Bush town Blues - A 70s African Tale Book 1: A 70s African Tale: 1 (70s African Tales)

This is the most evocative account of teenage love and rejection I've ever read. Nina Jones manages to transport you right back to that place which is still etched in your memory: the egocentric, headiness of love and flights of fancy where everything else fades into irrelevance and mediocrity - and the tangible, gut-wrenching implosion on the realisation that suddenly, on the turn of a sixpence, it's all gone and your life is over - at 18.

But I found the setting for the story equally as captivating, as will many travellers, I think, who like to get off the beaten track: the book takes you through the bushlands of Northern Nigeria with all its contrasts, arid, lush, beautiful, squalid - and it's a moment in (newly) post-colonial history that will never be repeated. The frequent references to all the songs I was playing on my little turntable back in my student digs in the early 70s - Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Pink Floyd and all the rest - is another little slice of unforgettable times. `Hideous Kinky' style, it would make a great film!! The book is a real page turner and it's one of those stories that is so convincing, so honest and so reminiscent of my own ups and downs at that age, that it will stay with me always.

For anyone who has ever been in love... (0/0 people found this helpful)

I don't normally have the time to read much unless I am on holiday, but a friend gave me this book and I don't have any holidays coming up....I started reading it and immediately got sucked in to Janni's world. Nina Jones plays on all of our insecurities with the character, boldly facing up to things we might not like to admit about ourselves but they are a part of us. The best bit about the book is the vivid description of surroundings, I have never been to Africa but it came alive on the page - sights, smells etc like I was there myself. It's beautiful, powerful and makes sense to anyone who has had the fist flush of love. I'm going to start Vol 2!

Refreshing honesty and humour (0/0 people found this helpful)

I loved both books. One couldn't be read without the other as they are packed with details about characters and places . These characters are steadily built up in the reader's imagination to the point at which the reader is also with the author. The books are packed with stories of a repetitive nature . The characters, countryside, music and era were portrayed sometimes with alarming honesty. The author was clearly very funny and observant but with a desperate desire to belong, to be included, understood and loved . I wondered all the way through the books how they would end and was not disappointed

Painful Memories of Teenage Love (0/0 people found this helpful)

What a fantastic read! - It brought back all those painful memories of being a teenager in love. If you have a teenager and you are trying to understand how they feel, read this.
Nina's description of life in the '70's era took me back there all over again. Her tales of life in the African bush are so vivid that I felt I was there.

funny painful nostalgic (0/0 people found this helpful)

I found reading this book made me laugh out loud , the angst of being 18 grown up, but not really and the naivety of being a child of the seventies; and the full on way we embraced hippydom and every thing that went with it rang very true.
I loved the depiction of colonial life from a distinctly different perspective i shall without doubt be reading part two !
Karen Miller

Bush town Blues - A 70s African Tale Book 1: A 70s African Tale: 1 (70s African Tales)

Nina Jones

Reader Reviews:

Funny, emotional and embarrassingly honest - a great read (0/0 people found this helpful)

For anyone who has ever been in love... (0/0 people found this helpful)

Refreshing honesty and humour (0/0 people found this helpful)

Painful Memories of Teenage Love (0/0 people found this helpful)

funny painful nostalgic (0/0 people found this helpful)

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