Each African country is unique and, chapter by chapter, this book introduces each one. There are tales of cults and commerce in Senegal; an analysis of the impact of oil and the internet on Nigeria; there is an in-depth probing into what has gone so badly wrong in Zimbabwe, Rwanda and the Congo. And from the individual stories comes a surprising portrait of a new Africa emerging: self confident, middle-class, professional.

Dowden is Britain’s finest living Africa correspondent. Over a period of 35 years, he has been present at each of the continent’s major crises, and has witnessed the warmth, wisdom and joy of the people. What Dowden has seen and experienced there has transformed who he is and everything he believes in; Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles enables us to see and understand this miraculous place in a new light too.

Richard Dowden is director of the Royal African Society. He spent a decade as Africa Editor of the Independent, and a decade as Africa Editor of the Economist.

The Wizard of the Nile
Matthew Green, Portobello Books, soft cover, 335 pages £7.99
The Wizard of the Nile is Matthew Green’s account of his search for Africa’s most wanted war criminal, General Joseph Kony.

For decades Kony has been waging a senseless war, abducting children to fight for him and escaping capture by both the Ugandan government and the International Court of Human Rights.

The only photo that exists of Kony was taken 20 years ago. It presents him as a romantic young rebel and has been reprinted to such an extent that it’s as if the man has never aged.

Captivated by the myths that surround this infamous and elusive general, Green heads into a war zone to try and track him down. He travels through a landscape littered with refugees and teenage war veterans, international peacemakers, government officials, witch doctors and missionaries.

As he searches, he turns up the personal stories that lie behind the surface of Kony’s war, the forgotten voices of its victims and its perpetrators.

Travelling further in pursuit on the Kony myth, he peels back the layers of the mysticism to unveil the truth behind the man…and to tell the gripping human story behind an inhumane war.

Matthew Green spent four years in East Africa as a reporter for Reuters.

Wild Honey
Bookey Peek, Little Books, soft cover, 290 pages £8.99
With a touching mixture of humour and pathos, Bookey Peek picks up again the story of Poombi, the warthog who featured so strongly in her first book, All the Way Home, and introduces us to Badge, the utterly charming honey badger who took over her home and family. The setting is Stone Hills, a wildlife sanctuary and safari lodge in the heart of Zimbabwe.

Books on Africa and animals are often too sentimental; this one isn’t. Bookey and Richard Peek are both professional safari guides who’ve managed to transform a degraded cattle ranch into a wildlife sanctuary in Zimbabwe’s Matobo Hills. Bookey has brought up her family against the uncertain background of politics in this troubled nation, which injects a certain edge into her memoir of an extraordinary life in difficult circumstances. This book offers an insight into the compromises, heartbreaks and drama that are the ingredients of living in Zimbabwe today.

Through Zimbabwe’s darkest days, Stone Hills has become a world in itself, a place where you might share your shower with an owl, or your bed with a baby squirrel, where crocodiles are named after popular guests.

After an idyllic childhood in the Bvumba Mountains and ten years spent travelling the world, Bookey became a lawyer, a profession she was only too happy to leave for a life in the bush. She has since won awards for her travel writing.