Bill Bryson's African Diary

I bought this book secondhand. In tone it is very similar to Bryson's other travel narratives, except that it is (exponentially) shorter and with a more serious message, though there are still quirky, funny bits. It was quick and interesting and made me wish for a longer, deeper volume. Since the book was written to benefit CARE International and their good work, I made a donation equivalent to the book's cover price, which seemed only fair.

Sadly, this begs the question, "So what?" Michael Dorris, faced with the same offer/task, did a beautiful job in [b:Rooms in the House of Stone: The "Thistle" Series of Essays|3204679|Rooms in the House of Stone The "Thistle" Series of Essays|Michael Dorris|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267856555s/3204679.jpg|3238023], which managed to be small, brief, but filled with useful observations and understated but sincere sentiment. Bryson's account comes off more like notes about a little junket. It gives very little sense of Africa, perhaps because it tells rather than shows. As other reviewers have noted, the humor seems insulting at times. Poor Bill has to fly in a small plane. How about the people who don't even get to walk because show more they're in refugee camps? He could have gotten away with this if there was more to connect the reader to the Africans he interacts with, but there's little of that, and not that much about what CARE does, either. It reminds me of de Botton's [b:A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary|6718808|A Week at the Airport A Heathrow Diary|Alain de Botton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328005797s/6718808.jpg|14280304], another sponsored gig that is info-light and seems constrained by the necessity of praising one's benefactor. show less

This very short book is just what it says on the tin: A day-by-day accounting of Bryson's trip to Kenya as part of a CARE International site visit. The book, which was sold to raise money for CARE, suffers a bit from a lack of the usual madcap Bryson humor. Only his account of a hair-raising flight on a small propeller jet in bad weather got an out-loud chuckle from me. I can understand why, when he's trying to educate people about the need for donations to a worthy non-governmental institution, he would tone down the yuks, but pedantic Bryson is not my favorite Bryson. I enjoyed learning more about Kenya and its people, as well as what CARE does, so this was far from a total loss. And now I'm off to send a donation to CARE, since I show more checked this out from the library and thus did not pay my "fair share". show less

An excellent short book, with the added benefit that the proceeds go to CARE. Bryson's familiar sense of humor is evident, but so too is his heart and his belief in the ability of people to help others help themselves. As with everything he writes, Bryson takes massive issues and addresses them with eminently human stories of one or two individuals. I so admire this because he can take a seemingly intractable problem and say, 'you cannot solve it all, but you can help one person.' No greater purpose in life, eeh?

Being a fan of most of Bryson's work that I've read previously (with Walk in the Woods among my at leas top 20 favorite books of all time), I have to say I was disappointed in this. It's short at 50 pages and really doesn't give much space for Bryson to be funny and give a good look at Kenya. I get it though, this was a book he wrote for a charitable cause (CARE International) and he did it as a freebie, so expecting a 300 page, highly detailed laugh riot is a bit much. Still, I don't feel like I learned much and I laughed even less.

Bill Bryson gehört zu meinen Lieblingsautoren, deshalb war ich auch sehr froh, als dieses kleine Buch mir in die Hände gefallen ist. Natürlich erreicht es nicht die Qualität seiner sonstigen Bücher, sondern erzählt nur ein paar Anekdoten rund um seine Kenia-Reise. Inhaltlich ist es natürlich längst überholt, denn auch an Kenia sind die letzten 20 Jahre nicht spurlos vorbeigegangen, aber trotzdem hat es mich einen Abend lang gut unterhalten.

Erm, short, is what I thought, to be completely frank about it. When I got to the end (page 40 of 75 in the ebook) I wondered what on earth could be in the rest of the book. A whole chapter from 'At Home' and some promotional blurb for the charity that sent him to Africa in the first place.

So, overall, a strange publication. I enjoyed what there was, and applaud its charitable aims. But why bother adding the 35 pages of 'At Home'? They were interesting, but, in my view, detracted from the point of the African excursion. Now I'm thinking about architecture, not the good work of CARE in Africa.