About
Reviews
Search
Submit
Home

Mystery Books for Sale

[ Home ]
[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]


  

INTO AFRICA: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone, Audio
by Martin Dugard
Random House Audio, May 2003
Abridged audio CD pages
$29.95
ISBN: 0739302388


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

The story of Dr. David Livingstone, gentle missionary, and Henry Morgan Stanley, American journalist, has been told many times, but never before has it been brought to life as in this audio version read by Simon Jones (Arthur Dent in HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY and Bridey Flyte in BRIDESHEAD REVISITED as well as many other TV and film appearances)

David Livingstone was unafraid of Africa and its people. In 1866, when he finally managed to get back to search for the source of the Nile, despite physical disabilities from earlier visits to Africa (crooked left arm from a mauling by a lion, anemia from hookworm, etc.) he was off. He disappeared into the darkness of Africa and some people started to worry, but Livingstone was unafraid. He had walked all over Africa and found hidden civilizations in the interior and the south. He spoke enough Bantu to make himself understood, and he truly loved Africa and its people.

Dr. Livingstone seems to have disappeared into the heart of the continent, and a drifter named Henry Morgan Stanley managed to get into the office of James Gordon Bennett, who, in 1869, agreed to finance Stanley's search for the elusive explorer. They devised a scheme, whereby Stanley would file dispatches from various parts of the world before getting to Zanzibar, the jumping off point for the search for Livingstone.

Dugard alternates the stories of the two very different men. Stanley, the brash American, who, it turns out, was really born in Wales and ran away to the US where he ended up in both the Confederate and Union armies during the war between the states.

This is a fascinating story and Dugard, by alternating the tales of the two protagonists, but maintaining the timeline intact, does the story justice. This is a prime example of "creative nonfiction"

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, July 2003

[ Top ]


QUICK SEARCH:

 

Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


[ About | Reviews | Search | Submit ]
[ Home ]