Jennifer Howard

My review of Tim Butcher’s Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart runs in the Sept./Oct./Nov. issue of Bookforum. Butcher was the Telegraph’s Africa correspondent when he set out, in 2004, to retrace H.M. Stanley’s 1874-77 journey along the Congo River. It’s almost as dangerous a trip now as it was back then, and it takes guts to attempt it. The corruption, misery, and decay that Butcher encountered along the way makes for eye-opening reading about what’s happened to the country post-independence. (It’s not pretty.) But I had some quarrels with the book as travel lit. A bad trip… Read more...

No, it’s not a job in journalism. The Guardian reports that some intrepid Brits are looking for a hardy soul to accompany them to the South Pole in honor of the 100th anniversary of Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition: A hundred years after the appearance of one of the strangest and least enticing advertisements in newspaper history - “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success” - a single brave soul is being sought to shuffle along in the heroic footsteps of Ernest… Read more...