I didn't want this to end! Lovely language and descriptions. Picked this up as inspiration for writing my own travel book, not sure I can compete with giant snakes attacking or being a fighter pilot over Egypt and Greece during WWII, wow.

2). I'm giving this book 5 stars without having actually read it, but ya know what it's my review so I can do whatever I want (don't try and stop me)!
It's getting 5 stars because my 2nd grade son LOVES, LOVES, LOVES it!!! The other night he got sent to bed with no read aloud (the little bastard lied to me about brushing his teeth, I know I'm such a hard ass) but he didn't even care!!! He just said "OK", grabbed his this book and happily trotted off to bed.
Then last night I had to go into his room at 10:00 and take the book away from him so he would stop reading it and go to sleep.
He is loooooooving it!
When I started reading it aloud to him, he was laughing so loud during parts of it I had to pause.
within the first 3rd of the book there was nudity on boats, a lion carrying a person, and a snake crawling into someone's house.
That's some good shit!

*and since it's my review I'm going to go ahead and give my son 15,000 stars for being so freakin adorable when he describes passages of the book to me. 10,000 for his enthusiasm, 2.5,000 for the dimple on his chin and 2.5,000 for his messy hair = 15,000!!!

except for the war scenes that were boring, that was actually a good memoir, I don't know if I read this book because of dahl or because of his mother? I kinda loved the letters he was sending to his mother <3

Also my 300th read!

Wow, Roald was in some series air battles during World War II. I mean he could have easily died. It might not be true, but I think he came through all that mess so he could write these children's stories for the world. He should have died many times during the Battle for Athens and all the other times he went up in the air.

There was a time he was talking about flying 300 miles and hour so low to the ground to escape being shot down that he had to lift up to not hit cows and walls on the ground. He did have a plane crash. He spent 3 years in Africa and Greece.

I love the first part of this story when he is on a steamer heading to Africa and he tells of all the exotic passengers on the trip. Expats love doing dotty things and they did some dotty things. It was a great character study. The book starts out with the colonel and his wife running on the deck of the ship totally naked. No wonder he is so great with characters. He lived a really interesting life.

I don't feel like I have done enough after listening to him, but my life is my life. Like he says, we don't travel the same way we used to. Flying somewhere is not the same as a boat trip that stops at many ports. He did some crazy things in Africa as well. He was 6'6". He was huge.

I had fun reading this and I was totally into his adventures. I also appreciate that he never took pleasure in killing people. He was always relieved to see people's parachutes open if he shot them down. I appreciate him and his works even more now. He is a hero of mine.

Going Solo is the autobiography of Roald Dahl when he goes to Africa to work for Shell Oil Company and later volunteers to be a pilot when war is declared between Germany and England. After learning to fly, he crashes his plane in the desert and almost dies. But he recovers, regroups with his squadron, and flies in Greece and Palestine. Due to his injuries, the pain came back and he could not fly anymore. He had to go home in the middle of the war. The way he describes things in the book made me feel like I was there. He writes in the first person’s view and describes things really well.

The strengths of this book are Dahl’s word choices. For example, “It was a Sunday morning and the French men were evidently entertaining their girlfriends and showing off their aircrafts to them, which was a very French thing to do…”(GS p. 193) What would’ve been better was about him trying to end up the story too quickly. Some characters like Mdisho and David Coke were both very nice and respected by Dahl. Mdisho was the servant for Dahl when he worked for the Shell Oil Company. He was from a tribe that liked war and felt very proud after killing the German man. David Coke was in the same squadron as Dahl and was the only one to give him tips on fighting with the German bombers and fighter planes.

Another example of great descriptive voice was in the chapter called “Mdisho of the Mwanumwezi”. Dahl said to Mdisho. “You must not tell them, Mdisho,” I said. “But why not?” he cried… “To me you are a great hero.” (GS p.73) In this part, Dahl made sure that Mdisho was not in trouble for killing, and tried to make him feel good and proud. I like his kindness to people and his respects for others. I really recommend this book to other people and it was one of the best books I’ve read.

My admiration for Mr Dahl has always been high, but after reading this, brutally honest, account of his RAF service during the war, my admiration is sky high (sorry about that). As ex-RAF groundcrew myself, it was especially wonderful of him to speak so highly of those aircraft engineers who never get a mention elsewhere. An incredible read.

I liked it, but didn't love it as much as Boy. Going Solo is from when he was 22 and further on. It basically tells his story from when he was working for Shell and then fought against the Germans. Mostly it was about fighting against the Germans and is one of the reasons why I didn't like it as much. I think it mostly had to to do with the fact that he described the planes etc. too much and the events as well, so the story felt flat to me. Maybe I would have liked it more if he described more feelings or other personal issues during that time. Still worth the read though.

Buku ini merupakan sambungan dari 'Boy', siri memoir Roald Dahl sendiri. Kisah hidupnya yang ini berkisar pada hujung 1930-an dan awal 1940-an, ketika Perang Dunia Ke-2 meletus. Pertemuannya dengan seorang tua dan sekumpulan anak yatim Yahudi di Jerusalem yang melarikan diri daripada dibunuh oleh Hitler, pada saya begitu menarik. Teknik penceritaan Roald Dahl yang unik dan segar, membuatkan saya selaku pembaca terasa seolah-olah kisah hidupnya ini baharu sahaja berlaku.

I think I'll have to add this one to my recommendations list. This is an autobiography that blends in on the shelf with Dahl's other children's books. This one focuses on his time as a young adult traveling across the world for his job for the Shell Oil Company and then later as he became a pilot in World War II. He had a camera with him and includes photos in the book.

Loved it

You know how you get an idea worked up in your mind about what an autobiography is going to be like before you even start it? Well, my expectations were blown out of the water!!
Roald Dahl's life was an ongoing adventure & I am tickled to have been able to partially experience it through his book...

I laughed, I felt tears sting my eyes, and I raved about it to my family & friends. It was a fantastic read, and I HIGHLY recommend this one!!

I did not read the first part of Dahl's autobiography, Boy, but I somehow managed to not get lost in this one, which starts with Dahl on his way to Tanganyika, East Africa, about to start his new employment with the Royal Dutch Shell Company. Instantly, he introduces us to a bevy of eccentric and colorful characters aboard ship, the dotty old Africa hands that are practically as fantastical as any of his fictional personages. For example, there's the British major who runs laps around the deck in the nude, and is even joined by his similarly unclad wife; a woman who is disgusted by toes; and a man who has very strong opinions on wigs. Then, in Africa, there's a woman carried off by a lion and an ancient snake handler that gets a green mamba out of a house. If these people really were as outlandish as he paints them, it's pretty clear where Dahl got some of his inspiration. Then the war begins, and the book's tone changes slightly. While it never gets overly serious, frivolity does take a back seat to the realities of war and Dahl's experiences as a young, untested officer and then fighter pilot. Dogfights, a crash that more or less ends Dahl's pilot days, beautiful nurses, and all manner of adventure abound.

Dahl tells it all with a placid, detached, yet witty style, treating the marvelous, bizarre, life-threatening, and perilous as if they were quotidian occurrences. He explicitly states that this was a defense mechanism he developed, that in order to get through the insanity and danger he had to treat it calmly and not worry about what might happen. Perhaps this attitude early on is what shaped his inimitable writing style. His prose is so easy and warm and inviting that even if he were describing something boring, he could make it interesting. And there is definitely not a boring line to be found in any of this memoir's pages.