Hers is an adventurous and unusual story: growing up as a small child on an African farm in the 1920's, making her living in the 1930's training race horses in Kenya and then flying planes for safari hunters, followed by her 'West with the Night' story when she made the first solo trans-Atlantic flight from England to North America in 1936. 'Wishful thinking often smothers reason' is another. 'I managed to overcome my education' is one that comes to mind. She makes you feel you're there with her-whether hunting wild animals, watching a championship horse race or flying in search of a downed pilot, and her descriptions and comments are clever, original and memorable. Her writing style is spare, to the point, without gush, brooding or emotional baggage. Hailed as 'one of the greatest adventure books of all time' by Newsweek and 'the sort of book that makes you think human beings can do anything' by the New York Times, West with the Night remains a powerful testament to one of the iconic lives of the twentieth century.Ernest Hemingway is on record praising the writing quality of Beryl Markham's book.

Markham's successes and her failures-and her deep, lifelong love of the 'soul of Africa'-are all told here with wrenching honesty and agile wit.

In 1936, she accepted the ultimate challenge: to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean from east to west, a feat that fellow female aviator Amelia Earhart had completed in reverse just a few years before.

She trained as a bush pilot at a time when most Africans had never seen a plane. A contemporary of Karen Blixen (better known as Isak Dinesen, the author of Out of Africa), Markham left an enduring memoir that soars with astounding candor and shimmering insights.Ī rebel from a young age, the British-born Markham was raised in Kenya's unforgiving farmlands. Not only did she set records and break barriers as a pilot, she shattered societal expectations, threw herself into torrid love affairs, survived desperate crash landings-and chronicled everything. The classic memoir of Africa, aviation, and adventure-the inspiration for Paula McLain's Circling the Sun and 'a bloody wonderful book' (Ernest Hemingway).īeryl Markham's life story is a true epic.

West with the Night by Beryl Markham