The Economist reports that Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, the fully suburban and clerkly comic novel, bestseller, and "British book of 1889" (in the words of Malcolm Bradbury), is a bestseller in war-torn southern Sudan.

This is because there is only one bookstore in all of southern Sudan, and its Ugandan suppliers seem to be somewhat capricious in its offerings -- the store wound up with twenty copies of the novel, along with a few old math textbooks, a copy of David Copperfield, and a copy of Huckleberry Finn. Five copies of Three Men have sold. And, reports the Economist, "Some of his customers are happy," despite the limited selection.

A friend enjoyed the book so much that he named his goat 'Montmorency' after the dog that accompanies its three heroes down the river. And the Rumbek Secondary, one of the few remaining secondary schools in the south, is considering making it a set text this year, in place of 'A Tale of Two Cities'.