{"title":"Aidan Hartley","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"zanzibar-chest-book-aidan-hartley-9780002570596","title":"The Zanzibar Chest","description":"\"We should have never come here!\" So said Aidan Hartley's father in his final days, rising from a bed made of mountain cedar, lashed with thongs of rawhide from an oryx shot many years before. His words spoke of a colonial legacy that stretched back over 150 years through four generations of one British family. Here, Hartley weaves together his family's history, his childhood in Africa and his accounts of the continent's horrendous wars, which he witnessed at first hand as a journalist in the 1990s. Burnt out from a decade of horror, during which three of his close friends were torn to pieces by an angry mob in Somalia, Aidan retreats to his family's house in Kenya, where he discovers the Zanzibar chest containing the diaries of his father's best friend, Peter Davey, an Englishman who died under mysterious circumstances more than fifty years earlier. Tucking the papers under his arm, Hartley embarks on a journey to southern Arabia in an effort not only to unlock the secrets of Davey's life, but of his own. Travelling to the remote deserts where his father served as a British officer, Aidan begins to piece together the disparate elements of Davey's story, a man who fell in love with an Arabian woman and converted to Islam, but ultimately had to pay an exacting price. At once a modern and a historic love story, \"The Zanzibar Chest\" is also an epic narrative charting the fates of men and women who embraced and were ultimately transformed by foreign lands.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49516563333393,"sku":"GOR000962688","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49642649813265,"sku":"GOR002556001","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49642677502225,"sku":"GOR006371729","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0002570599.jpg?v=1750971853"},{"product_id":"zanzibar-chest-book-aidan-hartley-9780006531210","title":"The Zanzibar Chest","description":"A deeply affecting memoir of a childhood in Africa and the continent's horrendous wars, which Hartley witnessed at first hand as a journalist in the 1990s. Shortlisted for the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction, this is a masterpiece of autobiographical journalism.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49532941402385,"sku":"GOR001229841","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49727038783761,"sku":"NGR9780006531210","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50341965791505,"sku":"CIN0006531210G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50761245098257,"sku":"CIN0006531210VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50894888501521,"sku":"GOR010584794","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51848001978641,"sku":"GOR002508738","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52877624803601,"sku":"GOR001265188","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0006531210.jpg?v=1751445253"},{"product_id":"zanzibar-chest-book-aidan-hartley-9780802125859","title":"The Zanzibar Chest","description":"Combining literary reportage, memoir, family history, and a quest to piece together a decades-old mystery, \u003ci\u003eThe Zanzibar Chest\u003c\/i\u003e is a moving examination of colonialism and its consequences. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn his final days, Aidan Hartley's father said to him, We should have never come. Those words spoke of a colonial legacy that stretched back through four generations of one British family. From a great-great-grandfather who defended British settlements in nineteenth-century New Zealand, to his father, a colonial officer sent to Africa in the 1920s and who later returned to raise a family there--these were intrepid men who traveled to exotic lands to conquer, build, and bear witness. And there is Aidan, who becomes a journalist covering Africa in the 1990s, a decade marked by terror and genocide. After encountering the violence in Somalia, Uganda, and Rwanda, Aidan retreats to his family's house in Kenya where he discovers the Zanzibar chest his father left him. Intricately hand-carved, the chest contained the diaries of his father's best friend, Peter Davey, an Englishman who had died under obscure circumstances five decades before. With the papers as his guide, Hartley embarked on a journey not only to unlock the secrets of Davey's life, but his own.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49554071814417,"sku":"GOR013097627","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50367420694801,"sku":"CIN0802125859A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51007248728337,"sku":"NIN9780802125859","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51416381784337,"sku":"CIN0802125859VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51612308308241,"sku":"CIN0802125859G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0802125859.jpg?v=1750946129"},{"product_id":"paradise-of-thorns-book-aidan-hartley-9780008353964","title":"Paradise of Thorns","description":"From the Samuel Johnson Prize shortlisted author, a powerful literary memoir about life in rural Nairobi, one of the last true wildernesses of the world.                            Aidan Hartley grew up in Kenya, moving from farm to farm across Africa with his family. As an adult he moved to England to study, then became a war correspondent in Africa, and then, when he couldn't resist it any longer, a farmer in his own right.                Aidan's farm today sits in view of the Kenyan Mountain. His work is dosing sheep, dipping cattle, fixing machinery, responding to the night alarms of rustlers entering the valley on elephant raids. Living here, injury means relying on a manual called Where There is No Doctor, and the home medicine chest complete with blood coagulants for gunshot wounds.                Laikipia is a beautiful, wild place. Sometimes peaceful, and sometimes dangerous. It is also a landscape tragically at risk. Across the course of Aidan's life, the nature around him has changed. The wild hunting dog, cheetah, rhinos, elephants - even the giraffe and lion - face oblivion. Whole forests have been torn down. Kenya Mountain on the horizon is losing its tropical icefields - they will be gone in a handful of years.                Paradise of Thorns is a restlessly inventive literary memoir: the story of Aidan's departure from cities and the irresistible move back to his real home. It is part glorious testament to the extraordinary heart of rural Africa as a place which is fast becoming lost; part antidote to the false impressions imposed on the country over the years; and part adventure story of drug trade, cattle raids, gunfights, tragic losses, ambushes, posses and battles.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51201267302673,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51201271464209,"sku":"NGR9780008353964","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0008353964.jpg?v=1750736630"},{"product_id":"paradise-of-thorns-book-aidan-hartley-9780008353971","title":"Paradise of Thorns","description":"From the Samuel Johnson Prize shortlisted author, a powerful literary memoir about life in rural Nairobi, one of the last true wildernesses of the world.                            Aidan Hartley's family has always moved from farm to farm, propelled mostly across Africa, though once to Devon. Slowly, Aidan began to understand that his family's choice to live on farms was little to do with the business of agriculture. Their instinct and his inherited urge was to avoid other people and make a home in the lone, wild paradise. Farming became a state of mind, a fugitive one.                Now, Aidan has his own farm in view of the Kenyan Mountain. His work is dosing sheep, dipping cattle, fixing machinery, responding to the night alarms of rustlers entering the valley on elephant raids. Living here, injury means relying on a manual called Where There is No Doctor, and the home medicine chest complete with blood coagulants for gunshot wounds.                It is a landscape tragically at risk. Across the course of Aidan's life, before his eyes, the nature around him has changed. The wild hunting dog, cheetah, rhinos, elephants - even the giraffe and lion - face oblivion. Whole forests have been torn down. Kenya Mountain on the horizon is losing its tropical icefields - they will be gone in a handful of years.                Paradise of Thorns is a restlessly inventive literary memoir: the story of Aidan's departure from cities and the irresistible call that pulled him back to the wilds. It is part glorious testament to the extraordinary heart of rural Africa as a place which is fast becoming lost, part antidote to the chicanery written about the country over the centuries, and part adventure story of drug trade, cattle raids, gunfights, lost friends, ambushes, posses and battles.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51201268678929,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51201273823505,"sku":"NGR9780008353971","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0008353972.jpg?v=1751004406"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-aidan-hartley.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}