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Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart | 
 enlarge | Author: Tim Butcher
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £1.44
You Save: £6.55 (82%)
New (42) Used (27) from £1.15
Rating:  61 reviews
Sales Rank: 145
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 4.9 x 1
ISBN: 0099494280
EAN: 9780099494287
ASIN: 0099494280
Publication Date: January 3, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: UK SELLER__IN STOCK_Immediate Dispatch_Protective Packaging__Trusted Bucks Retailer__FAST DELIVERY__book cover may vary
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk
JOHN LE CARRE Quite superb…..a masterpiece WILLIAM BOYD Tim Butcher's extraordinary, audacious journey through the Congo is worthy of the great 19th century explorers. Completely enthralling but also a thoughtful and sobering portrait of modern Africa ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH A remarkable, fascinating book by a courageous and perceptive writer. One of the most exciting books to emerge from Africa in recent years. THE SUNDAY TIMES Tim Butcher's book is the latest in a long line, running through Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, VS Nai-paul… his account of a hair-rising trip from east to west, against all advice, by motorbike and then river boat, is gripping and harshly informative… MAX HASTINGS Blood River represents a remarkable marriage of travelogue and history, which deserves to make Tim Butcher a star for his prose, as well as his courage. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH From his adventure he has plundered a wealth of terrific stories, and survived to recite a rosary of unstinting horror. FERGAL KEANE This is a terrific book, an adventure story about a journey of great bravery in one of the world's most dangerous places. It keeps the heart beating and the attention fixed from beginning to end. HATCHARDS …unputdownable… GILES FODEN An intrepid adventure... Tim Butcher has followed in the footsteps of Stanley and Conrad. It takes a lot of guts to yomp through the Congo and he obviously has plenty of those. But it is the wit and passion of the writing which keeps you engrossed. THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH ..stirring and thought-provoking. AESTHETICA MAGAZINE ….a remarkable travelogue of exquisite proportions…. highly emotive, historical and personal…Butcher's elegant style demands the reader's attention…….Blood River is nothing short of a modern-day masterpiece. WANDERLUST What makes Blood River such a compelling read is the fact that the journey becomes an exercise in mental terror, the author skilfully conveying the exhaustion of six weeks on tenterhooks, wondering what might happen just around the next bend. THOMAS PAKENHAM Tim Butcher deserves a medal for this crazy feat. I marvel at his courage and his empathy with the unfortunate Congolese... ESQUIRE …gripping… TRAVEL AFRICA The past meets present in this enthralling travelogue through the depths of the Congo.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 56 more reviews...
 A fantastic book August 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
How anyone can call this book dull is beyond me. I admire the way that Butcher persevered through what most travellers would consider pretty terrifying conditions. My stomach churned at times and I imagined how I would probably have bottled out of many of the 'towns' that he ventured through. The book itself is brilliantly written with a keen eye on the historical context and some thoughtful and brilliantly expressed passages. I would like to ask any of the critics of the book to place themselves in Butcher's position and see if they could have managed it. How easy it is easy to give one star to a book like this in the comfort of your own home. Personally, I loved it.
 Disappointingly dull August 7, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Tim Butcher is a journalist, no doubt good at reporting the facts (insofar as any journalist can). But he's not a writer. The main problem is that there is no change of pace throughout this book. It doesn't matter whether he's planning the journey (a good third of the book) or actually on the journey in dangerous places: it just plods along with the same dribble of information. Butcher is obsessively worried about the fact that the Congo is not the place that it was when the Belgians exercised their extreme authority there. So far, so unsurprising. And this obsession with what's been lost means that none of the places or the people ever come alive in the present. I wonder if the journey was all a bit too much for Butcher and lost the plot fairly early on. Although he meets numerous people along the way, he seems to be - and feel - distant from everyone. They're just thin sketches. It's not clear whether that's because: Butcher wasn't really interested in them; didn't make the effort to talk to them; is a rather stiff, diffident Englishman who can't interact; or just lacked the spirit to record the interactions. If you've enjoyed O'Hanlon's Congo Journey or love travel writing by Thubron and Murphy, you'll be sorely disappointed by this.
 Engaging but ultimately unfulfilling July 18, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a page turner, no doubt. The details of his journey are mildly interesting, the people he meets much more so. But there are better books on the DRC and much of this feels over familiar and repetitious. Butcher writes well enough but lacks the ability to convey a deeper understanding. He aint no Kapucinski. But a worthy effort and hats off to him for meeting such a daunting challenge. More than I've ever managed. But, hey, I'm just an interested but slightly disappointed reader.
Somewhat interesting July 9, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I had high expectations for this book. The Congo is a hot African topic. There were certainly intersting segments, mainly the people Butcher encounters and the deplorable state of the Congo. There was n othing new really from his histrocial references. Much of the book seemed familiar to me and then I realized why after reading his bibliography; I had read most of his source books. Butcher frequently expresses his terror in the book (which is why I am surprised that he was so often described as "intrepid" by reviewers). I can't blame him but after reading for the umpteenth time how scared he was I couldn't help feeling it detracted from the book. For a really intrepd African traveller I recommend the books by the great Polish journalist (who spent over 30 years in Africa): Ryszard Kapuscinski. Especially his book "The Shadow of the Sun".
Is this man mad? July 8, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Initially, Tim Butcher's account of his "insanely dangerous" trip through the Congo raises the question why? Why put yourself through the very real risks of being captured or killed by the numerous rebel groups that infest the country? Why endure the mind-numbing boredom of hundreds and hundreds of kilometres on the back of motorcycles negotiating stiflingly hot jungle tracks? Why bother to retrace Stanley's already well documented expedition down the Congo river? Is this man mad?... certainly most of those he meets on this very strange journey think so.
But, mad or not, what he discovers makes for fascinating reading as he and we are taken into the heart of what has become an unbelievably shocking world... one that has degenerated in 50 years from ruthlessly harsh colonial discipline & order to complete and apparently irreversible anarchy. The roads are gone, the railways are gone, the buildings have been consumed by the jungle; there is no law and little or no administrative structure; towns have no electricity, clean water or medicine; bribery, theft and casual violence are rampant; people live in constant fear of raids from rebel groups, and hundreds of thousands are killed each year simply because they are in the wrong tribe or the wrong place. Sure, there are other third world countries in such a terrible condition but few with the huge natural resources and riches of the Congo, few where this state of affairs has existed for so long, and few that receive so little attention from the rest of the world.
Critics of the book suggest that the picture he paints is over-stated and that his grasp of the Congo's history is flawed - unless you or they are mad enough to emulate his trip who knows? But he's been around in enough of the world's trouble-spots to draw a measure over what he sees and, while his writing is less than tight in places and his understandable desire to "keep in the background" means that his discussions with the people he meets on the way are often cursory, the snapshots of life he returns with are vivid enough to make you question much more than his sanity in what is, in the end, a revealing and harrowingly thought-provoking account of one man's gruelling trek through a totally lost country.
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