All,
I have been reading Jacques Vettier's book, "Big Game Hunting in Asia, Africa and Elsewhere". Let me say this - after 350 books on hunting and most recently 25 or so on sheep hunting - this is in my top all time 5 books.

Yes, I know it is written by a French hunter, yes I know it was written in 1993 and covered many years and hunts prior to that - but this is easily one of the best written, insightful, funny, and easy to read hunting books I have read. Vettier has hunted a lot of species we do not or cannot hunt in 2017 - all of the markhors, polar bear, and some of the argali's. His perspective and way of seeing the hunt is refreshing, funny and very enjoyable to read.

Let me type an excerpt that is pretty indicative of his style -

He is describing his guide on a hunt in Poland -

"My guide is called Mirteg, a diminutive of Meiczyslaw, in this language as diabolical to read as it is to pronounce, in which the consonants stick to each other shamelessly and without ever fornicating with the vowels. Mirteg resembles a fat, jovial, wild boar or rather a warthog who was born by mistake in Poland. His head is enormous and his body is relatively small, although round. Altogether he is lively, fidgety, farts in every direction and on every occasion, burps at meals when as satisfied as a Moslem. Further he sniffs and blows his nose between his fingers like the followers of Islam, and spits and clears hi throat and his bronchial tubes from the smoke of bad cigarettes. Mirteg is rather like the quintessence of orifices, a sort of wind instrument, a bagpipe, not Scottish but Polish. He emits noises and agitates and is as fidgety as a bacteria. All this does not augur well for the hunt, which remains an activity requiring above, patience and silence.

Mirteg's main business is a waffle factory in which his two daughters work. They are as friendly and ugly as he is. Around us floats the odor of a fairground festival, consisting of sugar and baked flour. Mrs. Mirteg is Russian, therefore fat, but equally jovial.""

This is fun to read and beats the "I went there and hunted his" books that most hunter/writers write.

A good read for sure and I rate it 10 out of 10 on the dogcat scale.

Lol, sounds purdy good.

That does sound entertaining.

I have one copy aswell.
This kind of Hunting books should be more !

I missed this book on Amazon for $75 and now it is $150

OUCH! I just paid $140.00 plus S+H for Bell's new one. That sounds a bit rich for me,but we shall see.

I didn't know this book had been translated into English. My copy is in French, and I read it a long time ago. One thing is for sure, I paid a whole lot less than what is being asked today. If I remember correctly, his female company isn't always the same person either, depending on the safari he is writing about. His wife Kandice figures predominantly (and she is very attractive) but there are several others with the same elegance in the pictures presented. So, for those of you who are borderline thinking about buying it, do as Dogcat suggests, this (and Vettier's other book) are different from what you are used to reading.

I have never met Dr. Vettier (dentist, oral medicine) but I think his practice in Paris might still be up and running. Vettier is not an uncommon name in France and there is another author of police thrillers as well as non-fiction with the same name, which can complicate book searches.