|bookshelf
May books NOTABLE NEW RELEASES compiled by Sally Brewster
River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile, by Candice Millard For millennia, the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt, and European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe — and extend their colonial empires. Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. Burton spoke 29 languages and was a decorated soldier. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, passionate about hunting — Burton’s opposite in temperament and beliefs. From the start the two men clashed. They would endure tremendous hardships, illness and constant setbacks. Two years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on. But Speke did and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. Burton disputed his claim, and Speke launched another expedition to Africa to prove it. The two became venomous enemies, with the public siding with the more charismatic Burton. The day before they were to publicly debate, Speke shot himself. Yet there was a third man on both expeditions, his name obscured by imperial annals. Sidi Mubarak Bombay was enslaved and shipped from his home village in East Africa to India. When the man who purchased him died, he made his way into the local Sultan's army, and eventually traveled back to Africa, where he used his resourcefulness, linguistic prowess and raw courage to forge a living as a guide. Without Bombay and men like him, who led, carried and protected the expedition, neither Englishman would have come close to the headwaters of the Nile, or perhaps even survived. In River of the Gods, Candice Millard has written another peerless story of courage and adventure, set against the backdrop of the race to exploit Africa by the colonial powers. The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened, by Bill McKibben
Like so many of us, Bill McKibben grew up believing — knowing — that the United States was the greatest country on Earth. As a teenager, he cheerfully led American Revolution tours in Lexington, Mass. He sang “Kumbaya” at church. And with the remarkable rise of suburbia, he assumed that all Americans would share in the wealth. But 50 years later, he finds himself in an increasingly doubtful nation strained by bleak racial and economic inequality, on a planet whose future is in peril. And he is curious: What the hell happened? McKibben digs deep into our history (and his own well-meaning but not all-seeing past) and into the latest scholarship on race and inequality in America, on the rise of the religious right, and on our environmental crisis to explain how we got to this point. He finds that he is not without hope. And he wonders if any of that trinity of his youth — the flag, the cross, the station wagon — could, or should, be reclaimed in the fight for a fairer future. Love Marriage: A Novel, by Monica Ali Yasmin Ghorami is 26, training to be a doctor (like her Indianborn father) and engaged to the charismatic, upper-class Joe Sangster, whose formidable mother, Harriet, is a famous feminist. The gulf between families is vast. So, too, is the gulf in sexual experience between Yasmin and Joe. As the wedding day draws near, misunderstandings, infidelities and long-held secrets upend both Yasmin's relationship and that of her parents, a “love marriage,” according to the family lore that Yasmin has believed all her life. A gloriously acute observer of class, sexual mores and the mysteries of the human heart, Monica Ali has written a captivating social comedy and a profoundly moving, revelatory story of two cultures, two families and two people trying to understand one another. You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, by Akwaeke Emezi Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again. It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life, and she’s almost a new person now — an artist with her own studio, and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best southparkmagazine.com | 67
