10 inspiring books on travel and Kenya

10 books that changed my life

Sometimes, rarely, but every now and again, I read a book that uplifts, inspires and turns my whole world around. There are books that remain with your forever.  Books that shape the way you think about things.  

In this list I’ve included books about Kenya. Because, well because they are fabulous.

And the other books?  Well don’t you know I’m just a hippie?  I may be older and have a family, but I’m not too old to give up the fantasy of travelling to a deserted island to ‘find myself’.  In fact I channel Gregory Roberts and Terry Tarnhoff every time I visit the Kenyan Coast.

Enjoy

Here are 10 books about Kenya and the world that inspired me. They are all available on Kindle and as paper books. Click on the title for a link to the book online.

1. Circling the Sun – Paula McLain

When I learned I was coming to Kenya my friend lent me this book.  It changed the way I felt about living here. It gave me a new appreciation for this wild land and it’s people.  It changed my apprehension from fear to excitement.  It meant a lot.  Kenya still vibrates with the rhythm of these people. These pioneering, fabulous, often cruel, conceited and spoilt people. These adventurers.

Set in 1920s colonial Kenya, Circling the Sun is about an unforgettable woman who lives by nobody’s rules but her own.

She was a daughter of Edwardian England, transplanted to Kenya as a young girl by parents who dreamed of life on an African farm. But by the time Beryl Markham was sixteen, that dream had fallen apart. Catapulted into a disastrous marriage, she emerged from its wreckage with one idea: to take charge of her own destiny.

Circling the Sun takes us from the brittle glamour of the 1920s Happy Valley set, fuelled by gin and adultery, to the loneliness of life as a scandalous divorcee; from the spectacular beauty of the Kenyan landscape to the manicured lawns of Nairobi’s Muthaiga Club. Dazzlingly beautiful, brave, passionate and reckless, Beryl is an unforgettable heroine, whose tragic loss in love compels her to pursue her own dream – of flight, and freedom.

2. Shantaram – Gregory David Roberts

This book was everything to me for a long time.  Years ago I was lost and lonely. This book inspired me; to travel, to look for the good in everyone and to find friendships in the most unexpected of places.

A novel of high adventure, great storytelling and moral purpose, based on an extraordinary true story of eight years in the Bombay underworld.

‘In the early 80s, Gregory David Roberts, an armed robber and heroin addict, escaped from an Australian prison to India, where he lived in a Bombay slum. There, he established a free health clinic and also joined the mafia, working as a money launderer, forger and street soldier. He found time to learn Hindi and Marathi, fall in love, and spend time being worked over in an Indian jail. Then, in case anyone thought he was slacking, he acted in Bollywood and fought with the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan . . . Amazingly, Roberts wrote Shantaram three times after prison guards trashed the first two versions. It’s a profound tribute to his willpower . . . At once a high-kicking, eye-gouging adventure, a love saga and a savage yet tenderly lyrical fugitive vision.’ Time Out

3. The Beach – John Niven

Was there a young person in the 1990s that didn’t adore this book?  I spent half my 20’s exploring Asia trying to find The Beach.  Ironically, the beaches of Kenya are closer the untouched paradise that is described in the book than anything I never found in Thailand.

A classic story of paradise found – and lost.

Richard lands in East Asia in search of an earthly utopia. In Thailand, he is given a map promising an unknown island, a secluded beach – and a new way of life. What Richard finds when he gets there is breathtaking: more extraordinary, more frightening than his wildest dreams.

But how long can paradise survive here on Earth? And what lengths will Richard go to in order to save it?

4. The White Masai – Corinne Hoffman

At once a hopelessly romantic love story, a gripping adventure yarn and a fine piece of social anthropology, The White Masai is a compulsive read. Whilst on holiday Corinne Hoffman fell in love with a Masai warrior. After overcoming all sorts of obstacles she moved into a tiny shack with him and his mother and spent four years in Kenya. Slowly but surely, the dream began to crumble. She eventually fled back home with her baby daughter. From wild animals through starvation to ritual mutilation, this is a book steeped in humanity and one that tells a fascinating tale.

5. The Boneman of Benares

This was the book that defined my 20’s. Reading this I was bitten by the travel bug and that bug has never let go.  I have followed in Terry’s footsteps.  I went to Greece alone seeking his adventure, I travelled Thailand. I’m now living in Africa.  I love this feel of another time.  The sense of nostalgia. It is the story of my youth and a reminder that even though I’m in my 40’s the adventure need never stop.

If you were free, completely free with no ties or commitments: you could go anywhere, do anything – what would you choose?

In 1971, Terry Tarnoff, fed up with a government he couldn’t trust and wanting no part of a war he didn’t believe in, packed a bag, picked up his guitar and sixteen harmonicas and headed out into the world. What followed was the ultimate dropout adventure.

For eight years Terry travelled the world. He saw it all: the blues clubs of Amsterdam and the jungles of Africa, he smoked chillums with the lepers of India, trance-danced at a death ceremony in Tibet, developed a heroin habit in Bangkok, nearly died driving through the poppy fields of Thailand with a kamikaze cab driver and found the girl of his dreams in wintry Stockholm.

THE BONE MAN OF BENARES is about true love and spiritual awakening. It’s about turning on, tuning in and dropping out. In a world full of larger than life characters, and where the only limitation is your own imagination, Terry Tarnoff went in search of answers and, amazingly, found some. Along the way he had the craziest road trip you’ll ever encounter.

6. The Magicians Nephew

Sure it’s a kid’s book, but if we are talking about books that changed my life then this was it.  I read it aged 7.  It made me realise that your imagination is greater than anything a film can offer. It introduced me to the world of magic and fantasy of which I’ve never tired.  In fact I love this book so much I named my daughter after the lead female character

On a daring quest to save a life, two friends are hurled into another world, where an evil sorceress seeks to enslave them. But then the lion Aslan’s song weaves itself into the fabric of a new land, a land that will be known as Narnia. And in Narnia, all things are possible.

7. Lonely Planet’s Kenya:

• Colour maps and images throughout
• Highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests
• Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots
• Essential info at your fingertips – hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices
• Honest reviews for all budgets – eating, sleeping, sightseeing, going out, shopping, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss
• Cultural insights provide a richer, more rewarding travel experience – covering history, wildlife, landscapes, arts, daily life, food, tribes of Kenya, national parks and reserves
• Covers Nairobi, Southeastern Kenya, Mombasa & the South Coast, Lamu & the North Coast, Southern Rift Valley, Masai Mara & Western Kenya, Central Highlands & Laikipia, Northern Kenya, and more

8. On the Road – Jack Kerouac

My coming of age book. This hit all the rights notes for me. Dreams of cutting lose, travelling and being free. I’ve done all those things. My times on the road are where I learned the most about myself.

Sal Paradise (Sam Riley), a young innocent, joins his hero Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund), a traveller and mystic, the living epitome of Beat, on a breathless, exuberant ride back and forth across the United States. Their hedonistic search for release or fulfilment through drink, sex, drugs and jazz becomes an exploration of personal freedom, a test of the limits of the American dream. A brilliant blend of fiction and autobiography, Jack Kerouac’s exhilarating novel swings to the rhythms of 1950s underground America, racing towards the sunset with unforgettable exuberance, poignancy and autobiographical passion. One of the most influential and important novels of the 20th century, On the Road is the book that launched the Beat Generation and remains the bible of that literary movement.

9.  The Magicians – Lev Grossman

No prizes for guessing why I love this one.  It is an adult take on Narnia.  It’s Narnia with sex, drugs, paranoia and 21^st century anxiety. 

In The Magicians Nephew Quentin Coldwater’s life is changed forever by an apparently chance encounter: when he turns up for his entrance interview to Princeton he finds his interviewer dead – but a strange envelope bearing Quentin’s name leads him down a very different path to any he’d ever imagined.

The envelope, and the mysterious manuscript it contains, leads to a secret world of obsession and privilege, a world of freedom and power and, for a while, it’s a world that seems to answer all Quentin’s desires. But the idyll cannot last – and when it’s finally shattered, Quentin is drawn into something darker and far more dangerous than anything he could ever have expected.

10. Out of Africa – Karen Blixen

I debated not adding this; it is so well known that it is a cliché of Kenya, rather than representative of today’s reality.  But whatever your thoughts about colonialism in Kenya you can’t deny that it happened and this story is a true one.  Plus I live in Karen, just a few doors down from her house, so how could I not? The quintessential book on colonial Africa.

In 1914 Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya with her husband to run a coffee farm. Instantly drawn to the land, she spent her happiest years there until the plantation failed. Karen Blixen was forced to return to Denmark in 1931 and it was there that she wrote this classic account of her experiences. A poignant farewell to her beloved farm, Out of Africa describes her strong friendships with the people of her area, her affection for the landscape and animals, and great love for the adventurer Denys Finch-Hatton.

Written with astonishing clarity and an unsentimental intelligence, Out of Africa portrays a way of life that has disappeared forever.

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