Overview
For nearly eight years as the monthly columnist for Outside magazine, and in his award-winning books, Mark Jenkins has held fans spellbound with his riveting accounts of expeditions to remote parts of the globe. In To Timbuktu, he sets out with three friends to attempt their first descent of the Niger River, hoping to reach the legendary city of Timbuktu. Along the way they are attacked by killer bees, charged by hippos, and stalked by crocodiles. They stumble upon a group of completely blind men living alone in the bush and dance with a hundred naked women. That Jenkins finally reaches his goal—riding alone across the Sahara on a motorcycle—stands in sharp contrast to what befell earlier explorers who tried to find Timbuktu and whose fates the author interweaves with the narrative of his own journey.
A rich combination of cultural exploration, history, and gripping adventure, this beautifully repackaged edition of To Timbuktu is a journey not to be missed.
Synopsis
For nearly eight years as the monthly columnist for Outside magazine, and in his award-winning books, Mark Jenkins has held fans spellbound with his riveting accounts of expeditions to remote parts of the globe. In To Timbuktu, he sets out with three friends to attempt their first descent of the Niger River, hoping to reach the legendary city of Timbuktu. Along the way they are attacked by killer bees, charged by hippos, and stalked by crocodiles. They stumble upon a group of completely blind men living alone in the bush and dance with a hundred naked women. That Jenkins finally reaches his goal-riding alone across the Sahara on a motorcycle-stands in sharp contrast to what befell earlier explorers who tried to find Timbuktu and whose fates the author interweaves with the narrative of his own journey.
A rich combination of cultural exploration, history, and gripping adventure, this beautifully repackaged edition of To Timbuktu is a journey not to be missed.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"Here is a lust for rigorous adventure . . . Jenkins displays a Whitmanesque openness to experience. He has the descriptive and narrative skills to bring off a vivid and gritty portrait of a little-explored corner of the world."—Bill Berkeley, Los Angeles Times
"Jenkins's story is remarkable, and he is a major writing talent, able to see the world and describe it in ways that are new and refreshing."—Craig Holt, The Durham Herald-Sun
"There is a melancholy . . . implicit in Mr. Jenkins's writing, that travel involves something futile, a disregard of Pascal's epigram about all evil things coming from man's being unable to sit still in a room. But it is just that touch of melancholy, of regret, of the hopelessness of the quest that gives To Timbuktu its resonance."—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times