Perhaps those interested in her eventful life would do better to read her memoir, West with the Night, which won Hemingway's praise, instead of this rosy-coloured "oh my Africa!

Circling the Sun: A Novel: McLain, Paula: 9780345534200

That’s not the fault of McClain — this is a biographical novel, after all, and the warts are very much in evidence. The sense of place shines with the African sun, dry ground dusting your shoes and wilderness lurking around. In McLain’s confident hands, Beryl Markham crackles to life, and we readers truly understand what made a woman so far ahead of her time believe she had the power to soar.With hot, balmy summer nights hopefully on the horizon here in the UK, there could be no better way to chill out than to enter the orbit of the cool sounds on this album. I was hooked by Circling the Sun right from its first pages with Beryl (now Markham) getting ready for her transatlantic flight.

Reviews of Circling the Sun by Paula McLain - BookBrowse

How close people could be to us when they had gone as far away as possible, to the edges of the As they explain, “We aimed to achieve a rich foundation in the live recording and mixed the audio in a similar way to vintage recordings.

Brought to Kenya from England as a child and then abandoned by her mother, Beryl Markham is raised by both her father and the native Kipsigis tribe who share his estate. Beryl's aviation prowess — she makes history by becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west — seems nearly impossible to imagine as the story of her early life begins. With that kind of a sales pitch, you'd expect at least a halfway realistic portrait of the manners and social conditions of the times, with more than one token black character thrown in.

Circling the Sun - Paula McLain

Paula McLain is the author of the New York Times and internationally bestselling novels, The Paris Wife, Circling the Sun and Love and Ruin. In my summer reading quest to read biographical novels featuring interesting women, I chose Circling The Sun by Paula McClain.But it's the ruggedly charismatic Denys Finch Hatton who ultimately helps Beryl navigate the uncharted territory of her own heart. Around this time, Beryl falls in with a notorious bad crowd known as the Happy Valley, a group of wealthy English-born expatriates who live a hedonistic lifestyle, existing in a drug-induced haze.

Circling the Sun by Paula McLain | Waterstones Circling the Sun by Paula McLain | Waterstones

Some of that can be chalked up to her hands-off upbringing and her parents’ negligence, but sometimes we just need to learn from our mistakes. I tend to avoid fictionalized accounts of historical women because they often drift into “chick lit” territory where I prefer to stick closer to a true biography.While I didn't always agree with the choices she made, I liked that she was so determined and accomplished so much.