I had to keep reminding myself of how old they were.
To think of what they went through at such a young age is remarkable.
I highly recommend this book.

an informative first hand account about what the Muslam government has done to the black farmers all in the name of Allah but in reality in the name of GREED

The authors of this book have amazing courage to tell the true story of what they endured while civil war raged on in their home country of Sudan. They tell it with eloquence yet raw honesty, which demonstrates how they were able to grow and learn under such extreme circumstances. The tone of the writing made me feel almost as if the authors were talking to me. The writing style is heartfelt yet straightfoward. It cuts right to it.

Benson, Alepho, and Benjamin share their personal stories, putting faces, names, and feelings to what often is only covered in the news as a brief report. The authors' stories are their own, yet they also echo the stories of the thousands of Lost Boys of Sudan as well as the women, children, and men affected by civil war in any country.

This book is educational, touching, sad, and inspirational. It may move you to action, and it will definitely stay with you.

As a social scientist working with, and on, indigenous people's issues I read a lot of contemporary ethnographies. Most that I read are largely out of date by the time they reach publication. This is simply because of the nature of the discipline: taking time to do the fieldwork, writing up the manuscript, finding a willing publisher, and the overall book production process all take time. As a result, in a world that changes by the day, more often then not when an ethnography is finally published the material within it is often dated. Social scientists have tried to work around this disciplinary "time drag" by focusing on particular cultural phenomena rather then looking at the culture itself as a whole. Monique and the Mango Rains is an example of one of these modern ethnographies, where the central focus of the book is on midwifery and childbirth in Mali, and the Minianka indigenous people and culture are more part of the contextual background then the actual focus of the book.

Focusing on Fatumata - the author Kris Holloway's Malian name - and her Peace Corps experience among the Minianka indigenous peoples in Mali's southeastern region near the Burkina Faso border, the book is a deeply personal narrative about the rhythms of West African life and death. The Minianka (also known as the Mamara, Miniyanka, Minya, Mianka, Minyanka, or Tupiire) are an indigenous group speaking a northern Senufo language used by about 700,000 people in southeastern Mali and northwestern Burkina Faso. Mali is one of the economically poorest countries in the world - the average Malian earns roughly the equivalent of $210 US dollars per year. Compounding this extreme level of poverty is the fact that very few people in Mali have electricity, running water, telephones, or access to modern healthcare. Most women are married by the age of eighteen and have an average of seven children - the risk of death during childbirth and pregnancy is among the top ten in the world. It is here, in the remote southeastern corner of Mali that the author was stationed for two years, and where she met and befriended the local village midwife, Monique Dembele.

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The relationship between Fatumata and Monique is what makes this book succeed as it offers a unique glimpse into the day-to-day lives of the Minianka indigenous people and their contemporary struggles. The rarity of this glimpse is that we are given access to a component of Minianka life not often shared with the outside world - the inner realm of womanhood, midwifery, and childbirth. "I couldn't believe that here, in this dilapidated box, Monique, with a sixth-grade education and nine months of medical training, was birthing babies. Lots of babies" (Holloway 2007: 8). However, as we learn, not only was Monique the midwife - and thus responsible for the future of her village - but she was also a doctor and respected elder. The larger role that Monique played in her village is revealed in the deeply personal narratives presented throughout the book. For example, several times throughout the book Monique confides in Fatumata about her struggles and frustrations: Monique told Fatumata, "He has had many attacks of malaria over the past few months. It has caused severe anemia, and now diarrhea. He is also malnourished. The mother didn't know what to do. She had not heard about malaria prevention and drugs. ... I can do nothing. I don't have IVs. I don't have serum. These women must bring me their children before they get so sick, then I have ways of helping them" (Holloway 2007: 30-31).

Broken into thirteen chapters, the book chronicles Fatumata's relationship with Monique during several important cultural events for the Minianka indigenous peoples: the building of a new birthing hut, governmental revolution in Mali, and the death and birth of several community members. Filling an important gap within the contemporary literature dealing with indigenous peoples in West Africa, Monique and the Mango Rains is the perfect book for undergraduate classes, applied researchers and activists, or simply the interested reader.

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Indigenous Peoples Issues & Resources
http://indigenouspeoplesissues.com

If you care about Africa, women's rights, birth, and making a difference, then this is the book to read. Hard to put down once you start. Wish you could work in Africa? Read this book and "go there"!!

I'm going to Mali next week to help build a school in a village there. I read this book in preparation for my travels. I could clearly visualize what everyday life is like in a small village in this country and the hurdles the people must overcome in order to live a healthy, productive life there. The midwife, Monique felt like a friend by the end of the book. I will not forget this story!

This wonderful book brought me back to my own time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mauritania. I have shared it with my family. Ms. Halloway's prose has given my family some idea what my life was like --20 years after my return home. Her book has done more for that understanding than all of my pictures and letters home Thank you for this treat. I am trying to get all of the students at nursing school to read it.

Monique and the author, Kris, are amazing and inspiring women. The story is told in such a way that the reader feels as though a friend is re-telling her experiences over a cup of coffee. The book touches on a number of important issues including women's health, the woman's role in the household in Mali, and the standard of living in Mali. I think it is essential for American's to read books like this so that we realize how incredibly good our lives are.

The foreign home restoration genre takes a real turn with Tahir Shah's experiences in Casablanca. His patience was amazing. I would have gone stark raving mad. I enjoyed his writing and have gone on to other books written by him. His wife must be a saint to have put up with all of the Caliph's House problems.

After spending time in Morocco and doing business with a Moroccan, this book and Shah's writing of his experiences has helped me to better understand some of my own experiences and appreciate my role in learning about the culture. It is a current, true to life, mostly lighthearted look into today's Moroccan culture. It is a fast read and one I would say for anyone thinking of visiting Morocco or wanting to know about the culture, it would be well worth the investment of time.

I have read sveral of Tahir Shah's books. He is an incredibly gifted writer. This book is probably his best, though I also liked In Search of King Solomon's Mines very much. His writing is very smooth and natural- it's almost impossible to put this book down and I am eagerly anticipating his next book. I am truly surprised he suvives his adventures in general. In this story he risks everything financially on the purchase of a house in Morocco and would have lost everything without several strokes of very good luck. In other books he risks his life- often several times. I loved the parts about Jins. One thing I get tired of his constant overplaying of his Afghan roots. One grandfather was Afghan, a Pashtun, that's it. He is "75%" British and was raised in the UK.

If you are the adventurous type with an open mind to other cultures, this is a fun book to read. Tahir Shah describes his new home in Casablanca with dry wit and had me laughing out loud. I learned so much about a culture I knew nothing about, but it isn't a text book, or even travel type of read. The only question my book club members all had was, how did his wife not leave him during the very trying and hilarious remodeling project!

I could not put this book down for a minute. In my minds eye I could picture all the characters and their hysterical behavior. What a wild and wacky saga has been told on a par with, but much better than, A Year in Provence. Shah transports you into the mind, smells and sights of the Casbahs and you feel you are there. The characters surrounding him and taking him on this journey are nothing short of fantastic. I alternated between concern for him and the path he was letting himself be led down and absolute joy and laughter in the next instant. I read this as preparation for a trip to Morocco but the real place will never be able to live up to this adventure. Thank you for a fantastic journey.

I've read plenty of books and this book has really touched me, and I'm still reading half way and I had to stop and write my comments early..so touching that people our people we're treated this way so inhumane..sad part is this is a true story...I hope towards the end of the story that Mende escape from hell....so sad how she and many others lost there families..this book needs to be a school book for kids to read and realize and become aware of true life stories....

I absolutely loved this book. I recommend this book to all of my friends. It is very sad and heart wrenching to read all of the things that this girl has suffered. It brought tears to my eyes reading her words. But one thing I had to always remember was that this book wasn't written about something that happened 100 or even 50 years ago, this is something that just recently happened and is still happening today. Two of my friends read this book and really thought it was a great book. As said before this is a must read for all.

This book will not soon leave my thoughts, now that I have read it. Mende Nazer describes very vividly how she grows up in a poor but still happy environment, has a loving father and mother, and is able to have a happy childhood even in a third-world-environment. Then, at age 12, she is abducted by a stronger tribal force in Sudan and taken into abject slavery, torture, and mistreatment. She is degraded and humiliated, and nearly robbed of her humanity. It is not until she is taken as a slave to London that she manages to escape and see the free world again. As she makes her escape, she is back again in new heights of life, and once again can enjoy it. It also becomes evident that the horrible torture she undergoes as a slave does not break her spirit and resistance, and this then enables her to live a new life.
Prior to reading the whole book, I had become acquainted with it in the German translation while surfing through www.droemer-knaur.de, the publishing firm which published the German translation. The website of the publisher indicated that Mende Nazer, after escaping her captors, was facing deportation back to Sudan. People were asked to contact British authorities on Mende Nazer's behalf. I did that only to be told by them that "the Mende Nazer case is well known to us." No indication was made as to whether or not the government was going to help her and grant her residence in Great Britain. I was furious when I read this. Fortunately, Amnesty International was actively working on this case, too, and eventually, the British government granted Mende Nazer residence in Great Britain. I sincerely hope that the rest of her life will be happy. She nobly and truly deserves it. If she ever came to the United States, I sure would want to meet her.

This book explores a very uncomfortable truth: this is the 21st century and slavery still exists. Following a murderous raid in her native Nuba village in Sudan, Mende Nazer was kidnapped in 1994 with other native children from that area. Her simple tribal life surrounded by a loving, united family came to an end that night. Sold to an Arab family in Khartoum, she learned to survive by "simply" enduring her fate. She was stripped of dignity and humanity, her desperation worsened by the lack of information about the rest of her family, not knowing whether they had survived the raid. It all made her plunge into a deep depression. She was humiliated, beaten and psychologically abused to a devastating extent and for several years. She was later "passed on" to another family, related to the one in Khartoum. This second family lived in London and it was there, in the year 2000, that Mende's fate changed.

This story is a condensation of facts reported simply and clearly by Mende in first person, beginning with her childhood (a very happy one despite her painful female circumcision at a very young age) all the way through her life and up until the events leading to freedom in London. She was helped in this process by journalist Damien Lewis and the result is a compelling read, where all is pieced together in a very accessible way. Mende's young and sober voice emerges with a powerful resonance in its quiet simplicity, a sad reminder of contemporary slavery. It's like a blow knocking the air out of you.

I am omitting details as the reading would be spoiled (also, many reviews and the product description itself are clear enough). I abstain from commenting as the book comments itself and also because, no matter how "used" we are to hear about atrocities nowadays, it is difficult to convey in written words the outrage in the knowledge that such horrors still exist. Just one thing: this should be a compulsory read. It is not only informative and an eye-opener. It also goes to show that, thankfully, goodness still exists despite everything and it unites everybody, irrespective of race, religion, social background.

Mende's story is told in such a simple way. It's as though her emotional growth was put on pause at age 12 - in that she remains very child-like in her response to what's going on around her. Maybe this is what kept her from truly being consumed by hatred toward those who took the most precious thing from her - her family.

It's an excellent read and I'd definitely recommend it. What struck me most was Mende's comments about how she was a good Muslim and did not understand how other's who were supposed to be of her same faith treated her as or worse than the animals they kept as pets!

I think that it was her loving family and tribal life that probably played a great role in giving her the courage to continue on and finally seek means to escape - even though she often writes of her fears. This emotional armor kept her strong and proved to be a real life-line for her when things were the worst.