Reading in Reykjavík

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...

Full title: Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart Genre: Travel Subjects: Africa, the Congo river, Democratic Republic of the Congo, colonialism, history, adventure, exploitation, war. Reading challenge:   The 2016 Nonfiction Reading Challenge , hosted by The Introverted Reader Challenge tally : 3 books. “I was travelling through a country with more past than future, a place where the hands of the clock spin not forwards, but backwards.” This is the realisation that came to author Tim Butcher when he was about halfway through his foolhardy mission to follow the Congo river from it’s source all the way to the sea. Butcher had became fascinated with the Congo, especially the part played by Henry Morton Stanley in opening it up to European exploration and exploitation, and decided to follow Stanley’s route along the river as best he could. On the way he met all sorts of people: officials, both corrupt and otherwise, missionaries, aid workers and thei...