Bill Brysons African Diary by Bill Bryson

Bill Brysons African Diary Reviews

• 
  Catherine

  CARE, an international aid agency headquartered in the UK, asked Bill Bryson to visit their Kenyan operation and write about it. Somewhere along the lines the idea changed to include publishing a "book" and using all profits as a donation to charity, with a small amount of the $12 cover price used for printing and distribution costs. Most of the participants were volunteering their time.
  
  Sounds like a great idea, right? Except, the book itself is disappointing. It's more a novelette. It's 40 pages in an undersized book with big margins. About 90% of the content is him worrying about dying in the trains, planes and automobiles that might crash along his journey. Only about 10% covered actual Kenyan life and country. Almost no history was included in complete contrast to the book I read prior, In a Sunburned Country.
  
  It's not that it's badly written -- but it could have been so much better. He visits a refugee camp and barely talks about it for a paragraph, while devoting three pages to the airplane flight back. He visits a micro-lending organization and spends a sentence talking about his interaction with the borrowers. Ironically, he praises a local Kenyan farmer growing non-indigenous crops, the same action he highly criticized in In a Sunburned Country for damaging the Australian outback.
  
  This was a great idea under-executed. And it's a shame, because I think had it been done right, say trade the hard cover for an additional 40-50 pages of content, and this would have been great. Having a better story would have sold more books making even more money for the charity. I'll give him a C for Charity, but a D for leaving the real story out of the book. Bill short changed himself, Kenya, and CARE by pulling his punches in the name of charity.
• 
  Jason Koivu

  All the Bryson goodness you've come to know and love at half the calories!
  
  Actually, it's more like a 10th the size. In fact, the worst part about Bill Bryson's African Diary is its shortness. This slim volume is more about awareness and philanthropy rather than a literary or journalistic endeavor for its own sake.
  
  Bryson heads to Kenya to check out CARE International's charitable works. Times are tough there. Clean drinking water is at a premium. There's some slight heart-string pulling, but it's not Sally Struthers sappy. Just the right amount of compassion.
  
  Tidbits of Bryson's trademark humor are wedged in between the descriptions of the ravaged slums and gorgeous beaches. His style and low-key flair are present in small quantities. This would be perfect for the Bryson noob who wanted to test the waters before diving into the deep end of his more chunky books.
• 
  Sam Quixote

  In 2002, CARE International invited Bill Bryson on an eight day trip to tour its humanitarian work in Kenya with him writing it up into this, Bill Bryson’s African Diary (something of a misnomer as Bryson only visits Kenya). The entire proceeds of the short book will go to help the kinds of people depicted inside it - and it’s a wonderful read too!
  
  As you would expect, the horrors of the country’s widespread poverty aren’t ignored as Bryson visits Kibera, a shanty town on the outskirts of Kenya’s capital city Nairobi, with a population of between 700,000 and 1 million people. The conditions are appalling and thousands are HIV positive and yet the place officially doesn’t exist and is ignored by the Kenyan government. He also visits a refugee camp where the people there are stuck in a bureaucratic limbo, stateless, just existing, with little chance of a future.
  
  But the book isn’t all a sobering guilt trip as Bryson also takes in the wonders of the Kenyan National Museum which houses 500 of the roughly 5000 fossilized human bones in existence, and Olorgasailie, an area where early humans made tools for a million years! There are also gently humorous passages in Bryson’s inimitable style involving the dangerous and poorly maintained railways and the nightmare of flying in a light aircraft during a storm.
  
  The most interesting and inspiring part was seeing a bank called Wedco give loans to develop small businesses, helping give some of these people a shot at a real life that they wouldn’t have without it. And the small village of Ogongo Tir where CARE installed a new well for them but gave them responsibility over it underlining that, while they need a hand to get the ball rolling, the people there want to take control of their own destinies rather than depend forever on the West.
  
  I hesitate to use the word but Bill Bryson’s African Diary is entertaining, as well as informative, with Bryson serving as a genial conduit to learning about CARE International and its outstanding work in Kenya. It’s a quick read but a memorable and moving one with an excellent cause at its heart - well worth picking up especially as the purchase price goes to help these people’s lives become a little better.
• 
  W

  Again,I felt gypped by this Bryson book.The title sounds exciting,Bill Bryson in the mysterious dark continent.Surely,there must be humour and adventure in such a setting.Sadly,that doesn't happen.
  
  Don't expect safaris or sightings of big game.Bryson is on a sponsored tour and so he has lent his name to this book.
  
  He really shouldn't have written this one.There is a certain quality and humour,which I have come to expect from his travel books.
  
  This is much too short,and lacking anything of interest.He did spend eight days in Kenya.That is sufficient time to be able to write something,but that doesn't happen.
• 
  Kara

  I feel like an asshole for not giving this more stars. I am an enormous Bill Bryson fan -- I've read everything else he has published (with the exception of "Shakespeare: The World as Stage" which I'm starting tonight). Unfortunately, this sort of wasn't a Bill Bryson book. It was a Bill Bryson... journal entry. It was only 49 pages, and because it was done for charity, it was overly sincere. It almost completely lacked Bryson's signature humor. He normally has such a colorful way of describing things that I even enjoyed his science book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything." This was more like 49 pages of "Kenya is a real shithole and the people need help." Nevertheless, I wish I was able to give it more stars, because I just like him so much, and because it is for charity. So, you know, go spend the money so it goes to CARE, but don't expect to spend more than an hour with it, and don't expect the kind of laughs I can still conjure up just by thinking of certain scenes in "A Walk in the Woods."
• 
  Natalie Vellacott

  This is not really a book. It is Bill Bryson's Diary about his 8 day trip to Kenya with CARE international. It's just 55 pages long. I got it from the library due to being interested in charity work. I found it odd that it was in the library in the first place as it is not for profit and all the proceeds go to CARE...surely having a copy in the library defeats this purpose?....anyway...
  
  Content wise, it was okay but limited. The descriptions of the slums and various people Bryson met were interesting but there was not enough proper detail due to the limited writings. He also describes other experiences at length; e.g taking a trip on a light aircraft. I found his descriptions of these experiences over dramatised...frequently referring to the likelihood of death etc.....
  
  There was the odd swearword but for a non-Christian book it wasn't too bad. I found myself wondering what the purpose really was in writing this book. It reminded me again of the tragedy of offering help without hope. The author wonders what else can be done for these people, many of whom are refugees and he comments that they have no hope for the future. He doesn't realise the significance of his observations, but reading that as a Christian, his words jumped off the page....There can be no future hope without the saving message of Jesus and freedom from sin!
  
  
  http://christianmissionaryuk.blogspot...
  
  
• 
  Santhosh

  This is a pretty short travelogue (a week's diary) written as part of an initiative from CARE to bring in visibility and focus to the enormous challenges being faced in Africa, and the stellar work that CARE and similar organisations are doing. Kudos to the thought behind this initiative, inventive and world-wise enough to know the innovative channels to tap to bring in the much-needed publicity. I'm not going to be patting the backs of Bryson and the publishers too much, because no-profit doesn't mean that all costs were borne by themselves (CARE would have still had to pay for all the expenses of the tour and the printing costs), and the no-profit tag is being applied only financially.
  
  About the book itself, it started off breezily in Bryson-esque fashion, and has enough Brysonisms thrown in, in terms of facts, numbers, large-picture observations, that-could-be-me-thinking-that thoughts, and self-effacing humour. There is nothing of the touristy Kenya that I anticipated, with the trip sticking to the various camps and places that CARE is working upon. However, just when I was settling in a bit, the book ended, leaving me to get off the table with just the appetizers served.
  
  So, don't expect Bryson writing about game drives in Masai Mara and watching flamingos in Lake Nakuru, or the typical Bryson research into the fantastic work being carried out, or any comprehensive write-up about the history of the camps, challenges and way forward. The intent is purely to provide a glimpse at what CARE does, without getting into much detailing, and it sure does its job, as it pushed me into doing a bit more online reading about it.
• 
  TCPils

  First of all, this is not a book. It's a diary. Bryson recounts his 8 days in Kenya with members of CARE International. And that's 7 days longer than I'd want to be there. What a dreadful place! Poverty, crime, hunger, lack of sanitation, no clean water, disease, corrupt government and a hostile climate.
  Some of the other reviewers on Goodreads fault Bryson for not covering enough ground, but I disagree. You don't need to read 300 pages to see the terrible conditions in which these people live EVERY DAY OF THEIR LIVES! This short "booklet" is enough to make the point. And if you read between the lines you will notice that Bryson runs us through a gamut of emotions ranging from humor before the journey, to fear about the trip, to disgust upon arrival, to sympathy when connecting with the locals, to enlightenment when he understands that the solution to the problems are within reach.
  I checked out the Kindle edition from the Chicago Public Library at no charge so I am donating $10 to Care.org to cover the donation that would have gone to them with a bookstore purchase. If you read my review and read a Kindle edition please do the same. We CAN make a difference. Thank you.
• 
  Belinda

  So disappointed in this. I could see it was likely to be a puff piece for the charity in return for the junket but expected it to be leavened with the customary Bryson humour. Much more po-faced and worthy than I thought, with all the aid recipients 'saintly' and 'deserving' and inspirational. Also hampered with first world guilt and the western tendency to take responsibility for everyone else. Oh, we built them wells but they fell into disrepair because we hadn't instructed them in how to maintain them. Endless self-flagellation and castigation and resolution to do things better. Oh the government in question is corrupt and siphoning off millions of dollars. Why don't international bodies like the IMF step in and stop this? Paternalistic and patronising, treating African nations like half-wit children.
• 
  Sean

  Bryson wit coupled with a real message from Africa. My son is on an ROTC 3-month trip to Tanzania. He commented to me that at dinner last week, the power went out, and nobody in their 30-person group blinked an eye. No storm caused this. But being there for 2 months made them realize that electricity outage can happen any time. Bill explains the reality of REAL life where people live day-to-day amidst the contrasting buffet tables in the community nearby. This short book wrapped me into a single-session read while going on a walk. You read about people that just want a chance to work hard and help their children. Very inspirational. This should be required reading for high school students. They would like the writing style as they learn!
• 
  Mary K

  Bryson wrote this very short book to raise money for CARE. Funny, informative. Bryson is my favorite author and he rarely disappoints
• 
  Kevin

  3.5 stars More a short essay then a book ut if you like Bryson's writing as much as I do you'll enjoy this, and learn something about Africa and C.A.R.E. along the the way.
• 
  Sarah

  This should really be Bill Bryson's Kenyan Diary, since that's the only country he visits. I had been looking for this book for a while, but I didn't realize that it was a slim charity volume, with all proceeds going to CARE. As such, it does its job, presenting the excellent work of CARE and other organizations in Kenya, with a dash of Bryson's signature wit. It did its job, showing the country's poverty but also its beauty, and the tireless work of those who are investing in the country through model farms, microloans, and other self-sufficiency projects. I'll be making a donation, since I bought the book used.
• 
  Ray Nessly

  For eight days, Bill Bryson visited Kenya, and he reports on some of CARE International's projects there. Informative, entertaining, uplifting, sometimes humorous, and often horrifying. Like some other reviewers here, I would've liked it to be longer. But he wrote this for CARE, and presumably they wanted it short and to the point. Which it is.
• 
  Raghu

  I have enjoyed reading Bryson’s travel books. He has a lovely sense of humor and he is knowledgeable. I started reading this book looking forward to the author’s impressions of Africa. Actually, I was keen to see how it compares with Paul Theroux’s views on the same continent. But, what a disappointment! First of all, it is just a diary of a few days’ travel in Kenya, that too just a few hundred kilometers out of Nairobi, all on the benevolence of a charity organization which hired him to write some nice propaganda material for them. To call it an African Diary is misrepresentation. On top of it, it is just a pamphlet running into 49 pages, but costing a whopping $11.99 for its kindle edition. In the interest of his own admiring readers, the author should have mentioned in the cover that it was a journey paid and supported by CARE, one of the many charities working in Africa. It does not matter that he took no money to produce this piece of work or whether CARE is a great charity organization.
  
  In any case, the booklet is of dubious quality, something that does not do justice to Bryson’s reputation. He visits a large slum outside Nairobi called Kibare and writes about its inhabitants that they will undergo any hardship in order that their children will have a better life. Not exactly a new finding, one might think. He also flies to Dadaab, near the Somali border, to visit a refugee camp of 134000 Somalis for a day. In between, he manages to visit the National Museum to view some of the rare early human remains which are housed there, followed by visits to the Karen Blixen house and the Rift Valley.
  
  The author steps into some controversial territory in this booklet by batting for charity outfits like CARE, Oxfam and ‘Save the Children’ with the following statements: “If anyone ever tries to suggest to you that donor money sent to Africa goes into African despots’ pockets, you must poke them in the eye. Money given to aid agencies like CARE goes straight into projects”. There is a lot of research which shows that nowadays, many charities, NGOs, the UNHCR are all actually businesses chasing the vast billions of donor money that is available and that their first aim is to perpetuate and grow themselves. Michael Maren, who spent nineteen years in Africa – in Kenya, Somalia, Burkina Faso, Rwanda and Ethiopia – reporting on the famine, civil war and military conflicts in the region, is on record severely criticising the role of CARE, Save the Children and the UNHCR as self-serving enterprises, where these organizations care less about the victims of famine and civil war and more about their own organizational interests. Even Paul Theroux, who spent many years in Africa on multiple trips, is a severe critic of these aid organizations as doing much harm in the name of development. In fact, even the author’s own account confirms these impressions inadvertently.
  
  The CARE representative who accompanies Bryson to Dadaab, says, “It is a fundamental part of aid protocol that you cannot make conditions better for refugees than they are for their hosts outside the camps. It wouldn’t be fair and it would breed resentment. Everyone would then want to be a refugee. So, you can only do so much”. The Kenyan govt would not allow permanent improvements to the slums of Kibera because it would then encourage others to move in there, making it larger. Even in the refugee camps at Dadaab, the Kenyan govt would not relocate the 134000 Somalis to Nairobi or Mombasa to look for work and livelihood and become self-sufficient. So, the refugees are struck in Dadaab because they can’t go back to Somalia either due to the civil war. In both Kibera and Dadaab, the outcome is to keep the status quo - the slum dwellers to remain as slum dwellers and the refugees to remain as refugees, which lets charity organizations to endlessly ask for money from donors to continue supporting them. It is something like pharmaceutical companies preferring chronic diseases rather than curable diseases because they get patients as lifelong customers with chronic diseases.
  
  The final pages of the book contain promotional material from CARE which states in the section ‘Facts about Poverty’ that nearly half of humanity struggled to survive on less than $2 a day as of 2002, when the book was published. This is at best questionable because researchers like Dr. Hans Rosling have shown, using publicly available UN documents, that this statement was true in 1966, but since then poverty has continuosly declined to the point that in 2016, it was just 9% of the world population which lives under $2 a day. This has been possible mainly due to Globalization of the world economy rather than charities and NGOs. False pronouncements on poverty only succeed in giving credence to the criticism that aid organizations exaggerate humanitarian problems in order to shock donors into continue supporting them.
  
  In short, a forgettable book from Bill Bryson.
• 
  Madhulika Liddle

  There are a handful of writers whose books I will buy without hesitation, secure in the knowledge that my money will be well-spent. Bill Bryson is one of these: each of his books is a joy to read, chock full of painstakingly researched material, presented in the author's inimitably chatty, humorous and irresistible style. I've read all his travel books (and some of his non-travel related books), so when I finally came across African Diary - which I'd heard about, never seen in a bookshop - I pounced on it.
  
  Bill Bryson's African Diary is aptly titled: it's a short (very short - even less than a hundred pages) diary of an eight-day trip to Kenya. International aid organisation CARE invited Bryson on this trip, escorted by their own staff members, to see the work they were doing in Kenya. The diary is an account of how Bryson spent a whirlwind week in Nairobi and other parts of the country - both urban and rural, seeing for himself the problems as well as the triumphs of CARE, and the people themselves.
  
  This is a quick read, not merely because it's a slim book, but also because Bryson tells his story so well, making this a mix of so many things. There are heartrending and horrifying descriptions of living conditions in the largest slum in Kenya - possibly in Africa - where there are 10 latrines for 40,000 people. There are stories, both far-fetched 'traveller's tales' and all too real ones of everything from dire poverty to crime to shocking corruption (at the time African Diary was written, Kenya was the 6th most corrupt country in the world, with $10 billion disappearing annually from public funds). Bryson writes about all of these - and also of hope, of innovations and developments that help local people stand on their own feet, and better their lot without being dependent on others. He talks about the lives of real people: of a farmer who's been pulled back from the brink, a woman entrepreneur, villagers whose lives were turned around because a well was dug.
  
  And, Bryson being the travel writer he is, there are always the brief interludes describing trips - by road, by air (a harrowing flight in a small aircraft, for example), all peppered with Bryson's superb sense of humour.
  
  I wouldn't call this Bryson's best book; it's far too short for that. By the time I really got my teeth into it and had settled in, it was over. It is, however, very readable and informative. And it's for a good cause - all proceeds from the sales of Bill Bryson's African Diary go to CARE, and towards helping those in need of that aid.
  
• 
  David Corleto-Bales

  Bill Bryson went to Kenya to write about Somali refugees in the remote south of the country. Along the way he strolls through Kibera, the largest slum in Africa, (in Nairobi) visits some old white colonials and goes on safari. His usual good writing, but I read this book, literally, in a half hour. I wish he could REALLY go to Africa and write a REAL book. He did this one to benefit CARE, the relief agency. It has about 60 pages.
• 
  John of Canada

  Some of it was good Bill Bryson.It was very short but for a good cause.
• 
  Ed Erwin

  A very short book about a very short trip to a very small part of Africa. Provides a small amount of enjoyment.
• 
  علا

  A short trip through Kenya that leaves you hungry to go there yourself and see more, though a bit intimidating. And since it's Bill Bryson, it had to be funny, yet I have to say I didn't appreciate some of the jokes, it's not OK to joke about people killed in a tragic train crash, for example. It was also good to learn about CARE organization too and their efforts to fight world poverty. One must also note that he could've talked more about Kenya and Kenyans, it could've been much more profound. A large part of it was describing his own experiences and fears, which I don't think was fair to the cause he was sent to support.
• 
  Jacki (Julia Flyte)

  A random find at the library. This is doubtless the shortest book that I will read this year. It's probably shorter than the average Vanity Fair magazine article. In 2002, Bill Bryson was invited to travel to Kenya for eight days, to see the work that the charity CARE is doing in that country and this is his diary of the trip. While short, it contains a lot of his trademark humour and also makes some pertinent points about what charities can and cannot achieve in third world countries. I enjoyed it.
• 
  LibraryCin

  This is a diary as Bill Bryson travelled around Kenya, mostly visiting slums and refugee camps and similar places. He was travelling with people from an NGO/charity called CARE.
  
  It was decent (44 pages for my ebook), but not nearly long enough. I would have loved for there to be more. He has his trademark humour, and he met some interesting people, but in one day, I’ve already forgotten much of it. It was just too short to really get “into”.
• 
  Anetq

  Bill Bryson on tour in Kenya for Care. It's not quite the fast-paced fun of his other travels, but in ways a more important story, about aid to real people so they can make their own luck.
  And if you are looking for that Bryson flavor, do not fear, there are dangerous travels by train and air, and sound advice to poke people with something bigger than a pool cue if they claim that aid money will disappear into the pockets of corrupt politicians. And even buying this book is doing good - it all goes to support Care's efforts.
• 
  Berit Lundqvist

  One and a half star rounded down.
  
  This was my first book by Bill Bryson. As I have understood it, he is an American who have lived in England for a long time. That is very obvious in this book. He managed to combine the worst of the British colonial attitude with the worst of the American fearmongering and übermensch attitude.
  
  Well, Bill. You’re not in Kansas anymore. You’re in Kenya.
  
  Bill has been contracted to ”write something” about the work of CARE, a charity organisation. They give hime an eight days free trip to Kenya, and what they get is around 50 pages where he praises himself for working for free, and whines about how he is going to die in accidents or diseases. Terrible book. Don’t read it.
  
  
• 
  Linda

  Not much to review here, since this “book” is only 3 dozen pages long, and was basically a fundraising effort for CARE. Bill Bryson, humorist par excellence, traveled to Kenya in 2002 for 8 days with the CARE organization, to tour some of their projects and get a feel for what they’re attempting to do for impoverished people there, and he kept a diary of his African adventure in order to turn it into this short book. Yes, he included some funny stuff, mostly about the potential dangers he could’ve faced, but didn’t. But the purpose was to support CARE’s humanitarian efforts with the book’s net proceeds. I hope it succeeded in doing so.
• 
  Tom Oman

  I was very disappointed with this short Bryson book. You can tell that it was written off the cuff for an audience that does not include his usual fans. There are some funny lines of course, but it is really not as engrossing as much of Bill Brysons work.
  
  Worth the read if it's laying around, but don't bother seeking it out as another Bill Bryson masterpiece.
  
  
  Token line from the book (from memory): "East African Railways has somewhat of a tradition of killing it's passengers..."
• 
  Anand Ganapathy

  Bill Bryson's African diary in which he has described his trip to Kenya as requested by CARE international is a short yet poignant read. It is humourous at times yet makes you ponder and feel for the people of Kenya.
• 
  Dane Cobain

  This was short and sweet, a cute little piece of travel writing that’s in aid of charity. It was fine, but it wasn’t amazing. Still, Bryson’s stuff is always fun and this book was no exception. I won’t remember it, though.
• 
  Elizabeth Joss)

  Expected it to be a bit longer. But nonetheless, proceeds go to a worthy cause so it's worth reading about Bryson's crazy African adventure!