Shakari Connection Bookshelf Newsletter

Issue 013 | DECEMBER 2016

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

I hope you receive some great books for Christmas.

My apologies for the long gap between newsletters - Shakari Connection has undergone lots of changes, as indeed has the African hunting industry in the last few years.

So it is rather nice to step back in time to when Africa was really wild and read some of the books written by the finest hunters, naturalists and explorers.

A short while ago I was fascinated by the number of explorers and hunters making a beeline to walk round Lake Rudolph (Turkana, now), one of the most inhospitable places on the planet. Check them all out here... Lake Rudolf Explorer Books

Discovery Of Lakes Rudolph And Stefanie by Ludwig von Höhnel (1888). Adventures of this important expedition are interesting not only because Teleki discovered two new major African lakes but also to sportsmen because the purpose of this trip was also to hunt for African big game. His favourites were elephant and black rhinoceros. He endeavoured to find new haunts for game in previously unexplored areas. An African classic.

Through Jungle And Desert: Travels In Eastern Africa by William Astor Chanler (1896) is a scarce account of adventure and exploration in Kenya. Chanler, an American lawyer, was accompanied on these travels by Ludwig von Höhnel.

Do not be put off by the age of these old books. They are immensely readable, often full of humour and honesty about hunting success/failure. Basically they are better written than most modern hunting books but if you are of a sensitive nature, you will find most of them quite 'politically incorrect'.

More must-reads are the beautifully written Stewart Edward White Books about his African expeditions around what is now the Serengeti, accompanied by R J Cuninghame.

African Camp Fires by Stewart Edward White (1913) is probably the most well known of White's African big game hunting books. He was regarded as one of the finest rifle shots of the American sportsmen who hunted in East Africa at the beginning of the 'Golden Age' of safari hunting.

Hunter and naturalist Abel Chapman is another brilliant writer. You will be transported to an unspoilt Sudan and East Africa...

Savage Sudan: Its Wild Tribes, Big-Game And Bird-Life by Abel Chapman (1921) who was a hunter-naturalist with long experience of Sudan's 'virgin savagery', by which the author means unspoiled, native habitat for birds and game.

On Safari: Big Game Hunting In British East Africa by Abel Chapman (1908). A prolific hunter and naturalist, Chapman combined an easy writing style with his exciting experiences hunting in British East Africa (Kenya). He followed the Uganda Railway, with hunting excursions toward Lake Elementeita and also westward to the Enderit River and along Lake Nakuru.

Skipping forward more than a century, some of the finer modern African hunting writers, have recently published their latest books...

Hunting the Spiral Horns: Bongo & Nyala: The Elite African Trophies by Peter Flack (2016) is the definitive book on hunting the 2 bongo species and 2 nyala species. The 30 hunters and authors who contributed to this work incude Robin Hurt, Jason Roussos, Tony Seth-Smith, Coenraad Vermaak, Rudy Lubin etc. The book also includes hunters of yesteryear: Maydon, Mellon, Powell-Cotton, Christy, Drummond. There are also a couple of chapters by experienced current sport hunters.

Africa's Greatest Tuskers by Tony Sanchez-Arino (2015) tells the stories of hunts that yielded the dreams of a lifetime. From well known hunters such as Elgin Gates, J A Hunter, Andy Anderson, Jim Sutherland and John Boyes, to hunters less well known such as Cherry, Wittgenstein, Guest and Sielstorfer - these stories will delight any adventurers or hunter. No story records a tusk of less than 130 pounds - who hunted them, who owns them or how they were found.

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Good Reading & Good Hunting