A Field Guide to the Birds of The Gambia and Senegal by Clive Barlow and Tim Wacher is the essential companion for anyone interested in the country's extraordinary birdlife. The Gambia is one of the most rewarding birdwatching destinations in West Africa, and this guide covers the species you are likely to encounter in the coastal strip around Bakau, Kotu, and Fajara in thorough and practical detail. Bring it and use it — even non-birders tend to get drawn in once they realise how many species are visible from a hotel garden.
Our Grandmothers' Drums by Mark Hudson is one of the best books written about West African village life and the world of Gambian women. Hudson spent time in a Mandinka village in the 1980s, living among the women's compound and documenting their ceremonies, disputes, and daily rituals with genuine intimacy. It is a book about tradition, power, and change in a way that no travel guide can match. Reading it gives Bakau and the surrounding country a depth that sightseeing alone cannot.
Chaff on the Wind by Ebou Dibba is a novel by one of The Gambia's most important writers, drawing on the experience of Gambians who left for Britain in the postwar years. Dibba writes with precision and affection about the tension between the world his characters came from and the one they arrived in. Reading a Gambian novelist on Gambian ground is worth doing, and Dibba is the writer to start with.