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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Shiwa House is a magnificent, dilapidated rural estate in Zambia: built in the early years of the 20th century and resembling an English ancestral home, it was "completely... out of place in this remote corner of the African bush," writes Lamb, a journalist and author of the highly praised Sewing Circles of Herat. Her narrative, spanning more than half of the 20th century, not only reconstructs Shiwa House's original glory but details the intimate world of its builder, the egotistical Sir Stewart Gore-Browne, whom President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia honored with a state funeral in 1967. Concentrating on the evolution of Gore-Browne's nostalgically conceived estate in a remote outpost of British colonial Northern Rhodesia, Lamb evokes the beauty of the unspoiled countryside, its teeming wildlife, Gore-Browne's love of hunting, his friendly relations with locals and his eccentric attempt to model his estate on that of his cherished Aunt Ethel in England. Lamb recounts Gore-Browne's romantic affections for his beautiful, older married aunt and his equally perverse marriage to the much younger daughter of an old flame; his largely unsuccessful political campaigns; and his unexpectedly wholehearted support of Zambian independence. The narrative is engaging and well crafted, although Lamb's attempts at dramatizing her subjects' emotional lives sometimes read like a romance novel, and her narrow focus on the house's history obscures the wider context of waning British empire. 16 pages of b&w photos, maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In what is now Zambia but what was then Northern Rhodesia, Sir Stewart Gore-Browne built Shiwa House in 1923, a gorgeous, sprawling English manor that employed hundreds. With scintillating prose and a vivid imagination, Lamb re-creates Gore-Browne's life from 1914 to 1967, and what a life it was: the struggles to make the estate support itself; Gore-Browne's inexhaustible love of Africa and his work for its people, shot through always with his unbending attitudes about class and place. And within this tall, monocled Englishman, there was such personal passion: he loved a woman whose daughter he later married because she so looked like her mother. The real love of his life, however, was his aunt, to whom he wrote almost daily for decades. It is those letters and his diary that enable Lamb to re-create menus, activities, weather, and upheavals in mesmerizing detail. Today's bloggers have nothing on this first white man to become a Zambian citizen as Lamb effortlessly weaves his words into her narrative to form an absolutely compelling tapestry. Black-and-white photographs not seen. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
Shiwa House is a magnificent, dilapidated rural estate in Zambia: built in the early years of the 20th century and resembling an English ancestral home, it was "completely... out of place in this remote corner of the African bush," writes Lamb, a journalist and author of the highly praised Sewing Circles of Herat. Her narrative, spanning more than half of the 20th century, not only reconstructs Shiwa House's original glory but details the intimate world of its builder, the egotistical Sir Stewart Gore-Browne, whom President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia honored with a state funeral in 1967. Concentrating on the evolution of Gore-Browne's nostalgically conceived estate in a remote outpost of British colonial Northern Rhodesia, Lamb evokes the beauty of the unspoiled countryside, its teeming wildlife, Gore-Browne's love of hunting, his friendly relations with locals and his eccentric attempt to model his estate on that of his cherished Aunt Ethel in England. Lamb recounts Gore-Browne's romantic affections for his beautiful, older married aunt and his equally perverse marriage to the much younger daughter of an old flame; his largely unsuccessful political campaigns; and his unexpectedly wholehearted support of Zambian independence. The narrative is engaging and well crafted, although Lamb's attempts at dramatizing her subjects' emotional lives sometimes read like a romance novel, and her narrow focus on the house's history obscures the wider context of waning British empire. 16 pages of b&w photos, maps.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In what is now Zambia but what was then Northern Rhodesia, Sir Stewart Gore-Browne built Shiwa House in 1923, a gorgeous, sprawling English manor that employed hundreds. With scintillating prose and a vivid imagination, Lamb re-creates Gore-Browne's life from 1914 to 1967, and what a life it was: the struggles to make the estate support itself; Gore-Browne's inexhaustible love of Africa and his work for its people, shot through always with his unbending attitudes about class and place. And within this tall, monocled Englishman, there was such personal passion: he loved a woman whose daughter he later married because she so looked like her mother. The real love of his life, however, was his aunt, to whom he wrote almost daily for decades. It is those letters and his diary that enable Lamb to re-create menus, activities, weather, and upheavals in mesmerizing detail. Today's bloggers have nothing on this first white man to become a Zambian citizen as Lamb effortlessly weaves his words into her narrative to form an absolutely compelling tapestry. Black-and-white photographs not seen. GraceAnne DeCandido
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
See all Editorial Reviews
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
It began as it would end, in the place he had always known he would find one day. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
royal crocodiles, lime oil, native interests Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Northern Rhodesia, Shiwa Ngandu, South Africa, Broken Hill, Bingham's Melcombe, Southern Rhodesia, Stewart Gore-Browne, Joe Savill, Lorna Katharine, Border Commission, Cape Town, Peter Mulemfwe, John Harvey, Central Africa, Harry Nkumbula, Imperial Airways, King George, Prime Minister, Shiwa House, Colonial Office, Gold Coast, Lady Vyvyan, Lubwa Mission, Union Jack, Captain Sheppard New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
It began as it would end, in the place he had always known he would find one day. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
royal crocodiles, lime oil, native interests Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Northern Rhodesia, Shiwa Ngandu, South Africa, Broken Hill, Bingham's Melcombe, Southern Rhodesia, Stewart Gore-Browne, Joe Savill, Lorna Katharine, Border Commission, Cape Town, Peter Mulemfwe, John Harvey, Central Africa, Harry Nkumbula, Imperial Airways, King George, Prime Minister, Shiwa House, Colonial Office, Gold Coast, Lady Vyvyan, Lubwa Mission, Union Jack, Captain Sheppard New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 22
books:
See all 22 books this book cites
7
books
cite this book:
See all 7 books citing this book
- Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone in Back Matter
- The Rise and Fall of the British Empire by Lawrence James in Back Matter
- Zambia Shall Be Free (African Writers Series) by Kenneth Kaunda on page 340
- Travels And Researches In South Africa by Dr. David Livingstone in Back Matter
- The Bride of Lammermoor (Oxford World's Classics) by Sir Walter Scott on page 280
See all 22 books this book cites
- Lonely Planet Zambia by David Else on page 6, and page 202
- The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan by Christina Lamb in Front Matter
- Kaunda's Gaoler: Memoirs of a District Officer in Northern Rhodesia and Zambia by E. Cyril Greenall in Back Matter
- Journalistas: 100 Years of the Best Writing and Reporting by Women Journalists by Eleanor Mills on page 203
- Capricorn: David Stirling's African Campaign by Richard Hughes in Back Matter
See all 7 books citing this book
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