African Hunting Books

17 April 2024, 09:07

Any new one's out there? Now that Boddington is winding down and Peter Flack has announced he is doing his final (I've reserved a copy) are there any good new books on African hunting?

17 April 2024, 11:22

muzza

I imagine its pretty difficult to write a "new" hunting book that isnt very similar to all the other hunting books out there . I have a reasonable African Hunting library and , amongst the modern books , there really is a sameness about them all.

The pics are nice , but , at the end of the day , theres only so many ways you can hunt something and then tell the tale.

I still buy and read those books but they dont have the character of many of the older ones

18 April 2024, 05:51

Norman Conquest

That's true. It's hard to beat Karamojo Safari + a lot of the older ones. I haven't seen any new ones lately + Boddington never really did it for me, but that's just me.

18 April 2024, 19:27

BaxterB

I think the lack of good new Africana books is in part due to the fact hunters began to seek a trophy - to check a box - versus go on adventure or do something new. There is ALWAYS room for another good adventure book, but, since a hunter filling a slot is largely fungible with any other hunter filling a slot - their stories sound more alike than different. Might sound overly harsh, but I think it's true: "I went there, saw the animal, shot it, the trackers were amazing" is an awfully poor storyline.

19 April 2024, 10:50

Cougarz

Not that I don’t agree that some of the newer books can be a little dry compared to the old ones but hunters now just can’t wander the vast distances for months on end that the old timers did. Plus game was far more abundant and likely less wary of people shooting at them with rifles. I also think the written word was far more important in those pre video and internet times.

One modern book I recently bought is Kevin Robertson’s “It Shouldn’t Happen”. Lots of humorous story’s about hunting, in particular the chapter on what happened when he acquired his first large bore rifle as a new PH. Not many can boast they burned up a good part of their farm with a .505 Gibbs.

19 April 2024, 18:46

BaxterB

quote:
Originally posted by Cougarz:
Not that I don’t agree that some of the newer books can be a little dry compared to the old ones but hunters now just can’t wander the vast distances for months on end that the old timers did. Plus game was far more abundant and likely less wary of people shooting at them with rifles. I also think the written word was far more important in those pre video and internet times.

One modern book I recently bought is Kevin Robertson’s “It Shouldn’t Happen”. Lots of humorous story’s about hunting, in particular the chapter on what happened when he acquired his first large bore rifle as a new PH. Not many can boast they burned up a good part of their farm with a .505 Gibbs.

Yup. And that is largely the point - that it takes quite an experience to fill a book. Harry Selby’s article from many years ago explains it well, it’s less pointed than many of the emails we shared - he was quite critical of the check-box hunter : https://sportsafield.com/2016/...-the-african-safari/

And you are correct as well regarding writing.

20 April 2024, 02:46

Norman Conquest

Good article by Harry Selby. Definitely a big difference between safaris of the past + those more current. I'm reminded of a comment a friend made years ago when looking at that classic photo of FC Selous sitting in camp, + he said, "You know, somebody had to carry that chair for hundreds of miles."