Circling the Sun

What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.

What this book is about

Beryl Markham grew up in Kenya in the early 1900s — raised partly by Nandi boys after her mother left, trained as a horse racer by her father. She fell in love with flight, and eventually became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. Paula McLain's biographical novel follows Beryl through her complicated relationships, her passion for horses and aviation, and the specific freedom she found in a continent that allowed her to live outside the rules designed for women. Rich in the texture of colonial Kenya, though the novel does not flinch from the colonialism itself.