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michaelnlibrarian 's review for:
The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari
by Paul Theroux
I am not going to do a review so much as an explanation of why I found this book worthy of five stars.
* I have always liked Paul Theroux's non-fiction travel books, starting with The Great Railway Bazaar. Some of been better than others - this one was very good.
* His previous travel book for the eastern part of Africa, Dark Star Safari seemed a book reflecting more of his personal unhappiness (or something) than observations about where he was. I suppose I should go back and read it again (ten years later) but that is how I recall I felt at the time about it. Like all good travel literature, this is as much about the author as about the places visited and the people met and so on, but now it all fits together better.
* I liked it although it isn't particularly uplifting in most ways in how it presents many aspects of Africa.
* Theroux has strong opinions about some things that he expresses directly. That's OK with me. Even the ones that I am not sure I agree with entirely.
* In particular his travels in the northern part of Namibia and in today's Angola are to places that no one writes about - but Theroux, in something like bibliographic essay sidebars, talks (briefly - this is not a bibliographic essay generally) about some of the books he did find that talked about these places. As I librarian, I was amused. And pleased.
* From time to time Theroux has sentences that take your breath away. He also occasionally says things that literally cause you to stop. And think. About what you just read.
* The last section of the book was a little too much of the "here's what I think" following his description of his travels. But he is obviously very invested in Africa and one can always breeze through that part of simply skip it.
* I have always liked Paul Theroux's non-fiction travel books, starting with The Great Railway Bazaar. Some of been better than others - this one was very good.
* His previous travel book for the eastern part of Africa, Dark Star Safari seemed a book reflecting more of his personal unhappiness (or something) than observations about where he was. I suppose I should go back and read it again (ten years later) but that is how I recall I felt at the time about it. Like all good travel literature, this is as much about the author as about the places visited and the people met and so on, but now it all fits together better.
* I liked it although it isn't particularly uplifting in most ways in how it presents many aspects of Africa.
* Theroux has strong opinions about some things that he expresses directly. That's OK with me. Even the ones that I am not sure I agree with entirely.
* In particular his travels in the northern part of Namibia and in today's Angola are to places that no one writes about - but Theroux, in something like bibliographic essay sidebars, talks (briefly - this is not a bibliographic essay generally) about some of the books he did find that talked about these places. As I librarian, I was amused. And pleased.
* From time to time Theroux has sentences that take your breath away. He also occasionally says things that literally cause you to stop. And think. About what you just read.
* The last section of the book was a little too much of the "here's what I think" following his description of his travels. But he is obviously very invested in Africa and one can always breeze through that part of simply skip it.