WORDS by CHRISTIE FYNN MORGAN

13 Must-Read Books about Kenya’s Notorious Happy Valley

We recently asked our Instagram followers to recommend any must-read books about the notorious Happy Valley set in Kenya. (The Happy Valley set was a group of hedonistic, largely British and Anglo-Irish aristocrats and adventurers who settled in the “Happy Valley” region in Kenya between the 1920s and the 1940s. In the 1930s, the group became infamous for its decadent lifestyles and exploits amid reports of drug use and sexual promiscuity. Source)

Enjoy the best stories in the Happy Valley, Kenya.

If you’ve got a favourite book to add to this list, please comment below this post and we’ll add it to our compilation.

Totally bizarre and wildly mysterious, here is the list, recommended by our readers:

	*White Mischief* by James Fox Just before 3am on January 24th, 1941, when Britain was preoccupied with surviving the Blitz, the body of Josslyn Hay, Earl of Erroll, was discovered lying on the floor of his Buick, at a road intersection some miles outside Nairobi, with a bullet in his head. amazon.com
	*The Bolter* by Frances Osborne In an age of bolters—women who broke the rules and fled their marriages—Idina Sackville was the most celebrated of them all. Her relentless affairs, wild sex parties, and brazen flaunting of convention shocked high society and inspired countless writers and artists, from Nancy Mitford to Greta Garbo. But Idina’s compelling charm masked the pain of betrayal and heartbreak. An incredible story based in the Happy Valley of Kenya amazon.com
	*The Ghosts of Happy Valley* by Juliet Barnes In a remarkable and indefatigable archaeological quest, Juliet Barnes, who has lived in Kenya all her life and whose grandparents knew some of the Happy Valley characters, has set out to explore Happy Valley to find the former homes and haunts of this extraordinary and transient set of people. amazon.com
	*Circling the Sun* by Paula McLain This powerful novel transports readers to the breathtaking world of “Out of Africa” 1920s Kenya revealing the extraordinary adventures of Beryl Markham, a woman before her time. Brought to Kenya from England by pioneering parents dreaming of a new life on an African farm, Beryl is raised unconventionally, developing fierce will and a love of all things wild. But after everything she knows and rusts dissolves, headstrong young Beryl is flung into a string of disastrous relationships and becomes caught up in a passionate love triangle with the irresistible safari hunter Denys Finch Hatton and the writer Baroness Karen Blixen. amazon.com
	*West with the Night: A Memoir* by Beryl Markham Beryl Markham and her father moved to Kenya when she was a girl, and she grew up with a zebra for a pet; horses for friends; baboons, lions, and gazelles for neighbors. She made money by scouting elephants from a tiny plane. And she would spend most of the rest of her life in East Africa as an adventurer, a racehorse trainer, and an aviatrix. Hers was indisputably a life full of adventure and beauty. amazon.com
	*Too Close to the Sun* by Sara Wheeler A champion of Africa, legendary for his good looks, his charm, and his prowess as a soldier, lover, and hunter, Denys Finch Hatton inspired Karen Blixen to write the unforgettable Out of Africa. Now esteemed British biographer Sara Wheeler tells the truth about this extraordinarily charismatic adventurer. amazon.com
	*The Flame Trees of Thika* by Elspeth Huxley In an open cart Elspeth Huxley set off with her parents to travel to Thika in Kenya. As pioneering settlers, they built a house of grass, ate off a damask cloth spread over packing cases, and discovered—the hard way—the world of the African. With an extraordinary gift for detail and a keen sense of humor, Huxley recalls her childhood on the small farm at a time when Europeans waged their fortunes on a land that was as harsh as it was beautiful. For a young girl, it was a time of adventure and freedom, and Huxley paints an unforgettable portrait of growing up among the Masai and Kikuyu people, discovering both the beauty and the terrors of the jungle, and enduring the rugged realities of the pioneer life. amazon.com
	*The Life and Death of Lord Erroll* by Errol Trzebinski The definitive solving of the mystery surrounding the murder of the most talked-about and glamorous member of Kenya’s notorious Happy Valley set. amazon.com
	*The Temptress* by Paul Spicer A glamorous American multimillionairess, Alice de Janzé scandalized 1920s Paris when she left her aristocratic French husband for an English lover―whom she later tried to kill in a failed murder-suicide. Abandoning Paris for the moneyed British colonial society known as Kenya’s Happy Valley, she became the lover of womanizer Joss Hay, Lord Erroll. In 1941, Erroll was shot in his car on an isolated road. The crime remained unsolved. amazon.com

	*Child of The Happy Valley* by Juanita Carberry Juanita Carberry spent her childhood in the 1920s and 1930s on a beautiful Kenyan coffee farm in the Happy Valley. For this was the White Mischief era, when parents were busy partying and children lived their own hidden lives. But children cannot hide for ever. There was school to attend in Europe and later South Africa, a different establishment each year, where she struggled to speak English instead of Swahili. At fifteen Juanita became involved in the Lord Erroll affair: she is the only person to whom Delves Broughton confessed to the murder of Lord Erroll. amazon.com
	*For Love of Soysambu* by Juliet Barnes This dramatic story spans 122 years and highlights challenges faced by four generations of an initially British aristocratic family in Kenya, with Soysambu in the Great Rift Valley as its central focus. The saga begins in 1897 with the arrival of the Hon. Hugh Cholmondeley, who walked over 1,000 kilometres into East Africa from Berbera. In 1902, after inheriting his title of 3rd Baron Delamere, he abandoned his grand Cheshire family home, Vale Royal, for a grass and mud hut in East Africa, where he befriended local Maasai and gradually built up a formidable reputation as a leading politician and pioneer. amazon.com
	*The Man Whom Women Loved* by Ulf Aschan Bror Blixen’s godson, a Kenya hunter, presents an in-depth portrait of his godfather, the renowned safari hunter whose mythic passions for women and adventure attracted Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) and Beryl Markham and inspired Ernest Hemingway in Kenya’s Happy Valley. amazon.com
	*Out of Africa* by Karen Blixen Danish countess Karen Blixon, known as Isak Dineson, ran a coffee plantation in Kenya in the years when Africa remained a romantic and formidable continent to most Europeans. Out of Africa is her account of her life there, with stories of her respectful relationships with the Masai, Kikuyu, and Somali natives who work on her land; the European friends who visit her; and the imposing permanence of the wild, high land itself. amazon.com


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