Results tagged “Africa” from One Hour to Read

Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

I don't have much to say about this book on Theroux's travels through Africa, but that's not a bad thing. Like many of Theroux's travel books, I made it my own travel book. I read it on the train to my parent's house, while waiting for the start of a health care town hall meeting with John Kerry, on the subway for a visit to the JFK library, and more often than not at the cafeteria at work during lunch. I still love reading his books slowly. In some ways, I like to read them almost as slowly as he travels.

This was in some ways a sadder book than his others in that he is traveling through areas of such poverty. There are also gripping accounts from various dissidents who had been thrown in jail and tortured by past oppressive governments. Theroux was essentially meandering through Africa, and he sees much that those who fly in quickly will miss.

This also seems a little more political than his other books, if only because he had spent so much time in Africa with the Peace Corps in the 1960s. (As he describes, he was actually kicked out of the Peace Corps, which somehow makes me like him better.) He spends much time bemoaning the Western aid workers who seem to be hurting Africa more than they help it. He mocks them for their big Land Cruisers, their hypocrisy, for always refusing to give him a ride, and essentially for creating a society that is far too dependent on foreign aid money.

Africa needs to help itself, I think he would say. In some ways, it all reminded me of the classic Sam Kinison bit about world hunger.

A Story of Race and Inheritance

Historically, this is a fascinating book. I can't think of another President who wrote a memoir before becoming President. Obama wrote this in 1995 when he probably would have laughed if you had told him he would be President one day. I imagine that if he had any inkling of the future, he would have probably left out some of the more personal passages. In the 2004 introduction, he describes these passages as "inconvenient politically, the grist for pundit commentary and opposition research," but the book would have been much the weaker without them.

"Dreams from My Father" is split into three sections: Origins, Chicago (about his work as a community activist there), and Kenya. The last third about his summer in Kenya is where the book really takes off. There, Obama meets the paternal side of his family and comes to grips with his history, as well as his deceased father, a largely mythic figure in his life who he met only once.

If anyone should write a memoir about his family, it's Obama who has one half-sister on his mother's side, one half-sister on his father's side, six half-brothers on his father's side, a couple of stepparents, and was raised largely by his grandparents. As an only child, I kept getting confused, and I wish I had this family tree in hand while reading the book.

This is a book by the President, so I feel as if I should say more. However, this isn't really my genre of choice. I usually don't read the deeply personal memoir, so it's safe to say that I wouldn't have bought this book, if Obama was still a community organizer in Chicago. Nevertheless, he has an inspiring story -- even before running for office -- and he's a great writer.

I know I'm entirely biased here, but I just like the idea of having a writer in the White House.  It must be a little like what the plumbers thought about John McCain.