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The Barnes & Noble Review
West with the Night is a memoir of exceptional range and quality. From a childhood breeding horses in Africa to her triumph as the first person to ever fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west, Beryl Markham had a life so extraordinary that the only possible final chapter was the creation of this work. The author states in the beginning, "I am no weaver. Weavers create. This is remembrance." It is also poetry. The language is elegant, and the content has a cinematic grandeur that contributes to the epic tone of the work. No less a writer than Ernest Hemingway highly praised Markham's writing. Weaver or not, Markham is an astounding storyteller, and the reader is left with a dignified tapestry of splendid significance. Julie Harris's finely measured reading of the tales lends an often hypnotic quality to the audio edition.
The book is not only for those interested in Africa in the 1920s and '30s. It is not only about a woman of remarkable strength and intellect or the richness and timelessness of the African experience and landscape. It is also about a woman always set apart by birth, skin color, and education from her country and her community. It is about the problems of cultural and racial assimilation and the dueling perceptions of a young woman given an experience so far from ordinary that even she could not completely reconcile the differences. Elizabeth McMillan
Library Journal
Markham's West with the Night was originally published in the early 1940s and disappeared, only to be rediscovered and reprinted in the 1980s when it became a smash hit. This latest incarnation is a lavishly illustrated edition. Though Markham is known for setting an aviation record for a solo flight across the Atlantic from East to West-hence the title-she was also a bush pilot in Africa, sharing adventures with Blor Blixen and Denys Finch-Hatton of Out of Africa fame. Hemingway, who met Markham during his safari days, dubbed the book "bloody wonderful."
From the Publisher
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
“West with the Night is the sort of book that makes you think human beings can do anything . . . When she was a mere child, she was clawed by a lion. This should have been enough to make anybody timid for life, but not Beryl . . . A jewel of taut writing and thrilling reading . . . The girl can write.” —John Chamberlain, The New York Times
DEC 92 - AudioFile
Julie Harris’s presentation of Beryl Markham’s autobiography is an outstanding success for the audio format. Consider it an essential title for any collection. This is a superb example of the enhancement voice can give to text. The clarity and warmth of Harris’s voice perfectly match Markham’s exuberance and love of life. Her perfect diction glides smoothly over African names, and she successfully uses dialect and inflection for native characters. The haunting reflections of British East Africa in the ‘20’s and ‘30’s, the airplanes, horses, dogs and wild animals--present an unforgettable portrait enlivened by the brilliant narration. R.F.W. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine
