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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Abyssinian'
At the heart of Jean-Christophe Rufin's marvelous first novel is a nugget of truth: in the year 1699, Louis XIV of France sent an embassy to the King of Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia). From this small fact Rufin has spun a mesmerizing tale of adventure, romance, and political intrigue that is one part Alexandre Dumas and two parts Rafael Sabatini, with just a dash of Brian Moore thrown in for good measure.
The hero of this epic tale is Jean-Baptiste Poncet, a young French doctor who has been practicing medicine without a license in Cairo. Poncet first comes to the notice of the authorities when the French consul in Egypt receives a secret message from a Jesuit priest commanding him in Louis's name to send a diplomatic mission to the king of Abyssinia. Foreigners--especially Christians--have not been welcome in that country since the Jesuits were expelled 50 years before, and a regular delegation would almost certainly be killed. When the consul, Monsieur de Maillet, hears that the Abyssinian monarch requires a doctor, however, he devises a plan to send Poncet both to cure and to convince the king to send a return delegation to Versailles.
Poncet has his own reasons for agreeing to go on this perilous mission: he has fallen in love with de Maillet's beautiful daughter, Alix. Unfortunately, he knows that "within the Frankish colony in Cairo, he was nothing more--whatever pains he took to hide his ancestry--than the son of a servant girl and an unknown man." The only hope he has of gaining the consul's blessing is to win Louis XIV's favor; bringing an Abyssinian embassy to Versailles might just do the trick. Poncet starts out for self-serving reasons; upon meeting King Negus, however, he comes to admire him, and soon finds himself jeopardizing his own future in order to thwart the political intrigues of his countrymen.
Rufin tells this larger-than-life tale with wit, sophistication, and a wholehearted enjoyment that shines through every sentence of this beautifully translated novel. Jean-Baptiste Poncet, a young man who "had been offered every opportunity for sadness and despair, yet ... had decided long ago that he would never succumb to such feelings," is a hero with heart, intelligence, and charm, and the book's many secondary characters are equally well developed. All in all, The Abyssinian marks a delightful literary debut. --Alix Wilber [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Abyssinian'
At the heart of Jean-Christophe Rufin's marvelous first novel is a nugget of truth: in the year 1699, Louis XIV of France sent an embassy to the King of Abyssinia (modern-day Ethiopia). From this small fact Rufin has spun a mesmerizing tale of adventure, romance, and political intrigue that is one part Alexandre Dumas and two parts Rafael Sabatini, with just a dash of Brian Moore thrown in for good measure.
The hero of this epic tale is Jean-Baptiste Poncet, a young French doctor who has been practicing medicine without a license in Cairo. Poncet first comes to the notice of the authorities when the French consul in Egypt receives a secret message from a Jesuit priest commanding him in Louis's name to send a diplomatic mission to the king of Abyssinia. Foreigners--especially Christians--have not been welcome in that country since the Jesuits were expelled 50 years before, and a regular delegation would almost certainly be killed. When the consul, Monsieur de Maillet, hears that the Abyssinian monarch requires a doctor, however, he devises a plan to send Poncet both to cure and to convince the king to send a return delegation to Versailles.
Poncet has his own reasons for agreeing to go on this perilous mission: he has fallen in love with de Maillet's beautiful daughter, Alix. Unfortunately, he knows that "within the Frankish colony in Cairo, he was nothing more--whatever pains he took to hide his ancestry--than the son of a servant girl and an unknown man." The only hope he has of gaining the consul's blessing is to win Louis XIV's favor; bringing an Abyssinian embassy to Versailles might just do the trick. Poncet starts out for self-serving reasons; upon meeting King Negus, however, he comes to admire him, and soon finds himself jeopardizing his own future in order to thwart the political intrigues of his countrymen.
Rufin tells this larger-than-life tale with wit, sophistication, and a wholehearted enjoyment that shines through every sentence of this beautifully translated novel. Jean-Baptiste Poncet, a young man who "had been offered every opportunity for sadness and despair, yet ... had decided long ago that he would never succumb to such feelings," is a hero with heart, intelligence, and charm, and the book's many secondary characters are equally well developed. All in all, The Abyssinian marks a delightful literary debut. --Alix Wilber [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Africa and Africans As Seen by Classical Writers'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Africa Is Not a Country'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Africa Uncorked: Travels in Extreme Wine Territory'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ancient Ethiopia: Aksum, Its Antecedents and Successors'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears'
Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution after witnessing soldiers beat his father to the point of certain death, selling off his parents' jewelry to pay for passage to the United States. Now he finds himself running a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C. His only companions are two fellow African immigrants who share his feelings of frustration with and bitter nostalgia for their home continent. He realizes that his life has turned out completely different and far more isolated from the one he had imagined for himself years ago.
Soon Sepha's neighborhood begins to change. Hope comes in the form of new neighbors-Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter-who become his friends and remind him of what having a family is like for the first time in years. But when the neighborhood's newfound calm is disturbed by a series of racial incidents, Sepha may lose everything all over again. Told in a haunting and powerful first-person narration that casts the streets of Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa through Sepha's eyes, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is a deeply affecting and unforgettable debut novel about what it means to lose a family and a country-and what it takes to create a new home. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Blue Nile'
An account of the course of the Blue Nile from the Ethiopian Highlands, through the Sudan and Egupt to the sea. The book contains an historical narrative which starts in the eighteenth century and ends in 1869. The period was dominated by four men: James Bruce, the Scot who journeyed to the supposed source of the Blue Nile, and stayed in warring Ethiopia; Napoleon who, needing military glory to further his political ambitions, led a brilliantly conceived expedition to Egypt; Mohammed Ali, the Turkish viceroy, who sent his son to conquer the Sudan in a ruthless quest for gold and slaves; and Emporer Theodore of Ethiopia, a tyrant who held British subjects captive. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Blue Nile : Ethiopia's River of Magic and Mystery'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book of Enoch the Prophet'
This anthology is a thorough introduction to classic literature for those who have not yet experienced these literary masterworks. For those who have known and loved these works in the past, this is an invitation to reunite with old friends in a fresh new format. From Shakespeare s finesse to Oscar Wilde s wit, this unique collection brings together works as diverse and influential as The Pilgrim s Progress and Othello. As an anthology that invites readers to immerse themselves in the masterpieces of the literary giants, it is must-have addition to any library. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bradt Ethiopia'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bradt Travel Guide Ethiopia'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Chains of Heaven: An Ethiopian Romance'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Coalition of Lions'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Concise Amharic Dictionary: Amharic-English English-Amharic'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Daughters of the Ark'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Discovery of the Nile'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'East Africa'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'East and Southern Africa: The Backpacker's Manual'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Eating the Flowers of Paradise: A Journey Through the Drug Fields of Ethiopia and Yemen'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Emperor'
Haile Selassie, His Most Puissant Majesty and Distinguished Highness the Emperor of Ethiopia, enjoyed a 44-year reign until his own army gave him the boot in 1974. In the days following the coup, the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski traveled to Ethiopia and sought out members of the imperial court for interviews.
His composite portrait of Selassie's crumbling imperium is an astonishing, wildly funny creation, beginning with the very first interview. "It was a small dog," recalls an anonymous functionary, "a Japanese breed. His name was Lulu. He was allowed to sleep in the Emperor's great bed. During various ceremonies, he would run away from the Emperor's lap and pee on dignitaries' shoes. The august gentlemen were not allowed to flinch or make the slightest gesture when they felt their feet getting wet. I had to walk among the dignitaries and wipe the urine from their shoes with a satin cloth. This was my job for ten years." (Well, it's a living.)
Elsewhere, the interviewees venture into tragic or grotesque or downright unbelievable terrain. Kapuscinski has shaped their testimonies into an eloquent whole, and while he never alludes to the totalitarian regime that ruled his native Poland during the same period, the analogy is impossible to ignore. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Eritrea: Even the Stones Are Burning'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ethiopia at Bay: A Personal Account of the Haile Sellassie Years'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ethiopia the Christian Art of an African Nation'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ethiopia, the Unknown Land : A Cultural and Historical Guide'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ethiopian Art'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ethiopian Magic Scrolls'

› Find signed collectible books: 'An Ethiopian Romance'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Exotic Ethiopian Cooking'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Exotic Ethiopian Cooking: Society, Culture, and Hospitality Tradition in Ethiopia'
Exotic Ethiopian Cooking: Society, Culture, Hospitality, and Traditions includes 178 tested recipes. Some of these recipes date back to the time of the Queen of Sheba.
Although the book provides measurements, cooking will eventually come by instinct. The food is spicy, subtle, piquant and unforgettble.
Besides recipes for main meals, breads, drinks, alcoholic beverages, yogurt, breakfast, soups, etc., the book includes how to store prepared and unprepared foods, how to prepare basic ingredients, spices, measurement tables, glossary of basic terms, and index.
[via]More editions of Exotic Ethiopian Cooking: Society, Culture, and Hospitality Tradition in Ethiopia:

› Find signed collectible books: 'Eyelids of Morning: The Mingled Destinies of Crocodiles and Men'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Falasha No More an Ethiopian Jewish Child Comes Home: An Ethiopian Jewish Child Comes Home'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fire on the Mountain'
› Find signed collectible books: 'First Footsteps in East Africa or an Exploration of Harar'
One of the great adventure classics. Victorian scholar-adventurers first-hand epic account of daring 1854 expedition to a forbidden East African capital city. A treasury of detailed information on Muslim beliefs, manners and morals; plus pleasures and perils of the desert. A wealth of geographic, ethnographic and linguistic data. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Garbage King'

› Find signed collectible books: 'The God Who Begat a Jackal'
› Find signed collectible books: 'Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society'
Greater Ethiopia combines history, anthropology, and sociology to answer two major questions. Why did Ethiopia remain independent under the onslaught of European expansionism while other African political entities were colonized? And why must Ethiopia be considered a single cultural region despite its political, religious, and linguistic diversity? Donald Levine's interdisciplinary study makes a substantial contribution both to Ethiopian interpretive history and to sociological analysis. In his new preface, Levine examines Ethiopia since the overthrow of the monarchy in the 1970s. "Ethiopian scholarship is in Professor Levine's debt...He has performed an important task with panache, urbanity, and learning."--Edward Ullendorff, Times Literary Supplement [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Haile Sellassie I: The Formative Years 1892-1936'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia and Eritrea'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A History of Ethiopia'
In this readable and concise history of Ethiopia, Harold Marcus surveys the evolution of the oldest African nation from prehistory to the present. Based on a thorough reading of post-World War II scholarship, Marcus demonstrates that there is more to Ethiopia's existence than the ambitions of any one group. While Ethiopia has from time to time separated into component parts, it has never disappeared as an idea and has always reappeared in fact. Marcus concludes that now, as in the past, geography, economics, and culture will, in the end, prevail in uniting Ethiopia's diverse peoples against the forces of ethnic and religious factionalization. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hospital By The River: A Story Of Hope'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In Ethiopia with a Mule'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In Search of King Solomon's Mines'
King Solomon, the Bible's wisest king, also possessed extraordinary wealth. He built a temple at Jerusalem that was said to be more fabulous than any other landmark in the ancient world, heavily adorned with gold from Ophir. The precise location of this legendary land has been one of history's great unsolved mysteries. Long before Rider Haggard's classic adventure novel King Solomon's Mines produced a fresh outbreak of gold fever, explorers, scientists and theologians had scoured the world for the source of the king's astonishing wealth. Tahir Shah takes up the quest, using as his leads a mixture of texts including the Septuagint, the earliest form of the Bible, as well as geological, geographical and folkloric sources. Time and again the evidence points towards Ethiopia, the ancient kingdom in the horn of Africa whose imperial family claims descent from Menelik, the son born to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Tahir Shah's trail takes him to a remote cliff-face monastery where the monks pull visitors up on a leather rope, to the ruined castles of Gondar, and to the churches of Lalibela, hewn from solid rock.In the south, he discovers an enormous illegal gold mine where thousands of men, women and children dig with their hands. But the hardest leg of the journey is to the accursed mountain of Tullu Wallel, where legend says there lies an ancient shaft, once the entrance of King Solomon's mines. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'In Search of the Lost Ark of the Covenant'
The search for the Ark of the Covenant has been dramatized in movies and researched in documentaries over the years, capturing the imaginations of archaeologists and Christians the world over. Although the final resting place of the Ark is controversial and clouded with confusion, explorer Bob Cornuke believes that the Ark of the Covenant was transported from ancient Israel and is in Ethiopia today. As unusual as this may sound, Cornuke has uncovered compelling evidence that the Ark may well have been spirited up the Nile River to an eventual resting place in the remote highlands of ancient Kushmodern Ethiopia. Cornuke travels to Axum, where today he believes the Ark is kept in absolute isolation at St. Marys of Zion Church by a man referred to as "The Guardian of the Ark of the Covenant." [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Italian Invasion of Abyssinia 1935-36'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lonely Planet Ethiopia & Eritrea'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Modern Translation of the Kebra Nagast: (The Glory of Kings)'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'My Name Is Rachamim'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Notes from the Hyena's Belly: An Ethiopian Boyhood'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Notes from the Hyena's Belly: Memories of My Ethiopian Boyhood'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Pillars in Ethiopian History'
PILLARS IN ETHIOPIAN HISTORY,The William Leo Hansberry African History Notebook, Volume I Edited by Joseph E. Harris Taken from William Leo Hansberry's private papers the four essays in Volume I, better described as narrative histories, decipher and remove from the entanglement of myth, legend and spurious historical documentation the pillars of Ethiopia's unity. The editor, Joseph Harris, is the former chairman of the Department of History at Howard University. AFRICA AND AFRICANS AS SEEN BY CLASSICAL WRITERS, The William Leo Hansberry African History Notebook Volume II Edited by Joseph E. harris volume II of the William Leo Hansberry Notebook interprets, classical comments about Africa and Africans. William Leo Hansberry is considered by many to be the father of African Studies in the United States. During the thirty-seven years that Hansberry taught at Howard University, he laid the foundations for the systematic study of African History culture and politics. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Rastafari: Roots and Ideology'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Remote People: A Report from Ethiopia and British Africa, 1930-1931'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Return'

› Find signed collectible books: 'Running the Amazon'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Saba'

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Seventh Scroll'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Surrender or Starve: Travels in Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea'
Robert D. Kaplan is one of our leading international journalists, someone who can explain the most complicated and volatile regions and show why theyre relevant to our world. In Surrender or Starve, Kaplan illuminates the fault lines in the Horn of Africa, which is emerging as a crucial region for Americas ongoing war on terrorism.
Reporting from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, Kaplan examines the factors behind the famine that ravaged the region in the 1980s, exploring the ethnic, religious, and class conflicts that are crucial for understanding the region today. He offers a new foreword and afterword that show how the nations have developed since the famine, and why this region will only grow more important to the United States. Wielding his trademark ability to blend on-the-ground reporting and cogent analysis, Robert D. Kaplan introduces us to a fascinating part of the world, one that it would behoove all of us to know more about. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Surrender or Starve: The Wars Behind the Famine'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sweetness in the Belly'
The protagonist of this meditative and elegantly written novel represents an unusual demographic. White, English, and orphaned at eight, Lilly grows up in Morocco as a Muslim, moves to Harar, Ethiopia, for five years and settles in London after political upheaval makes her vulnerable in Harar. A stranger everywhere, she has a knack for making homes and building communities anywhere: as a valued teacher of the Qur'an to Harari children, and as friend and nurse to Ethiopian exiles in London. "You put roots and they'll start growing," her bohemian parents told her to justify their nomadic ways. But grown-up Lilly actively seeks roots and relationships, agonizing over the uprootings that famine, corruption, and political instability made inevitable for Ethiopians in the 1970s and '80s. Her narrative shuttles between two cosmopolitan cities, two tumultuous decades, and two significant others. Aziz is an Ethiopian doctor she falls for in Harar but is wrenched away from literally (perhaps too literally) after giving him her virginity. Dr. Gupta is an Indian whose courtship of her in London is handicapped by the flame she still holds for Aziz. Not knowing if the latter is alive or dead, Lilly has remained suspended in a 17-year limbo between grief and desperate hope.
Sweetness in the Belly is obviously not your average doctor-and-nurse story. Indeed, Gibbs's aim is to portray a largely invisible society. Ethiopia, Lilly says, is just "a starving impoverished nation ... of famine and refugees" in the Western imagination. Steeped in research but wearing it lightly, the novel renders a culture and dozens of people convincingly (though the parallel story lines make keeping characters straight a challenge). Lilly, with her religious fervour, multiple languages, and basic decency, is a believable insider and appealing consciousness. The self-protective emotional coolness of her London self, however, casts a shadow over the Harar narrative, where a contrasting tone could have conveyed her youthful optimism and passion. One might also wish the political back-story of famine and Haile Selassie's fall were more integrated into the plot; Gibb seems as keen to protect characters as they are to protect each other, sacrificing opportunities for drama and suspense. But these are small flaws in a precise, textured, suitably bittersweet novel. --John C. Ball [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Sylvia Pankhurst: A Crusading Life 1882-1960'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Taste of Africa: 70 Easy-To-Cook Recipes from an Undiscovered Cuisine'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Taste of Eritrea: Recipes from One of East Africa's Most Interesting Little Countries'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children'
It didn't take long before it was known that Haregewoin offered a haven for the lost - a baby was left at her doorstep, a grandfather gave up grandchildren he could not afford to feed, a young boy whose mother had died and whose father was terminally ill. Soon, there were sixty children in her care. A mighty task for a middle-aged 4' 8" tall woman. Yet she rose to it and more - she did so gladly, heroically. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Truthfeasting'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'When the Going Was Good'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The White Nile'
A thrilling narrative history of the exploration of Africa in the last half of the 19th century featuring larger-than-life personalitiesStanley, Livingstone, Burton, among many othersand intense drama. An immediate bestseller when first published, this may be the most absorbing and enjoyable of all the books about African exploration.
Original publication date 1960
New introduction by Jeremy Bernstein
New maps, drawings and photos, index [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'L'Abyssin'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Secretos De Generales: Desclasificado'
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