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Marie Javins

Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik: One Woman's Solo Misadventures Across Africa Paperback – September 1, 2006

by Marie Javins (Author)

3.9 29 ratings

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Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik is a spirited African adventure of a solo woman traveler whose overland excursion across the continent includes challenges, inevitable mishaps, and more than a few debacles.

Author and world traveler Marie Javins is an unflappable narrator, who takes even the most bizarre and patience-trying situations with a dose of good humor. Javins fell in love with Africa when she traversed the continent in 2001 as part of a larger world tour. She later returned to spend half of 2005 revisiting the people and places that had so impacted her on her first trip. Javins was struck not by the desperation of Africa, but by its hope — the dignity of its people, the vibrancy of its cities, and the inherent adventure that is inherent it offered.

Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik is a funny and compassionate account of the sort of lively and heedless undertaking that could only happen in Africa. Javins's brushes with wildlife are punctuated with more serious dilemmas. Through it all, Javins's experience of Africa is life-altering, and her witty observations make for the best kind of travel literature which takes its readers into the heart and soul of the continent.

Print length

288 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Seal Press
Publication date

September 1, 2006
Dimensions

5.5 x 1 x 7.75 inches
ISBN-10

1580051642
ISBN-13

978-1580051644
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Seal Press (September 1, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1580051642
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1580051644
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 7.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,333,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,041 in Solo Travel Guides
- #2,781 in General Africa Travel Books
- #13,068 in Travelogues & Travel Essays

Customer Reviews:
3.9 29 ratings

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About the author

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Marie Javins

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Marie is a writer, comic book creator, traveler, and blogger who alternates between roaming the planet by public bus, overseeing the output of a Kuwait-based superhero comic book company as editor in chief, and writing books entirely unrelated to her day job. In 2001, she circumnavigated the world by surface transport live on MariesWorldTour.com. In 2011, she did it again, but in reverse, this time allowing herself the use of airplanes.

Javins has written four books, coauthored two more, and updated a sixth. She has also contributed to several anthologies and travel websites. Her Wander Woman blog appears on Sundays on the UK's Wanderlust magazine's website. http://www.wanderlust.co.uk/magazine/contributor/wander-woman

Known for her acclaimed work as an editor and colorist at Marvel Comics during the nineties, Javins has also edited for Scholastic, Radical, and colored Disney comic books for Gemstone Comics. She's been involved in several independent publishing ventures and teaches digital coloring at New York's School of Visual Arts. Javins is a partner in Botfriend, a graphic novel packaging partnership with writer/editor Stuart Moore.

Originally from Northern Virginia, Javins considers herself a New Yorker but has lived in Australia, Barcelona, Uganda, Namibia, New Jersey, Kuwait, and Cairo since the last time she called Manhattan home. She can say "hello," "thank you," and "how much" in seven languages.

www.MarieJavins.com

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5

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Amanda Castleman

Fun, funny and brilliant

Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2006

Verified Purchase

Marie Javins presents a clear, honest view of an overland journey across Africa (guess what, kids? Sometimes it ain't postcard perfect...). Throughout it all, her wry wit and wisdom keep the narrative spinning along deftly. "Dik-dik" is a striking and lovely book, one I recommend to my travel writing students and tourists alike. I've pushed this book on dozens of people now and have heard only raves back. Bravo, Ms Javins.

4 people found this helpful

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A. M. Lehman

Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik: One Woman's Solo Misadventures Across Africa

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2009

Verified Purchase

This is definitely light-hearted, fun reading. If you're looking for entertainment with a touch of the exotic, you'll enjoy this humorous journalistic account of Marie Jarvins' independent travels through Africa.

One person found this helpful

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MKMD

Africa adventure

Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2010

Verified Purchase

Really fun reading & also provides interesting historical backgrounds to the countries she goes through. It would be even better w/ more historical info, such as colonial powers & how these nations' boundaries were formed- a little lacking on details of Zimbabwe's precipitous fall off the tourist map.

2 people found this helpful

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andrew bolger

Really great book, i even reached out to the author ...

Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2015

Verified Purchase

Really great book, i even reached out to the author with some questions about her adventure and she got back to me on it! Shes really cool

2 people found this helpful

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Robert Garlitz

How It Is There

Reviewed in the United States on July 1, 2008

Finished Marie Javins' Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik. Liked it in spite of myself, even though at first you think it is not that good. Then you realize that it IS good, really good. She is no Paul Theroux, nor is she trying to be. And that is all to her credit. She traveled up through Africa. He went Cairo to Capetown, she the reverse. Extremely different travels and travelers. She did things he would never be caught dead doing, like joining up with safari groups. As much as I liked his book a great deal, I liked hers as much precisely because she gives you all the personal and cultural detail out of the corner of her eyes. Her eyes are great. She complains a lot about things and yet that helps make us there with her. This IS what travel is like. She is good company. You would love to talk with her, meet her. A lot of people can complain and be terrible company. And she does not go back and rifle through books to flesh out her rants and observations. Rather she crisply and curtly describes the people and the hassles. And the tedium. Remarkable how well she writes about that. She is every bit as experienced as Theroux but not out to write a book. She is about moving along, seeing some things but not interested in making a big deal. She's not out to force grand ideas down our throats. As a result, her book conveys great vitality, the life of all those she meets. She did post her trip on an ongoing website, still up. So she got her immediate audience there. Big generational difference. Later when she wrote this book she had the site and the immediate responses and could draw on all that and recompose her narrative from that base. Her book is a sharp account of hard travels through Africa at the end of her year of touring the world & she writes with economy and clarity, & no sentimentality in spite of 9/11 happening in the middle of her trip when she is on the Muslim island of Zanzibar. And maybe her book will become after all a literary gem because of all of this. Ten times better than, say, Robin Davison's camel walk across Australia, Tracks. Better as a book. Javins can write. Davison cannot. Javins is mightily experienced at travel and this gives her a practical sense of scope and detail and perspective. She keeps it clipped and paced & you get a great sense of what this sort of trekking and traveling is like for the tough and sensitive souls who can do it. Reminds me so much of Tamminnee Taylor, the Australian young woman who traveled for over five years all over the world.

4 people found this helpful

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Kerri K.

Self-indulgent, self-centered, and very disappointing

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2015

Obvious faults: No map! No sketches! No photos! Less obvious is that the book revolves around the writer and her complaining about "hardship" rather than about the places and people of Africa. By the end, one is frankly tired of the writer's self-centeredness and ignorance (and disinterest!) about other people and places. Sadly, attitudes often seen in New Yorkers. The book is a pastepot from the writer's blogging during her trip, and appears never to have seen a fact editor or a content editor. Among the slop that any editor would have caught is the author's policy of referring to African foods without ever describing them and failing to supply interesting factual info throughout. Eg., she talks about natives making a fire without matches but doesn't give a clue how! She also shows her ignorance in many technical matters. Eg., she constantly refers to their guards as having "semiautomatic weapons" when they actually have true assault rifles. Also surprising is that the author's route would have shown her many examples of the harm done by the U.N., but she never mentions any of the U.N.'s ill-advised and corrupt activities.

Had this journey been chronicled by someone with more interest in people and places other than her own, it would have been marvelous. As it is, though, it fails as a travel book and the author, despite her writing skill and occasional wit, comes off as an unpleasant and selfish person.

Oh, yeah...why no photos or even a map? What's up with that?

For a fascinating travel book with much more character see "Adventure Capitalist." For a book about a fascinating man with a little of travel accounts, see "A Curious Man" about "Ripley" of Ripley's Believe it or Not.

3 people found this helpful

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