West with the Night / Beryl Markham 293 p.

Beryl Markham was born in England in 1902.  She went with her father to East Africa when she was 4.  There her father started a farm and became a horse breeder.  She describes very lyrically the East Africa she grew up in--an  East Africa we will never see.  She worked as a pilot and a horse trainer.  She was the first woman to fly the Atlantic solo from east to west in 1936 (where the memoir ends).  Ernest Hemingway gave her high praise.  Here is an excerpt.

"Africa is never the same to anyone who leaves it and returns again. It is not a land of change, but it is a land of moods and its moods are numberless. It is not fickle, but because it has mothered not only men, but races, and cradled not only cities, but civilizations -- and seen them die, and see new ones born again -- Africa can be dispassionate, indifferent, warm, or cynical, replete with the weariness of too much wisdom."

Alexandra O'Karma reading is ideally suited to Markham's elegant prose.  Do listen if you can.