So this is book two of five books recommended by REAL SIMPLE
magazine as a “beach read”. I beg to
differ on this selection as a “beach read”.
I had heard of this book before but was never interested in
reading it. Since I can be “anal” when
it comes to lists and completing a reading challenge, I decided to read it just
to complete the list of five.
It’s a memoir of Baroness Karen Blixen when she lived in
Africa, owning a coffee plantation. It
is filled with stories that bob and weave during the years (1914-1931) that she
lived there.
A native of Denmark, she and her husband came to Africa and
began to manage a coffee farm. When they
separated, she decided to stay and run the farm. This story is her memoir of
that time and she tells tales of animals and people who have come to live at
her house, visit her house and die at her house.
The farm was in Nairobi, at the foot of the Ngong Hills in
Kenya. The people she lived near were
called Kikuyu. They came to have a
mutual respect for one another.
Along with running the coffee farm, she had an evening
school on the farm and also performed as a doctor in cases when someone was
sick or hurt. She also had no fear to
use a rifle and hunt. In between running
the farm, she had a love affair with a big-game safari hunter, Denys
Finch-Hatton.
She was a story teller.
Denys liked to hear her tell stories.
I must admit that I enjoyed the telling of her story – Out Of Africa –
and I also enjoyed watching the movie.
