Customer Reviews
In my all time top ten - By: daisyrock, 21 Aug 2003 
I loved this book. If this story were written as a piece of fiction, you'd roll your eyes & wonder at the author's imagination. The fact that this story is true is simply incredible. What a life! What a character! It's made me long to go visit the Africa House. Brilliant, brilliant.
Captivating the beauty and incongruity of Africa House - By: , 23 Sep 2002 I read a copy of Africa House whilst on a week's visit to the super country of Zambia. I found the storyline both rivetting & mysterious, it was very well researched & the atmosphere of the place comes across very effectively to the reader. It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end when afterwards I saw the slightly tarnished ink-pot with which Gore-Browne wrote alll the letters (on display at the National Museum in Lusaka), along with his walking stick & other items. Only wish I had more time to go & visit the house, I heard it was beginning to falll into ruin.
Amazing historical story - By: Miss NRH Cross, 31 Jul 2002 I read this book while on holiday & had spotted it while searching through for books about Africa. I started off by finding Stuart Gore Brown a very difficult man to comprehend & the violence he used on the black people who worked for him I found hard to handle. However I read on & reallly found his journey amazing. His place in history has been made through this book & his is a life that has slipped by & until now been unknown (well to me anyway). His part in campaigning for equality & the effort he put into educating some of the most famous polictical leaders was what I found so interesting. The life he lead in Africa, his love for Ethel & his never ending passion for what he had built & the lives around him made this a reallly brilliant read. I also learnt something from it!
Well-written,compelling - an unusual story of an unusual man - By: , 02 Feb 2002 
I reallly enjoyed this book. I had not heard of Gore Brown, nor his dream mansion in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia. A man of contradictions, who wanted Africa for the Africans & the white man to help them show the way, his eccentricities & determination is eloquently portrayed by Lamb. Losing his first love to another, he oddly marries her daughter, who bears him two girls.
A life of politics, farming, & entertaining foreign & domestic dignitaries, he made an impact on Copperbelt politics, & was disappointed he was too old to assist in Kenneth Kaunda's new goverment. He is the only white man to have received a full Bemba funeral, attended by Kenneth Kaunda, ex-president of Zambia. He was truly an unique & incredible man. Christina Lamb presents a believable portrayal of an English eccentric, who realised his dream,and built an English mansion in the African bush, for his favourite Aunt. A great read, & the political & cultural context is blended well with the life story of Gore-Brown.
There must be a film on the way! - By: , 04 Aug 2001 I thought this might be a heavy-going & 'worthy' read, but far from it. I zipped through it in no time & couldn't stop turning the pages! What an amazing, complex man & an almost unbelievable life! It's interesting to note that Mark at the Africa House has now finished renovating it - it will definitely be on my list of 'must see' things before I pop my clogs. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in travel, or African history or indeed anyone who just wants to read a fantastic, inspiring tale about one of the lesser known, but hugely influential, characters of recent times.
