OMG. I have read the first 2 chapters and that is a pretty well written book. What did you think about it?

IMO, it is one the best books I've ever read! Of course I haven't read them all!

I think it matters most in what stage of this addiction your in at the time. For me, I was totally green, it's the first book on Africa that I read and I couldn't tell the bull sh:t from the facts. I enjoyed it more than any other book I've read.

It is the book that set me up for a lifetime of being poor and suffering from intermitent bouts of PSD. But damn was it a good read. When you finish that one, find some of his other books and give them a go. You will not be dissapointed.

Brian

If you like this one, you are now on a journey to read about 75 more books. Try anything by Corbett on India or Selous' book or Bell's or a host of others. Enjoy your new found addition.

Does anyone have a good bibliography?

quote:

Originally posted by Rine Everett:
OMG. I have read the first 2 chapters and that is a pretty well written book. What did you think about it?

Rhine, you don't say if you have been to Africa but you may as well start packing now. While my journey started with O'Conner, reading PHC was my complete undoing.

Since reading his books and subsequent trips to the dark continent, not a day goes by that I do not think about those adventures. It does not end there, as I have a hunt booked now and am always planning future hunts.

Addiction? No doubt.

Never been but I have a Merkle 470 NE that needs to be bloodied up a bit. I want to take it after hogs and deer in East Texas first. Planning on 2010 for Buffalo, Leopard and an Ele if I can convince the wife I need one.

I think it was this very book that got me interested in hunting Africa.

That was back in 1982.

Reading that book makes it impossible for you not to go hunting in Africa. I was reading the book and instead of reading the words I was watching the movie in my head!!

One day I'll go and Hunt the Luangwa Valley but then, (judging by some of the more experienced here), I'm sure I'll be in a whole new load od doo-doo...

That book has a lot to answer for.

Of course Death in the silent places and Return to the long grass were also great reads.

Good luck!!
FB

It has been a long time since I read this book. I read it before I learned what I now know about PHC's tendency to expropriate to himself, and exaggerate in the process, the experiences of others.

But I do remember that I did enormously enjoy this book. PHC was quite the story teller.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
I think it was this very book that got me interested in hunting Africa.

That was back in 1982.

Every PH should daily kiss the throne of PHC. That book, regardless of whether or not Peter was full of it, did more than any other single event to boost the African hunting industry.

The book is full of gross exaggerations but it is still a good read.

quote:

Originally posted by WPN:
Does anyone have a good bibliography?

I have a list of books I have read and I have rated them. I can email to you if you would like. Also, you may want to go the Safari Press website and drill around. They have a reading list that is pretty good as well.

pure unadulterated crack. One read and you are hooked on Africa for life.

Great read.

I am on the last chapter of Death in the long grass and have been listening to Death in the dark continent audio book on my daily drive to work. I don't know how I get any work done! It's always been a sign of a good story teller when you have trouble seperating fact from fiction (or at least exageration)
I have not been on Safari...Yet!

"...regardless of whether or not Peter was full of it, that book did more than any other single event to boost the African hunting industry..."


Amen!

Why is it that so many people think Capstick is full of it??
It sounds like alot of jelousy to me!!
PHC did more for modern African Hunting than anyone I can think of.

Yeah, I loved it. "SAFARI The Last Adventure" holds up very well IMO as I've yet to go. Getting deposit ready for '08 season. "The Last Ivory Hunter" was a good read too. Somebody asked, here somewhere I think, what ever came of Wally Johnson. He'd be like 90 now. L.A. maybe was the last place to find him, his son moved there.

Right about the time Craig Bodington wrote an article on his White Rhino hunt with a Hyme 88 B in 470 Nitro.. I had bought a 458 win Sako barreled action and was trying to get it into a beautiful peice of wood [that broke thru the action } The guy I got it from told me to buy a copy of African Rifles And Cartridges.......We have a saying up here .. [like a halibut that swallowed the hook]].. Next came Death In The Long Grass....I think I have both of them commited to memory.......the broken stocked 458 p,o,ed me so much I called Art Alphin and ordered a 500 A 2.....prior to this the biggest rifle I had was a #1 in 45/70......Execpt for injuries I would probably have a 700 by now as most rifles got Boreing Fast after the 500 arrived...Thanks to Pondoro and Peter Capstick...

If you enjoyed the book you are reading, pick up "Warrior" and "African Adventurers," also by Capstick. I think that these two may be near the top as they are not about him or his experiences (which some say were not necessarily his).

Agaard, Bartlett, and Taylor are three other writers whose experience in Africa spans most of the period from just before WWII until the beginning of de-colonization who will entertain and educate. Kudude

I have read all of Captstick's books, a great majority of Ruark's books, as well as books by Hemmingway, Roosevelt, Hallamore, Flack, all of Boddington's books, books by J.A. Hunter, Gregor Woods, Robertson, Patterson, Mellon, etc. etc. It doesn't really matter to me whether or not some contained some perceived BS. When you have been bitten by the deadly African Safari bug, and have no hope of recovery in this lifetime, the only remedy is all of the above. Safari Press is probably the best source, although Trophy Room Books is also a source of some good books.

quote:

Originally posted by Rine Everett:
OMG. I have read the first 2 chapters and that is a pretty well written book. What did you think about it?

Wait till you get to the HIPPO hunting techniques in chapter 5!!!!

Loved the book - Would also recommend "Horn of the Hunter" by Robert C. Ruark as another good read.

Death in the Long grass was the start of my African addiction as well.

I remember lying in bed in camp on my first night listening to the sounds and wondering when the lion was going to come crashing through the thatch roof as in the first chapter!

Ed

It was quite a few years between reading J.A. Hunter in high school and Peter Hathaway Capstick as an adult, but he was a wonderful story teller. I've read them all, some more than once. He did for Americans going on African Safari as the movie A River Runs Through It did for fly fishing. Unlike Capstick, I didn't leave the business world and follow my heart to the game fields of the world. He was a consummate wordsmith, and no doubt a successful big game hunter.

Check out the forward, page xi, for my signature line. This book with it's adventure and profundity will keep you up all night once you get started.....and light the fire.

I really liked his story of the snake in the outhouse, Capstick will put you on the edge of adventure

I was in the same boat the first time I read it. And I found it thrilling the 10th time I read it.

Say what you want about Capstick but he was the master word smith of the African adventure hunter writing scene.

As Will mentioned any and very PH should worship at the Capstick alter as he was THE man whom breathed life back into that failing industry.

Of course a grain of salt is required for much of his writing. But who cares it's great stuff!

I'm certainly not qualified to judge Capstick as a PH but he was a hell of a writer!! There is just something about Death in the Long Grass!!

Being kind of a gun nut and thinking of Africa, I enjoy books by John "Pondoro" Taylor.------
Time and time, again.

Books on Africa

From Mt. Kenai to the Cape - Craig Boddington:
Safari Rifles - Craig Boddington:
Where Lions Roar - Craig Boddington:
Safari Experience - Craig Boddington
Tales of a Trophy Hunter in Africa -Peter Flack:
Heart of an African Hunter - Peter Flack:
The Big Five - Lloyd Newberry
The Perfect Shot - Roberton's
Safari - Bartle Bull
White Hunters -Brian Herne
Horn of the Hunter - R Ruark
Death in the Long Grass and Safari - P H Capstick
A Country Boy in Africa - George Hoffman's
African Rifles & Cartridges - John Taylor
Bell of Africa- WDM Bell / T Whelan
Hunter- JA Hunter
Maneaters of Tsavo- JH Patterson
African Hunter- Von Blixen Finneke
Maneaters of India- Jim Corbett
African Game Trails- T Roosevelt
Meditations On Hunting - by Jose Ortega Y. Gasset

I always found Capsticks books entertaining and informative ! I think its the writers ideal to inform or educate the reader, and entertain at the same time , there is nothing better than a good book ! But of of course its an art to do this, and not all can do it ! It takes a real artist to be able to do it, whether some of his writings were bs i dont know ? but they are still good reads!!! and Capstick was not'' Up himself'' and admitted he made bad shots which made him more believable which allows us mortals to identify with him !! a good writer and down to earth bloke

I also read Capstick before I was aware most of it was fiction.

However I remember it was real "ripping yarns", and greatly enjoyed the books.

If you enjoy Capstick give Brian Herne's recent book "White Hunters" a go. Hopefully more non-fiction in it too! Plus the greatest of them, Corbett for his maneater tales from India.

quote:

Originally posted by Rine Everett:
Never been but I have a Merkle 470 NE that needs to be bloodied up a bit. I want to take it after hogs and deer in East Texas first. Planning on 2010 for Buffalo, Leopard and an Ele if I can convince the wife I need one.

Rine --- I can solve your problem -- send me your 470 -- no need to wait --- will return blooded

"As Will mentioned any and every PH should worship at the Capstick altar as he was THE man who breathed life back into that failing industry."

I knew Capstick and respected him as a talented and entertaining adventure author. He definitely does not deserve his reputation among some as "BS writer." The guy may have stretched things a tad, but he was the real thing.

However, he was not alone in "breathing life back into that failing (safari) industry."

There were several other events that contributed also. And the safari industry was far from failing when Capstick's books first came out.

Jack O'Connor, Warren Page and others had been writing articles about their African hunts in the outdoor magazines.

And, if C.J. McElroy had not created Safari Club International and its conventions and Safari Magazine in 1972 (five years before "Death In The Long Grass," there would have been no venues to bring African outfitters and "ordinary" Americans together, and African safaris would have remained pasttimes of the rich (and gun writers on expense accounts and "comp" safaris).

And don't overlook the advent in the early 1970s of South African game farms that charged much less than the price of single species hunts in Canada and Alaska. These gave most of us our first taste of hunting in Africa and sent us to other African countries to try to satisfy an appetite that can never be satisfied.

In my case, I already was hooked on Africa. Capstick only helped keep my excitement at high levels between trips.

It's hard to say which came first, much like the chicken and the egg, but I feel the interest in the early 1970s in safaris at affordable prices created a market for Capstick's books BEFORE he sold "Long Grass" to St. Martin's.

Bill Quimby

I remember reading it as a youngster and wanting to believe it SOOOOOOO bad, but knowing deep inside that there had to be a liberal dose of creative license with many of the stories.

He could sure turn a phrase that's for sure.

Kyler

My first Capstick book was Death in the Dark Continent. For some reason I liked it better.

I much prefer to read the older generation of hunting stories by Selous, Baker, Pondoro and more recent ones by Neumann, Pardal, Hunter, etc.

PHC sounds so fictional IMO at least in the book referred.

quote:

Originally posted by Allout:
It is the book that set me up for a lifetime of being poor and suffering from intermitent bouts of PSD. But damn was it a good read. When you finish that one, find some of his other books and give them a go. You will not be dissapointed.

Brian

That was very funny Allout!

You end up remebering things like :

The lion on the thatched roof, the lion that got in the bakkie and chewed up the guests rifle at haliotosis range..., and the client who shot the wrong lion "who wasn't quite as talented in the haircut department as his older brother..."

I lent all my copies out and never got them back. I won't be making that mistake again!!!

FB

I read most of PHC books and i liked all of it,even Warrior that was finished by his wife Fiona .My wife grandfather met him while hunting here in la patagonia exactly at Choele Choel where we have a hunting Lodge and he respects him a lot he participated in all the pig sticking safaris,with great courage ,and he was the first to popularized the safaris in Argentina so we deserve him a great respect.Juan