You've seen this book, whether you remember it or not, in every interior design magazine published in the past five years. Osa Johnson was born in raised in Kansas and as a young woman met the American photographer Martin Johnson. The two married, traveled to Africa, and created the photographic record of an entire continent that would dictate representations of Africa in Western Culture (Simba, anyone?) for the rest of the 20th century. She is nothing short of incredible.

No one fetishizes books as objects more than me, but this is the only rare book I've ever sought out and collected. I have many beautiful books, but none of them are particularly rare. And I Married Adventure can usually be had for a hundred dollars and some Internet savvy. I completely understand why all design magazines use it to accessorize a nice tablescape; it is an undeniably beautiful book, and there's even a sequel with a giraffe print (very, very hard to find). But all the Savannah-based stationary designers who buy it to put on a table are doing themselves a disservice by ignoring a really exciting and fun read from a really admirable American woman and adventuress.

I read Osa Johnson for the first time in a college class on representations of Africa and I enjoyed it so much I read the whole thing, watched some of her documentaries, and did a presentation on it (back then I was using a junky edition from the library). It's still a book I like to read every now and again, and it's a nice companion to Out of Africa.