From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

Out of Africa

Isak Dinesen

Discussion: Books Set in Africa

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 60 topics — 1,003 comments total

Books Set in Africa

* African Authors
By Diane , Armchair Tour Guide · 16 posts · 923 views

last updated Feb 06, 2025 09:27PM

Gambia
By Diane , Armchair Tour Guide · 13 posts · 509 views

last updated Sep 30, 2025 10:25AM

showing 10 of 48 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Jan 12, 2010 Elizabeth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, autobiographical, africa, nonfiction

This book was odd, fascinating, strange, depressing, tedious, poignant, old-fashioned and profound.

I've heard so many different things from people as I read this book. A few fellow readers called it racist. Others went on and on about the beauty of the writing.

I enjoyed it, but now that I've set the book aside, I feel unsettled. This book encapsulates the receding tide of African culture. Dinesen writes, "It was not I who was going away, I did not have it in my power to leave Africa, but it was ...more

16 likes · Like · see review

Jan 25, 2010 Doina rated it it was ok

Shelves: biographies-memoirs

I'm afraid this book was not as enjoyable as I thought it would be. As a biography it is too disjointed and fragmented. The book reads like a collection of essays, which don't have any chronological sequence. I'm also bothered by the language used when she was talking about the natives. I'm very much aware of the fact that we are all products of our times. Keeping that in mind, I still found her to be extremely prejudiced against the natives that she was surrounded by. In one sentence she's prai ...more

Like · see review

Jan 07, 2018 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was ok

Shelves: classic, 1001-books, saw-the-movie-b4-i-read-the-book

No domestic animal can be as still as a wild animal. The civilized people have lost the altitude of stillness, and my evade lessons in silence from the wild before they are accepted by it. The art of moving gently, without suddenness, is the first o be studied by the hunter, and more so by the hunter with the camera. Hunters cannot have their own way, they must fall in love with the wind, and the colours and smells of the landscape, and they must make the tempo of the landscape their own. Som

...more

Like · see review

Apr 22, 2009 Jen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: lives-of-people, non-fiction, africa, colonialism

It was great to read the book after having seen the movie. Dinesen's writing is very eloquent. ...more

Like · see review

Aug 21, 2011 mstan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: src-fall-2011, non-fiction, memoir, displacement

This was a memoir I expected a lot more out of. Dinesen's writing is really good, but her thoughts are so fragmented here, that it was difficult to get a handle on things. It seemed as though her love for Kenya was so overwhelming that she could not think to frame her impressions coherently for any reader who is by virtue of his/her ignorance of the experience a third party to it. ...more

Like · see review