Timbuktu--the name still evokes an exotic, faraway place even though its glory days are long gone. Unspooling its history and legends, resolving my...
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reviews
May 22, 2010
Michael
rated it: 
This is an odd book - mostly history, it also has some travel book elements in it. Some of the early history drags but at there is plenty of context - it isn't just about Timbuktu but ranges up to Morocco and throughout West Africa. I liked it but I think many readers would give up before getting too far into it.
The arrival of Europeans isn't described until about 25 pages from the end, so if one is interested in Mungo Park or Laing, this isn't the book.
The authors describe More...
The arrival of Europeans isn't described until about 25 pages from the end, so if one is interested in Mungo Park or Laing, this isn't the book.
The authors describe More...
Jul 03, 2009
DoctorM
rated it: 
I read Marq de Villiers' "Timbuktu" in a Deepest South summer: as hot as NW Mali, but dripping with Louisiana humidity rather than swept by hot desert winds. I did tell my friends that de Villiers' book was my escape into dry air, open spaces, and desert silence.
The book itself is both a travel memoir of Timbuktu in the early 2000s and a history of the rise of the decline of a city that gave its name to the phrase "going to Timbuktu"--- going to the exotic far edg More...
The book itself is both a travel memoir of Timbuktu in the early 2000s and a history of the rise of the decline of a city that gave its name to the phrase "going to Timbuktu"--- going to the exotic far edg More...
Feb 19, 2008
I highly recommend this book not only because it looks interesting but because it contains several refferences to Me!!! and to my husband whose photo also apears.
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