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Brazzaville Beach | 
| Author: William Boyd
Publisher: Penguin
Category: Book
List Price: £4.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £4.98 (100%)
New (30) Used (148) Collectible (3) from £0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 12568
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 1.3
ISBN: 014014658X
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140146585
ASIN: 014014658X
Publication Date: October 31, 1991
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: USED BOOK, COMPLETE AND READABLE BUT ONLY ACCEPTABLE CONDITION, SUPER FAST DELIVERY, DISPATCHED WITHIN 24 HOURS FROM UK!!!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Just Great! December 2, 2008
I found this book by accident, but it is now firmly on my list of modern classics. Quite simply (although it's far from a simple book!)it tells the story of a woman, Hope Clearwater, and explains by a series of stories from her past, how she has got where she is today. There is a large tranche of the story dealing with her primate studies in an un-named African country (Angola?)and her discovery of some surprising and disturbing behaviour by the Chimps. These bits are fascinating in themslves, but the allegorical and interwoven qualities of the plot as a whole allow for some fairly deep self-rflection if that is what you are after. I so highly recommend this book. If you don't like the sound of it from our reviews, it's because our reviews are rubbish!!!
out here on the perimeter we is imaculate May 9, 2008
This came out when we worked in Nigeria in the late 80s early 90s. It got around the VSOs and the conservation people, we read it brown and furred. It was the description of the pilot who nicked the jets - I've met that guy. And the last page on Plato's unexamined life. That and the insights into the bitchy politics of the ape world - the monkey people found it was a bit too close to the bone and wondered which outfit he'd worked with. Gombe stream or Mahale? But it stuck - the name Hope Clearwater is wonderful and back in Sussex or Bedfordshire we knew what she faced. Sure he's been there, he has the sounds of Africa. This book is an old friend. It leans in and smiles, Ehhh and gives a funny handshake.
Do read it! May 3, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Brazzaville beach manages to be very clever and very accessible at the same time. It also reads like a thriller at times and the readers find themselves turning page after page, eager to reach the end and understand what is so wrong in monkeys' land.The part of the story that is set in England is more slowly-paced but doesn't slow the book down too much and is there for a reason. It is cleverly interwoven with the African part and the whole book makes great fiction.
 Disjointed but entertaining December 14, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I picked this book up in great anticipation as a huge William Boyd fan. Whilst I did enjoy the book I did feel it was a little disjointed. The book looks at three periods of Hope Clearwater's life and they are handled quite separately. I did not like the fact that you knew where the character ended up right from the start but there were so many twists and turns that by the end of the novel it really didn't matter. I found the whole thing a little disjoined but the individual stories were compelling so though the whole was a little dissatisfying the book did keep me entertained. The book does have it disturbing moments but I would certainly recommend it to anyone.
 Am I missing something? January 20, 2007
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
I don't quite get it. This book was either way cleverer than me, or it was trying to be and missed. Don't get me wrong. Hope Clearwater's tale kept me turning the pages, but somewhere along the line I was expecting the parallels between the chimp and human kingdom, or the quest for the Holy Grail of Catastrophe and Chaos Theory to be writ large for us casual students to observe. For me, they weren't, but both tales contained within this book seemed to work, and I wanted to find out what happened to lead Hope to live a lonely exitence in a tropical locale. Boyd has created a character that is worth caring about - not without her faults and foibles, admittedly - but even her shock actions near the end of the tale are believable, if somewhat rushed. It just felt like Boyd had run out of steam and purpose 2/3 of the way through, but despite that, well worth a few hours in the company of our sister race.
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