DNF=Did Not Finish.
I read more than 200 pages of this 300 page travelogue/history of Saharan Africa, but for many of those 200 pages I skimmed rather than read carefully. I just couldn’t get engaged in reading about the history and cultures of the Saharan desert in this book. The organization of the book was confusing: not chronological, not geographical, not anything else as far as I could see. There were some interesting factoids here and there, but otherwise the style and content were bewildering and forgettable.
“Salt was profitable, gold was more profitable still, but no commodity was more abundant and profitable than slaves, and slavery was always a mainstay of Saharan commerce.”
“It is considered polite among the Tuareg to occasionally interrupt a conversation by bowing and asking, ‘How are you?’ without in any way expecting an answer.”
“The Tuareg differ even more fundamentally from orthodox Arab societies in their treatment of women. The most obvious symbol of the difference is that Tuareg men are veiled, but the women are not. Tuareg women can divorce their husbands without difficulty, while for a husband, divorce is hedged around with so many restrictions as to be practically impossible.”
“. . . mirages are not always false. Sometimes only the sense of distance, the perspective, is wrong. Because of it, bushes can seem like trees, grasses like a waving forest, rocks like mountains—and sometimes they are seen upside down.”