I do not read many autobiographies but when I do I seem to hit the jackpot. West with the Night is the memoir of amazing Beryl Markham. In case you did not know (I didn’t), she was the first solo person to fly the Atlantic from England to North America non-stop from east to west.

Beryl was an English woman who grew up in Kenya together with her father on a farm. She was raised among Masai warriors, learned to hunt with a spear and to understand animals. Her first major passion were horses not flying. At 18 she was the first woman horse trainer in Africa. As you can see, she had an extraordinary, exciting life, one we cannot even comprehend but we can learn so much from reading about.

Africa for her was home and her love for the continent is obvious from the poetic praise and the emotion she manages to transmit whenever she writes about the subject.

Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer’s paradise, a hunter’s Valhalla, an escapist’s Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just ‘home.’ It is all these things but one thing — it is never dull.

Beryl was a person who did not like to hold still, she felt the need to change and to find new provocations. She starts flying with the help of a friend and, after she buys a plane, she uses her new hobby as a mean for living, giving up on horses. At some point Africa becomes too small for her and decides that it was time to go back to her place of birth, England.

Africa is never the same to anyone who leaves it and returns again. It is not a land of change, but it is a land of moods and its moods are numberless. It is not fickle, but because it has mothered not only men, but races, and cradled not only cities, but civilizations — and seen them die, and seen new ones born again — Africa can be dispassionate, indifferent, warm, or cynical, replete with the weariness of too much wisdom

I was enticed by her adventures but also by her extraordinary writing skills. Some chapters really warmed me inside with the poetry, sage and beautiful insights. The chapters written from a horse point of view will always remain in my memory.

I highly recommend this book to anyone, it is literature and autobiography in the same time, a story of Africa (from a white woman POV) and a story of the beauty and loneliness of flying.

Poetic writing! I was transported by this book to Africa and the experiences of Markham. A remarkable woman who lived an exciting life. Reading this book was a wonderful adventure!

What an elegant autobiography, from a woman who rose to the first rank in two different professions: horse training, and aviation. Back then, they called her an “Aviatrix,” but Ms Markam was the first person to fly solo from England to the New World (she made it to Canada).

This is the fourth book I've read on my Beryl Markham-related splurge, which started with Paula McLain's historical fiction "Circling the Sun," which is based on Beryl's life. "West With the Night" is Beryl's own memoir of her early life, told in chunks from childhood to her historic flight from Africa to Nova Scotia in 1936.

Really good - interesting and very well written. I admire her pluck more than I did before.

There is some controversy around this book, with some believing it was actually written by her third husband Raoul Schumacher, a professional ghost-writer and journalist. I have to admit it doesn't seem likely that this largely unschooled woman of action would pen such a thoughtful, erudite and elegant memoir, but it doesn't really matter to me. It's still her life and her stories and they're fascinating.

Highly recommend.