Rating: 
Summary: breathtaking, unforgettable.
Review: This book is a real literary treasure. I read it first as a teenager. It astonished me then, with its unique portrayal of Africa. Who could fail to love the African wilderness and its diverse people after reading The Flame Trees of Thika?! Africa seen through Huxley's youthful eyes is given a magical quality I have never again encountered (though BBC came close to portraying it in their rendition of this book). And it continues to astonish me now, twenty years later (oh dear, I have dated myself). The spectacular visual imagery from that book are a treasured keepsake, and the book itself is nothing less than a 20th Century masterpiece. It is a priceless gem and well worth the cost.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful observations of a young girl in Africa
Review: This book is on the same sort of rank and the same genre as Out of Africa. A literary autobiography set in Kenya during an uncertain and enterprising colonial era before the First World War.It's strongest elements include a deep sensitivity to the travails of animal life up against white hunters and farmers, very full accounts of the Kikuyu people and their rivalries with other Africans and it also paints a vivid portrait of pioneering planters and their servants in the shadow of the Great War. The vantage of the book is greater than that of Out of Africa by Blixen being a less personal tale. it is a faithful, sometimes harrowing tale culled from an excellent store of memories representing times and scenes gone by. Huxley is not short on romance and tragedy. This book is an ideal companion to those interested in the British Empire and African anthropology. For naturalists it provides breathtaking accounts of white hunters and their quarry as a retrospective commentary on man's abuse of Africa's wild heritage. Huxley writes quietly, sensitively and impartially providing philosophic insights in a heuristic and magical narrative. Always compelling, this is an important primary text.
Rating:
Summary: Embers from the age of empire
Review: This book is on the same sort of rank and the same genre as Out of Africa. A literary autobiography set in Kenya during an uncertain and enterprising colonial era before the First World War. It's strongest elements include a deep sensitivity to the travails of animal life up against white hunters and farmers, very full accounts of the Kikuyu people and their rivalries with other Africans and it also paints a vivid portrait of pioneering planters and their servants in the shadow of the Great War. The vantage of the book is greater than that of Out of Africa by Blixen being a less personal tale. it is a faithful, sometimes harrowing tale culled from an excellent store of memories representing times and scenes gone by. Huxley is not short on romance and tragedy. This book is an ideal companion to those interested in the British Empire and African anthropology. For naturalists it provides breathtaking accounts of white hunters and their quarry as a retrospective commentary on man's abuse of Africa's wild heritage. Huxley writes quietly, sensitively and impartially providing philosophic insights in a heuristic and magical narrative. Always compelling, this is an important primary text.
Rating:
Summary: Young girl's memories of growing up in colonial East Africa
Review: This lovely tale provides the adult and the youth with a view of colonial East Africa (Kenya) that is refreshing. The book is the equivalent of _Little House on the Prarie_ set in East Africa.
Rating: 
Summary: PONDEROUS
Review: Unfortunately this book is boring despite the potential that the author could have made with the subject material. Ponderous writing, verbose with attention given to detail which only weighs down the narrative. The reader tends to lose the flow because of the minute detail in some sections. Flat and uninteresting.
Rating:
Summary: I've read it 3 times (once aloud) and seen the movie twice
Review: What a wonderful book, a wonderful writer, a wonderful world, at least from the child's point of view. Growing up in Kenya, the only child of would-be coffee plantation owners among the Kikuyu tribesmen, Elspeth Huxley comes of age is an unimaginable world which comes to an abrupt end as war begins.
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