Last time I was in Johannesburg on my way home I bought a book that truly was just a list, with reviews, of 99 books from or about Africa. They are listed by country. When I was home I retyped the entire thing in alphabetical order by author. With this list in hand I went to my favorite (and the only one I know) second hand book store in Johannesburg, as well as the second book stand at the Sunday roof-top market. I managed to buy quite a few books, not all of them on the list...You know how it goes, once you get interested in something you just find out more and more about it.. Same about African books, as I am starting to dig into it I know more authors, find more books that I want to read. Unfortunately (or is it "fortunately") "The White Nile" is also full of early exploration of Africa books. I am trying to ignore them but one stands out: "the Albert N'yanza, Great Basin of the Nile" by Samuel Baker. Here is what this book says about it: " The Albert N'yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, Baker's account of his next two years' wanderings, is the most readable of explorers' books. It contains indeed the ingredients of almost all African adventures stories that have been written from that day to this....." Sounds good doesn't it.
And this reminds me that when I was looking up book by R. F. Burton I found a publishing house in Montana called Kessinger Publishing in Whitefish Montana (I've just added the link to this blog). They specialize in out of prints hard to find books...and has hundreds of them....Just in case I needed another list of books to read!!!
