Average book written by a very bright and impressive man. He is highly educated and is a professor of some renown in archeology. However, his efforts at telling the stories of his dozens of safaris is of the type - "I hunted this, I endured hardship, I shot this, it is a record". I felt no "heart" in his writings. The only time he showed any emotion or deep thought about his efforts were when he returned to Tanzania in 1995 for his "next to last hunt" and complained that a foreign (aren't we all) hunter had bought the quota for 6 lion, 6 elephants and 10 buffalo in the area he was to hunt. He did not think this was "fair" to the man buying one license.

For a guy that was award the Weatherby Award in the 1960's, I came away a bit disappointed in his writings. I expected more emotion or observation of life.

His book is poorly constructed as well, spending the bulk of his story telling by writing naratives of his safaris in the late 1950's and early 60's hunting with his favorite PH and gun bearer. He skips to 1995 leaving a gap of about 30 years where he did a lot of hunting, but wrote nothing of the changes in this book. The entire area and countries in which he hunted changed dramatically in that time period, yet he wrote nothing about it.

Fine man, great hunter, great college professor, lousy hunting writer.

On a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being Selous or Corbett - this is a 3 or 4.