Join us to discuss West with the Night by Beryl Markham
About the Book:
Beryl Markham's West with the Night is a true classic, a book that deserves the same acclaim and readership as the work of her contemporaries Ernest Hemingway, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Isak Dinesen.
If the first responsibility of a memoirist is to lead a life worth writing about, Markham succeeded beyond all measure. Born Beryl Clutterbuck in the middle of England, she and her father moved to Kenya when she was a girl, and she grew up with a zebra for a pet; horses for friends; baboons, lions, and gazelles for neighbors. She made money by scouting elephants from a tiny plane. And she would spend most of the rest of her life in East Africa as an adventurer, a racehorse trainer, and an aviatrix—she became the first person to fly nonstop from Europe to America, the first woman to fly solo east to west across the Atlantic. Hers was indisputably a life full of adventure and beauty.
And then there is the writing. When Hemingway read Markham's book, he wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins: "She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer . . . [She] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers . . . It is really a bloody wonderful book."
With a new introduction by Sara Wheeler—one of Markham's few legitimate literary heirs—West with the Night should once again take its place as one of the world's great adventure stories.
You can order a copy of the book from Kepler’s here.
What is the Non-Fiction Book Club?
Kepler’s Non-Fiction Book Club has been meeting since 2010. We cover all non-fiction genres from soup to nuts. Our meetings are monthly and we meet at 7:30pm every first Tuesday of the month via google meets. We welcome new attendees, and book suggestions and we vote every three months on the books suggested. I hope you feel free to join in whenever the spirit moves you.- Sina Herkelrath book club coordinator.
If you would like to attend any Book Club events please reach out to Heather Birchall at events@keplers.org to receive the Google Meet link.