Facing the Congo - Softcover

"Captivating and wonderfully suspenseful." --Alison Humes, Features Editor, Conde Nast Traveler

"In Facing the Congo Tayler portrays the people, landscapes, and dilemmas he encounters with a vividness that has stayed with me long after I put the book down. The life-and-death challenges he confronts and overcomes--and the stripped-to-the-bone humanity with which he confronts them--are epic and epically moving." --Don George, travel editor, Salon.com

"Tayler goes off the beaten path to give us a much deeper version of the truth, whether along the Congo River or in Siberian flophouses. And unlike so many other gonzo travel writers, he is not politically naive." --Robert D. Kaplan, correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly and author of An Empire Wilderness and Balkan Ghosts.

"Reminiscent of Paul Theroux, adventurer-writer Tayler [has] a style that is both exciting and humorous. His subject, the Congo River, soon becomes a metaphor for his own personal search. A great effort and a highly enjoyable read." --Roger Cossack, CNN legal analyst

"Tayler is the journalistic equivalent of one of those highly charged particles that scientists fire through mysterious substances in order to determine their qualities. On his travels through the world's little-visited and poorly understood regions, Tayler picks up all sorts of crucial trace elements and then brings them home in his writing with eloquence and wit." --Toby Lester, executive editor of nonfiction for DoubleTake