I have a very large collection of hunting books but always fall back to these 10 books.My favorites include Elmer Keith ,Russell Annabel ,John Taylor and Rober Ruark And Craig Boddington.Here are my 10 favorite books: 1 Safari Elmer Keith,2 Hell I was There Elmer Keith,3 Big Game Hunting Elmer Keith, 4 Hunting and Fishing in Alaska Russell Annabel,5 Alaskan Adventures Russell Annabel,6 African Rifles Craig Boddington.Rifles 7 Robert Ruark The Old Man and the Boy 8 John Taylor Pondro,9 Elmer Keith Rifles for Large Game 10 Use Enough Gun Robert Ruark
These books and authors influnced my guns 338 and larger,birddogs I love English Setters and I love Alaska where I moved to.I listened to Craig Boddington and decided the 338 win mag and 416 rem mag could handle anything on this earth.Who are you favorite authors and books and how did they influence you?

Authors are easier for me to nail down than books, since most of the authors I respect have written more than one book I enjoy.

In no particular order (and with apologies for spellings since I do not have the books with me), Richard Harlan, Sten Cedergren, T.V. Bulpen, Craig Boddington, Robert Ruark, Peter Capstick, John Burger and J.A. Hunter. Capstick, Cedergren, Ruark, Bulpen, Burger and Hunter are story tellers and inspire the vision/desire to hunt. Harlan and Boddington I put more into the category of educating and informing on hunting.

I have enjoyed all of these authors and one could spend their time in a lot more unproductive ways than sitting in an easy chair by the fire with a glass of wine working their way through the books written by this group.

Not sure I could pick ten favorites. But among those I enjoy a great deal are:
Capstick
Sanchez Arino
Hunter
Gates
Taylor
Bell
Medem
Ruark
Robertson
Hemingway
and for biographies of interesting hunters and their stories, Bill Quimby
There are so many more to list.....most all have a fine story to tell.

DGR416,
You have a great list - I will offer mine.

Corbett (all of his books) for the thrill of the hunt and suspense.

Selous (A Hunter's Wanderings in Africa)as he made me thirsty just reading his trek while lost.

TV Bulpin (The Ivory Trail) to understand a little history and a fascinating life as an ivory hunter/poacher

WDM Bell (Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter) - thrill, suspense and action

John Boyes (King of the Wa-Kikuyu) - what a thrilling tale of walking into the hornets nest and becoming a king in Africa.

Peter Flack (Tales of a Trophy Hunter in Africa and Safari Guide 2007)for his ethics and clear, concise writing on hunting in modern Africa.

Patterson (Maneaters of Tsavo) an engineer turned hunter that requires a huge effort to take the lions that are eating the railroad!

Richard Harland (An African Epic) great book on a fascinating hunter.

Robert Ruark - I would be lynched for not including this unique and most unusual writer/hunter. I liked
Robert Ruark's Africa the best.

Bruce VanBuskirk (The Last Safari) - a cop that wanted to be a PH and gets the chance in modern Zimbabwe. He is not a professional writer but tells a unique story that each of us have dreamed of.

James Michener (The Covenant) - wow, what a breadth of history on South Africa

Bartle Bull (Safari, A Chronicle of Adventure) a great historical summary of the safari business in Africa. Very good and interesting as it weaves the stories of several unique people together as a tapestry of history.

There are others, but these are the ones I currently think a lot of.

Dogcat:

I'm glad you included The Covenant. I read it on my first trip to South Africa and Zimbabwe in 1983, and it sure helped me understand what I was seeing. Funny thing, it was on the South African government's banned-books list that year and everyone I met wanted my copy.

I liked Wilbur Smith's books for the same reason, and I'd add Capstick's Death In The Long Grass to your list. (Double stars for King of the Wa-Kikuyu!)

I wasn't happy with the premise of Bartle Bull's book. It came out well after SCI's conventions showed the masses how to get to Africa and Peter Capstick's stuff fueled the demand, but good ol' Bull wrote as if everything died with the closing of Kenya, ignoring that more people were hunting in Africa in a single year than all safari hunters combined in the many years before it closed.

Bill Quimby

I toss another into the mix. 1975, John Gordon Davis' Taller Than Trees." A hunter's quest for an aging elephant bull.

And yet another, a sad tale of what Africa has become by a man who has seen the change and borne the brunt of it......Winds of Havoc, Adelino Serras Pires and Fiona Claire Capstick.

I've got to go by author becausee it'd be so hard to pick a single book by a good author who might have written many.

Without implying a sense of priority:

WDM Bell - simply because he's hilarious without trying to be.
Jim Corbett - because even upon the umpteenth rereading, the suspense is still there.
Gene Hill - no other writer ever put more of his heart into his books.
JA Hunter - he wasn't in any contests, but he sure came up on top.
Robert Ruark - who blended fact with his fiction and fiction with his fact in a seamless manner.
CH Stigand - who gave us a sense of his class.
Teddy Roosevelt - who concentrated more on the how than the why.
FC Selous - because he showed how it was done when the tracks were few.
C Akeley - who was out there to bring it back to share with us.
RC Andrews - who knew what adventure was.