Armchair Travel Book Club

Join us on Zoom (Meeting ID: 893 4439 0868) as we continue our journey around the world. This month, we're back to Africa with British journalist Tim Butcher to take on the Congo as we discuss his book Blood River: The Terrifying Journey through the World’s Most Dangerous Country.

About the book: "A British journalist retraces the legendary 1874 expedition of H. M. Stanley in this "remarkable marriage of travelogue and history" (Max Hastings, author of Armageddon).

When Daily Telegraph correspondent Tim Butcher was sent to Africa in 2000, he quickly became obsessed with the Congo River and the idea of recreating H. M. Stanley's nineteenth-century journey along the nearly three-thousand-mile waterway. Despite repeated warnings that his plan was suicidal, Butcher set out for the Congo's eastern border with just a backpack and a few thousand dollars hidden in his boots.

Making his way in an assortment of vehicles, including a motorbike and a dugout canoe, helped along by a cast of characters from UN aid workers to a pygmy rights advocate, he follows in the footsteps of the great Victorian adventurer. Butcher's forty-four-day journey along the Congo River is an unforgettable story of exploration, survival, and history come to life."