Journal Entry 1 by greedyreader from Oakland, New Jersey USA on Sunday, June 01, 2003

Had to pick up a book to bring my Mom, at the hospital. Borders had a buy 3, get 1 free deal. Who could resist?

June 15th ...
I really liked this book. It was amazing to me how this writer could reconstruct such vidid and lyrical prose from her childhood. I found her family and this situation they lived in bizarre and compelling -- constantly drunk mother, malaria, flea bites, poverty, lack of water, encroaching war, resettlement, etc.

Also, this book contains book group questions. What is Random House thinking??? The questions are beyond stupid.

I have already recommended the book to 2 women. I think I will send it to Gail and see what she thinks. 8^)

~~

sharing with:
1. kernow8
2. flashgirl
3. zyana
4. robbiesmum
5. shylock
6. jollyL
7. mdhistorian
8. hawkette
9. carpediva
10. nzgoddess
11. ??? 

Journal Entry 2 by Kernow8 from Southampton, Hampshire United Kingdom on Saturday, July 12, 2003

Just received in the mail - thanks! I'm really looking forward to reading this. I love the cover photo! This is my first bookring/ray I've participated in - I'll make sure it's at the very top of my TBR pile. Thanks again... 

Journal Entry 3 by Kernow8 from Southampton, Hampshire United Kingdom on Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Just finished reading it - it was excellent. A fast read, as there is lots of dialogue which you can speed through, but that doesn't detract from the quality of the writing. The book is very atmospheric, and despite all the hardships depicted, it actually sometimes seems like an enviable lifestyle (although let me stress that I have no dreams of colonialisation!). I liked the way the author didn't judge anyone throughout the memoir, and just told it the way it was. The author's letter included in the Reader's Guide, which explains how she tried telling her story through several disastrous novels before realising that she had to be truthful about the unequal relationships between the white farmers and the black labourers, was interesting and an important part of the book (as throughout the book I was asking myself - "yes, but what is the author's attitude now, has she inherited her mother's prejudices?").

The most amazing thing for me was that the author and I were born in the same year in the same country (England)and are now living in the same country once more (USA). But we could not have had more different upbringings in the intervening 30 years or so! It makes my life look unbelievably tame. 

Journal Entry 4 by Kernow8 from Southampton, Hampshire United Kingdom on Thursday, July 17, 2003

Mailed to Flashgirl 

Journal Entry 5 by Flashgirl from Minneapolis, Minnesota USA on Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Journal Entry 6 by Flashgirl from Minneapolis, Minnesota USA on Thursday, July 24, 2003

Journal Entry 7 by Flashgirl from Minneapolis, Minnesota USA on Wednesday, July 30, 2003

Journal Entry 8 by Zyana from Porto - City, Porto Portugal on Wednesday, September 24, 2003

"Dogs" (as I've come to call it!) arrived today with the mail, nicely packaged in brown-paper eager to tell It's story! I'll star on it tomorrow and endeavor to read it asap and pass it on to be enjoyed by many more ... thank you Flashgirl for sending me this (See, surface delivers!) 

Journal Entry 9 by Zyana from Porto - City, Porto Portugal on Friday, October 31, 2003

I throughly enjoyed this witty memoir. It's scented portray of life in post-colonialist Africa told with moving honesty and piercing openness. The author was an obstinate, unique girl who can be irritating but so touching in her down-to-earth levelheadedness. A "sweet-n-sour" tale of a special family which lived a special life under special, trying circumstances. Literally It's a very humble, straightforward account...not very skilfully crafted but still sweet.

After a series of unforeseen delays I've mailed "Dogs .." to robbiesmum today, October 31. 

Journal Entry 10 by Robbiesmum from Thirsk, North Yorkshire United Kingdom on Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Safely arrived in the UK this morning - I think it has even avoided our unofficial postal strike. This book is having a very interesting journey which suits the book! I'm looking forward to reading it and adding my thoughts. There are some fascinating journal entries already. 

Journal Entry 11 by Robbiesmum from Thirsk, North Yorkshire United Kingdom on Thursday, November 13, 2003

This was a very memorable and enjoyable book. I had tears in my eyes at times - the young Bobo faces some very traumatic deaths and illnesses. But I also laughed out loud at the realistic dialogue between the two sisters. The Fullers are privileged, yet they face up to worms, malaria, landmines, attacks.... it made me realise how narrow my childhood was. This author shows how imagination, experience and a bohemian lifestyle is almost lost in our western societies and certainly Uk's education system. It also shows through such an unusual childhood Bobo and Vanessa gained independence, wisdom, tolerance, and an appreciation of other cultures and experiences.

The style makes a fast paced book, but I did turn back to descriptions and events which were poignant - the change in the school's pupils after the end of the war in Zimbabwe, and how their farm was taken over is fascinating. Fuller manages to be objective and explain other people's interests as well as her own.
A great choice to share round the world. 

Journal Entry 12 by Robbiesmum from Thirsk, North Yorkshire United Kingdom on Monday, November 17, 2003

Posted to Shylock today. 

Journal Entry 13 by Shylock from Skipton, North Yorkshire United Kingdom on Tuesday, November 18, 2003

Dropped thru the letterbox this morning, I'll start reading it straight away. I first heard about this on Radio 4. Sounds like my kinda thing. 

Journal Entry 14 by Shylock from Skipton, North Yorkshire United Kingdom on Monday, December 01, 2003

Enjoyed very much, and having travelled to these places, had a nostalgia-fest too, especially the bits in Malawi.
When I hitched a ride with an old ex-farm owning white woman in Zimbabwe, she rolled down the window and yelled at a black Zimbabwean also hitching: 'Yaah, yer've gotchyer independence now, so yer can walk!' She then went out of her way to take me where I wanted to go, complete with a stop off for a genteel tea & crustless sandwiches, echoing Mrs. Fuller's diatribes, and the desperate need of ex-pats for novel social interaction as mentioned in the book.
I felt Bobo hit just the right note-not ignoring the more unpleasant aspects of whites' attitudes to black Africans, but not standing on a soap-box either.

Reminded me of The Flame Trees of Thika by Elspeth Huckley. That was about a pioneering settler family in Kenya during the 1920's. The author as a child remains a more invisible background observer though.

Thanks very much for this one Greedyreader, sending onwards to Canada tomorrow. 

Journal Entry 15 by JollyL from North Vancouver, British Columbia Canada on Tuesday, December 09, 2003

Rec'd safe and sound in Vancouver, BC, Canada! I will read this as quickly as the holiday season allows!

I am really looking forward to it, I also grew up in Africa, Zambia to be exact, in the 1980's. I even had malaria! This should be a really interesting read... And I even know of someone who may want to join the ring... 

Journal Entry 16 by JollyL from North Vancouver, British Columbia Canada on Wednesday, February 11, 2004

I feel really badly that I have had this book for such a long time and have not even had the chance to crack it open. Between the holidays and work, there was no way. And since things continue to be busy, I am passing this book on to the next person in the ring, so as not to be selfish. However, I did make sure that my local library has a copy - so I will read it - eventually. 

Journal Entry 17 by mdhistorian from Renton, Washington USA on Thursday, February 19, 2004

Received this today from JollyL -- thanks so much, it'll be the next one I read! 

Journal Entry 18 by mdhistorian from Renton, Washington USA on Sunday, February 29, 2004

This is an odd little book, and I am glad I read a copy *with* _the Reader's Guide_ to clarify some questions I had after finishing it. Fuller's memoir recreates her youth as a member of a beleaguered white minority in southern Africa, as her hard-drinking mother and father drag her and her sister from one run-down farm to another in the 1970s and 1980s, trying to make a go of tobacco- fish- or cattle-raising it in spite of civil wars in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Malawi, and Zambia. The children's experiences were stunning in their violence and demands for self-sufficiency, and her depictions of her parents' refusal to give up are vivid, but the Africans are usually cardboard cut-outs. Turns out this was an intentional choice after many failed attempts at fictionalizing her background; in this book, she chose to render the incomprehensibility of the black Africans just as she experienced it as a child. The early chapters are somewhat workshop-y -- I was distracted in particular by creative compound words whose meaning was not always clear -- but her wonderful descriptions of the landscape, and especially the smells, of Africa make it worth sticking with. (The Mar. 1 _New Yorker_ includes an excerpt from her next book, _Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier_, to be published in May.) 

Journal Entry 19 by mdhistorian from Renton, Washington USA on Wednesday, March 03, 2004

This one's on a slow boat to hawkette in Australia... 

Journal Entry 20 by Hawkette from Ballarat, Victoria Australia on Thursday, April 29, 2004

Arrived today. I have been watching this one get closer and closer for a long time - looking forward to it! 

Journal Entry 21 by Hawkette from Ballarat, Victoria Australia on Monday, July 05, 2004

Amazing recall of life growing up as the white minority in several embattled lands of Africa. I learnt a lot about the political happenings of these countries, being Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia.

The tell-it-how-it-was voice of Bobo was refreshing, without the usual racial prejudices of stories of colonialisation. I kept waiting for her to make some comment, but never did.

The relationship with her sister, her father, and her eventually "gently manic" mother were so well painted as the story grew. The smells and the vividness of Africa. The hardships, with illnesses and loss.

Hopefully sending off to nzgoddess next while it is still in our part of the world, before it makes the trek back across oceans... 

Journal Entry 22 by Hawkette from Ballarat, Victoria Australia on Tuesday, July 27, 2004

There have been no responses to PM for the last two people on the list.
I was hoping to pass this on to a friend, who actually oversees programs in the countries talked about in this book - but she has already read it.
I will take it to one of the mini meet ups I have planned in the next couple of weeks, and find a reader for it! 

Journal Entry 23 by Hawkette at Deckchair Cinema in Darwin, Northern Territory Australia on Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Released on Tuesday, August 10, 2004 at Deckchair Cinema in Darwin, Northern Territory Australia.

Left on one of the table at the back, for the screening on Internal Affairs. 

Journal Entry 24 by leroygjohnson from Darwin, Northern Territory Australia on Friday, January 21, 2005

I was given the job of taking all the lost property at Deckchair Cinema and came across this book. it has taken me a while to read it but I am impressed.

It is written in such a matter of fact way when it deald with some pretty serious issues. I liked the way the author does not try to judge others, just tells it the way it is.