I just received an email with a promotion of this book (cover inserted above). I haven't read it, and I don't feel like it. I don't even feel like taking the time to linking to it properly.
You guess why - and tell me - after you've read the introduction, I got:
Hi there. I'm writing to announce the US publication of my new book CRAZY RIVER: Exploration and Folly in East Africa (Free Press/Simon and Schuster). It's about a three month journey I made from Zanzibar to the source of the Nile in Rwanda. Along the way I interviewed a president, explored many bars and nightclubs with a golf pro on the skids, learned a lot about what's happening in contemporary East Africa, and made a disastrous and terrifying attempt to descend a previously unexplored river by boat.



Is this yet another book written authoritatively on African issues by a writer who did his research in 'many bars and nightclubs'? What kind of information would one get from raving drunkards and whores, especially where it pertains to important socio-economic matters of this African region? Shame, based on such an introduction, I wouldn't even lift this book from the bookstore shelf!
Posted by: Wanjiku Wanderi | Sunday, 23 October 2011 at 09:00 AM
Asante dada! Glad not to be the only one wondering about the profoundness of this book...
Posted by: Pernille | Sunday, 23 October 2011 at 09:11 AM
Jeez, can someone hand this guy Binyavanga Wainaina to read?
http://www.granta.com/Magazine/92/How-to-Write-about-Africa/Page-1
Posted by: Jonas | Sunday, 23 October 2011 at 07:58 PM
Jesus... There is a long drainage canal that runs through Mwanza. It has never been properly explored.. Our Livingstone is probably referring to this "river?"
Posted by: Chris | Monday, 31 October 2011 at 11:12 AM