The Weekenders

By Alex Garland, W.F. Deedes, Tony Hawks , Irvine Welsh , Victoria Glendinning , Andrew O'Hagan , Giles Foden

Book cover of The Weekenders: Travels in the Heart of Africa

Book description

What would happen if you took some of Britain's best writing talent, put them on a plane and flew them to one of the most extraordinary and inaccessible places on the planet? What would happen if you took Irvine Welsh from the streets of Edinburgh and showed him a remote,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Weekenders as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This is a collection of short stories by well-known writers—Irvine Welsh and Alex Garland among others—whom The Daily Telegraph newspaper assembled and flew to Africa in 2000, with an open brief to write one short story each; the book’s proceeds went to famine relief. One story in particular, by Telegraph editor W.F. Deedes, resonated in particular with me. The British government, responding to concerns that a UK-based oil companyPhoenix—is contributing to human rights abuses committed in the context of the Sudanese civil war, establishes A Small Mission of Inquiry” (the title of the story).…

From Nicholas' list on how it all went wrong for South Sudan.

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Tap Dancing on Everest By Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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Interested in Sudan, Africa, and human rights?

Sudan 24 books
Africa 266 books
Human Rights 70 books