I began this blog post thinking I could name ten books, I would recommend to anyone wanting to glean something more – insight – honest, entertaining and well articulated, about this infinitely intriguing island.   But as my list evolved, it became ridiculously eclectic, from stories to essays, cookbooks & guide books, to You Tubes and sound tracks. I simply could not get a handle on the TEN LIST genre.

I studied my notes, and the most consistent theme, among many, were the dynamic women memoirists and journalists who have, been fascinated by, and flourished here in Jamaica. Role models! I’m always on the lookout for role models – here are 5. I love these women’s stories. I recognize Jamaica and my heart is soft with familiarity when I read these women’s stories. As it is the holiday gift giving season, I recommend them all for any earnest Jamaicaphile!

This post is dedicated to Joya Hairs, an amazing Jamaican pioneer’ess, who recently left this world, a better place.

Zora Neale Hurston              TELL MY HORSE

Zora Neale Hurston wrote brilliant journalistic stories of her adventures in Portland and the Blue Mountains in the 1930’s. The last time I was in Portland, staying at Ambassebeth Cabins before hiking the Cunha Cunha Pass Trail, I wished I had Zora’s travelogue on her Wild Boar hunting escapade in this very region. Wild Boar is still hunted in this part of the island! The Cunha Cunha Pass is one of the most beautiful trails Jamaica offers… I believe Linette Wilkes who is the keeper of the Cunha Cunha gate, and Zora would have been fast friends.

Marianne North       RECOLLECTIONS OF A HAPPY LIFE

In 1871 Marianne North, one of the British Empire’s great lady travelers visited Jamaica.   “ I had long had the dream of going to some tropical country to paint its peculiar vegetation on the spot in natural abundant luxuriance.” Her enthusiasm for nature was unbounded. She would wake at dawn and walk out with her tea to witness the world waking. Then she would write and paint. Paint was her passion. She describes the activity as “a vice like dram-drinking, almost impossible to leave off once it gets possession of one.”

Pleasure travel was a new concept, people were seeing the world in all its diversity for the first time and it was adventurers like Marianne who came back with recorded images. Photographs people saw then were in black and white, color photography was yet to come. Marianne’s’ still life’s were painted with all the vibrancy of the Caribbean, colors people had never seen before.

On a drive up the Newcastle Road Marianne found a house “hidden amongst the glorious foliage of the long deserted botanical gardens of the first settlers” rented it, and took up residence hanging “a huge bunch of bananas, instead of a chandelier from the roof of the verandah.”  On the Blue Mountains: “The air was something worth living for, to breathe was a true pleasure.” And still is!

Recollections of a Happy Life, Marianne North’s Autobiography is a delight.   Edited by her sister Janet Symonds, and published by New York Macmillan.

Vivien Goldman                                            EXODUS, The Making and Meaning of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Album of the Century

I met Viv in 1996 when she was in Jamaica doing the research needed to write the liner notes for a CD Chris Blackwell and Keith Richards master mined to record a legendary Nyabinghi Rastafarian drumming corp called Wingless Angels, residing in rural St. Ann. GoldenEye was overbooked, and so I was called on for a spare bed and to act as a kind of PA for the recognizance. Never resist an adventure with Vivien – in reality, or in prose. EXODUS is one of Vivien’s best adventures – sharp, honest, heart felt, and courageous. If you are interested in Bob Marley, Kingston, the Jamaica Music Industry, and how it intertwines with Jamaica politics, this is a book you must read.

Lorna Goodison                                        HARVEY’S RIVER, A Memoir of my Mother and her Island

Lora’s exquisite family portrait, set in the rural parish of Hanover, is the kind of book you don’t want to end. Lorna, thank you – this book, for all who love Jamaica, is one to cherish.

Robin Lim Lumsden                       BELCOUR COOKBOOK

No where is Jamaica’s motto ‘Out of Many, One People’ more appropriate than when discussing the island’s social culture and cuisine. Robin’s cookbook is both an engrossing first family history and an exceptional and useful Jamaican Cookbook. Published earlier this year, the cookbook is a testament of Robin’s remarkable talent as a chef and thoughtful wordsmith.