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Adventure Book Club - August 2020

Updated: Dec 12, 2020

Keep yourself entertained between Adventure Breaks with our book and film recommendations! This page may have affiliate links which will direct you to the relevant product. These are adventure and survival stories that we think will entertain and inspire you. Welcome to the Adventure Book (and Film) Club!



You can find a copy of Gorillas in the Mist here.

In December 1966, Dian Fossey arrives in Nairobi, Kenya, to begin a long term study of mountain gorillas. She travels by Land Rover to The Congo, where she starts her research in early 1967. in July of the same year, Fossey is arrested and improsoned for a number of weeks by soilders as part of a coup in The Congo. She relocates to a new location in Rwanda, where she became known by locals as Nyirmachabelli, meaning "The woman who lives alone on the mountain".


Fossey develops bonds with the gorillas; mimicing their noises and behaviours as she is slowly accepted by them.


Fossey lives near and studies the gorillas for years, but ultimately sees some of those closest to her fall victim to poaching. This includes her favourite gorilla, Digit, who was sadly killed on New Year's Eve 1977. In four months in 1979, she and her team destroy almost 1,000 poacher's traps set to capture gorillas.


In the early morning of December 27, 1985, Fossey was discovered murdered in the bedroom of her cabin located at the far edge of the camp. It was stated that the cabin had been ransacked. However, Fossey's valuables were still in the cabin, including her passport, handguns, and thousands of dollars in U.S. bills and traveler's cheques. Her last diary entry read:


"When you realize the value of all life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future."


Fossey is buried in a cemetary in Rwanda that she created for deceased gorillas. She was buried next to Digit, and many other of her gorilla friends killed by poachers.


One of the suggested motives for Fossey's murder, made by the Rwandan courts, was to steal the manuscript of the sequel to her 1983 book, Gorillas in the Mist.


Did you know: the word Gorilla is derived from Greek meaning 'wild, hairy people'!


You can find Gorillas in the Mist here.


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