17 years of her life in a book

“I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up; near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.”

Baroness Karen von Blixen-Fineck is known to many of us because of Meryl Streep, who portrait her in the movie “Out of Africa.”

One of the rare occasions that I read a book after the movie and I fell in love with the story and the person all over again. The book is different; it is deeper and more touching.

I booked a flight to Africa when I was 18 years old; it was my first vacation alone and my first visit to Africa. I have a deep love for the country and it’s people ever since and that might be one of the reasons why I love the book so much.

“Out of Africa,” written by a woman whose voice conveys her genuine affection for the land, the animals and the people of Africa, is both wonderful and sad. Her writing is so vivid, she brings Africa alive with all the lessons to learn from the land and the people. In Africa, she finds love, trust and companionship and grieves over many losses; however, the losses through deaths -even the tragic ones- have a very strong sense of continuity and true repose.

I have read it many times and will continue to do so whenever I feel like traveling.

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Second Time Around

Tell us about a book you can read again and again without getting bored — what is it that speaks to you?