African Adventures

A long time ago, I promised that if I heard that any of the books I released into the wild with Bookcrossing had an exciting adventure, then I would let you know.

Well, it appears that the very first book I ever released did go on quite a journey.

Back in February 2010, I left a copy of Ian McEwan’s Atonement in Café Africa. Café Africa is a really cool coffee shop in Amersham that was set up as a not-for-profit venture supporting charities locally and in Africa, so it seemed like exactly the sort of place to send my first book on its way. But it was only quite recently that I found out just how right I was.

The book was picked up by Katie, who works at Café Africa when she is home from university. As it happened, Katie was spending April-September 2010 in Tanzania, working as a teacher in central Dodoma and helping with a child sponsorship program, trying to reach out to the poorest families in the village and helping to fund their children into full time education. And she decided to take my book with her.

Part way through her stay, having read the book, she was having a bit of R&R in Dar es Salaam when she met a German woman who was travelling on to Zanzibar the next day and wanted a book to read on the beach. So now we know the book went from Amersham to Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar.

Unfortunately, the woman who took the book to Zanzibar never journalled it, so we have no idea what happened to it next. But Atonement certainly had a good start on its travels!

What’s more, Katie is travelling back to Tanzania this summer and has promised to take another book with her. So watch this space.