Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart 0099494280

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May 16, 2008

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Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart

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List Price: ~~Ł7.99~~
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Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

(based on 48 reviews)
Sales Rank: 33
Category: Book

Author: Tim Butcher
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Label: Vintage
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 4.9 x 1

ISBN: 0099494280
EAN: 9780099494287
ASIN: 0099494280

Publication Date: January 3, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.co.uk

JOHN LE CARRE

Quite superb…..a masterpiece

WILLIAM BOYD

Tim Butcher's extraordinary, audacious journey through the Congo is worthy of the great 19th century explorers. Completely enthralling but also a thoughtful and sobering portrait of modern Africa

ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

A remarkable, fascinating book by a courageous and perceptive writer. One of the most exciting books to emerge from Africa in recent years.

THE SUNDAY TIMES

Tim Butcher's book is the latest in a long line, running through Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, VS Nai-paul… his account of a hair-rising trip from east to west, against all advice, by motorbike and then river boat, is gripping and harshly informative…

MAX HASTINGS

Blood River represents a remarkable marriage of travelogue and history, which deserves to make Tim Butcher a star for his prose, as well as his courage.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

From his adventure he has plundered a wealth of terrific stories, and survived to recite a rosary of unstinting horror.

FERGAL KEANE

This is a terrific book, an adventure story about a journey of great bravery in one of the world's most dangerous places. It keeps the heart beating and the attention fixed from beginning to end.

HATCHARDS

…unputdownable…

GILES FODEN

An intrepid adventure... Tim Butcher has followed in the footsteps of Stanley and Conrad. It takes a lot of guts to yomp through the Congo and he obviously has plenty of those. But it is the wit and passion of the writing which keeps you engrossed.

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

..stirring and thought-provoking.

AESTHETICA MAGAZINE

….a remarkable travelogue of exquisite proportions…. highly emotive, historical and personal…Butcher's elegant style demands the reader's attention…….Blood River is nothing short of a modern-day masterpiece.

WANDERLUST

What makes Blood River such a compelling read is the fact that the journey becomes an exercise in mental terror, the author skilfully conveying the exhaustion of six weeks on tenterhooks, wondering what might happen just around the next bend.

THOMAS PAKENHAM

Tim Butcher deserves a medal for this crazy feat. I marvel at his courage and his empathy with the unfortunate Congolese...

ESQUIRE

…gripping…

TRAVEL AFRICA

The past meets present in this enthralling travelogue through the depths of the Congo.

Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

An engaging, sincere and enlightening read May 11, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful

Through this book Butcher neither tries to glamorise or exploit his trip; this earnest account is both sincere and enlightening. This book is travel writing at its best; Butcher is not over analytical and gives his readers space to form their own judgements and opinions. The author does not represent himself as either a hero or a victim; instead this is a humble account of an admittedly courageous and remarkable trip. Despite this reticence the book still retains the absorbing and enchanting qualities of an excellent read; it achieves this in a subtle way which is full of integrity appropriate to Butchers personality and very personal obsession with the Congo.

5 out of 5 stars

An eye opener May 11, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful

Blood River was a painful read because it provided insight into the very real horror that is the Democratic Republic of Congo. The book was about the author's brave adventure to cross the country navigating the mighty Congo river and every other page spoke about the misery that exists in a country where nearly 1200 hundred people die every day. The extent of the suffering and the realities of life in the DRC was very painful to read about and frankly quite an eye opener. You just do not read about this in the newspaper or see it in on television.

Some readers have criticized the author for sounding elitist or not focusing enough about the lives of ordinary people in the Congo, however I did not see it that way. Tim Butcher risked his life with this audacious attempt to cross the Congo and he deserves great recognition for bringing to light the cruelties in the DRC that the world has chosen to ignore. It seems very unfair to harshly judge someone who was brave enough to undertake a journey of this magnitude.

I found the book to be very well balanced and the history lesson plus the documentary overtone simply added more credibility into the message of the book.

5 out of 5 stars

A Boys' Own Yarn - with insight. May 8, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

This is an enthralling, hair-raising tale of a country in the grip of an exploited past and a gruesomely plundered present; interwoven with the equally hair-raising story of a man in the grip of an insane obsession.
A calm and measured analysis of Belgian colonial rule counterpoints Butcher's apparently senseless and appallingly perilous quest - that of following in the footsteps of the explorer Stanley, a newspaper-man whose motives for making that first 1867 trip down the Congo seem to have been pretty dubious; and who, moreover - unlike Butcher - travelled under the protection of a bloodthirsty private army of his own. The author's fascination with his subject, combined with the unseen terrors that lurk round every bend in the river, make this a page-turner; and at a deeper level, his pointless seeking out of danger stands, I think, as a distorting-mirror to the madness that is the Congo today: in this instance, a madness that is both European and self-imposed.
"Blood River" brilliantly conveys the plight of the Congo as a whole; its only defect is a certain lack of human empathy for the citizens of a once-civilized country now slowly being obliterated by fetid jungle - and, indeed, by rivers of blood. I read this book immediately after enjoying Annie Hawes' much more laid-back African tale, "Handful of Honey"; another fearsome thousand-mile journey across the continent - this time amid warring Islamists and their opponents. The themes of post-colonial collapse and of Macchiavellian interference by the ex-colonial powers are heart-breakingly similar in both books; and are something us comfortable Westerners need to hear a lot more about. But compared to Hawes' full-blooded Moroccans and Algerians, people with opinions of their own, Butcher's Congolese often seem mere ciphers. I would recommend reading both books for the fuller picture!

4 out of 5 stars

Brilliant and revealing read... April 10, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful

The author managed to keep my attention and allow me to enter the dark world that is the Congo. He has a gifted ability in writing and a bravery to match to dare to enter such a dangerous place in the world. The end was a bit disappointing as his river trip seemed to end in the back set of a car otherwise I would have given him a 5 star! The book is a good example of what Africa is capable of achieving - absolutely nothing. I expect to see him write another book on the destruction of Zimbabwe in the next ten years time where it'll be in even worse state than the Congo is right now!

4 out of 5 stars

a very interesting book April 7, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful

I really rate the story and the tale of the journey, the only part of the book witch I was not endeared by was his analysis of the route cause of the problems of the DRC. He appeared a little fixated on certain points to the exclusion of other potential causes. However having said this, the book does not profess to be a socio-economic analysis of the problems of the DRC, but a very well written tale of a man trying to travel a route used by past explores.