Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Rifle Library/Bibliography

"Whitetail- Fundamentals and Fine Points for the Hunter" George Mattis

"The Deer Hunter's Guide" Francis E. Sell

Those two give a good perspective on whitetails in the north-central U.S. and blacktails respectively, with great stuff on still-hunting and trail-watching.


"The Life of the Hunt" by some guy named Barnett or Boswell, or something like that.

About half-way through that one I started limited myself to a chapter a day or so because I didn't want it to end.

chit forgot Johns books prolly cause he is on here and i rarely read much on North American hunting....yeah John's are every bit as good of a read as any i put up....only exception maybe is depending on my mood i might prefer Capsticks style but John's 'Obsessions of a Rifle Loony', 'Born to Hunt', and 'The Life of the Hunt' are as good of a read as most everything else on the list....

thought of another Russell Annabel he is to Alaska what Capstick is to Africa.....

Updated List (9/27/14)

Anyway, if we were going to put together a library of rifle/hunting/shooting books, classic and modern, what would be included? Here's what we have so far:

Finn and Berit Aagaard:
"Aagaard's African Adventures"

Tony de Almeida:
"Jaguar Hunting on the Mato Grosso and Bolivia"

Russell Annabel:
Corpus

John Barsness:
"The Life of the Hunt"
"Obsessions of a Rifle Loony"
"Born to Hunt"

WDM Bell:
"Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter"
"Bell of Africa"
"Karamojo Safari"

Craig Boddington:
"African Hunter II"
"Safari Rifles II"
"Elephant!: The Renaissance of Hunting the African Elephant"
"Buffalo!"
The "Ten Years" Series
"The Perfect Shot - North America"
"American Hunting Rifles"
"African Experience"
"Shots at Big Game"
"Deer Hunting Coast to Coast" (w/Bob Robb)
"Campfires and Game Trails"
"The Hunters Handbook"

Capt. John Brandt:
"Asian Hunter"
"Hunters of Man"

John Burger:
"Horned Death"

Jim Carmichael:
"Book of the Rifle"

Joe Cavanaugh
"The Jungle Hunter"

Steve Christenson
"From the Congo Basin to the Highlands of Ethiopia"

J Corbett:
"Entire omnibus collection"

Bob Hagel:
"Hunting North American Big Game"
"Guns, Loads & Hunting Tips"

JA Hunter:
"Hunter"
"White Hunter"
"Hunter's Tracks"
"Tales of the African Frontier"

Rashid Jamsheed:
"Memories of a Sheep Hunter"

John Jobson:
"The Best of John Jobson"

Elmer Keith:
"Hell, I was There!"

John Kingsley-Heath:
"Hunting the Dangerous Game of Africa"

Larry Koller:
"Shots at Whitetails"

Denis D. Lyell:
"African Adventures: Letters from Famous Big-Game Hunters"

George Mattis:
"Whitetail - Fundamentals and Fine Points for the Hunter"

James Mellon:
"African Hunter"

Reinald von Meurers:
"Buffalo, Elephant and Bongo"

Sancha de Montebel:
"Big Game Hunting"

Arthur Newmann:
"Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa"

Jack O'Connor:
"The Hunting Rifle"
"Sheep and Sheep Hunting"
"The Best of Jack O'Connor"
"The Last Book"
"The Art of Hunting Big Game in North America"
"The Complete Book of Rifles and Shotguns"

Etienne Oggeri:
"I Killed for a Living"

Warren Page:
"One Man's Wilderness"

Tony Sanchez-Arino
"The Last of the Few"
"Elephants, Ivory and Hunters"

Francis E. Sell:
"The Deer Hunter's Guide"

SR Truesdell:
"The Rifle: Its Development for Big-Game Hunting"

Terry Weiland:
"Dangerous Game Rifles"

Ken Wilson:
"Sport Hunting on Six Continents"

Robert Ruark:
"Use Enough Gun"
"Horn of the Hunter"
"The Old Man and the Boy"

Edison Marshall:
"Heart of the Hunter"
"Shikar and Safari"

Brian Herne:
"White Hunters"

Frederick Courtney Selous:
"A hunters Wandering in Africa"

I found that Boswell guy, but I think he wrote a biography of a fellow named Samuel Johnson, not to be confused with Samuel Adams, best known for "Octoberfest" this time of year.

List updated, I think.

I could have that name wrong. Might be Basner or Bashful- no that's a dwarf, Barnsby.....whatever.

Somebody'll think of it.

Mayhaps this should be a sticky. Something that a newbie (or oldbie) can reference whilst building his library, and be amendable to allow it to grow.

thought this one was on their cause i thought i mentioned it in the thread that i believe kick started this one:

The Adventures of an Elephant Hunter By James Sutherland

its as good as any of Hunters or Burgers books and you can even read it for free:
https://archive.org/details/adventuresofelep00suthiala

No Elmer Keith Rifles for Big Game.
No Elmer Keith Safari
No Townshend Whelen at all.

No Alfred Pease Book of the Lion
No Stewart Edward White.(Lots of good ones)
No Hemingway Green Plains of Africa.
No John Pondoro Taylor Big Game and Big Game Rifles and African Rifles and Cartridges.
No Charles "Boots" Askins Unrepentant Sinner

I just scored a copy of the Selous book on archive.org. It's a scanned PDF, complete with cover shots, a library stamp, and even the page where one owner wrote his name. All the illustrations are included, of course.

The amazing part is that you can also read the same copy online and flip the pages with your finger just as if it were on your tablet.

I'm a pretty hard-core Luddite about a lot of stuff, but this is very cool.

Some more tips for electronic versions:

Download the PDF or Kindle versions. The EPubs apparently use OCR, which is very error-prone and often loses the illustrations.

On archive.org some of the PDFs are listed as PDF (Google), which apparently means you can't download them, but rather have to read them online from Google by logging in, yada yada yada.

It may be beneficial to download both the PDF and the Kindle version, if your device supports both, as one or the other may result in a clearer copy. Check the quality and keep the best one.

Happy cheap reading.

Updated List (9/29/14)

Anyway, if we were going to put together a library of rifle/hunting/shooting books, classic and modern, what would be included? Here's what we have so far:

Finn and Berit Aagaard:
"Aagaard's African Adventures"

Tony de Almeida:
"Jaguar Hunting on the Mato Grosso and Bolivia"

Russell Annabel:
Corpus

Charles Askins:
"Unrepentant Sinner"

John Barsness:
"The Life of the Hunt"
"Obsessions of a Rifle Loony"
"Born to Hunt"

WDM Bell:
"Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter"
"Bell of Africa"
"Karamojo Safari"

Craig Boddington:
"African Hunter II"
"Safari Rifles II"
"Elephant!: The Renaissance of Hunting the African Elephant"
"Buffalo!"
The "Ten Years" Series
"The Perfect Shot - North America"
"American Hunting Rifles"
"African Experience"
"Shots at Big Game"
"Deer Hunting Coast to Coast" (w/Bob Robb)
"Campfires and Game Trails"
"The Hunters Handbook"

Capt. John Brandt:
"Asian Hunter"
"Hunters of Man"

John Burger:
"Horned Death"

Jim Carmichael:
"Book of the Rifle"
"The Modern Rifle"

Joe Cavanaugh
"The Jungle Hunter"

Steve Christenson
"From the Congo Basin to the Highlands of Ethiopia"

J Corbett:
"Entire omnibus collection"

Bob Hagel:
"Hunting North American Big Game"
"Guns, Loads & Hunting Tips"

Ernest Hemingway:
"Green Plains of Africa"

Brian Herne:
"White Hunters"

JA Hunter:
"Hunter"
"White Hunter"
"Hunter's Tracks"
"Tales of the African Frontier"

Rashid Jamsheed:
"Memories of a Sheep Hunter"

John Jobson:
"The Best of John Jobson"

Elmer Keith:
"Hell, I was There!"
"Rifles for Big Game"
"Safari"
"Rifles for Large Game"
"Big Game Rifles and Cartridges"

John Kingsley-Heath:
"Hunting the Dangerous Game of Africa"

Larry Koller:
"Shots at Whitetails"

Denis D. Lyell:
"African Adventures: Letters from Famous Big-Game Hunters"

Edison Marshall:
"Heart of the Hunter"
"Shikar and Safari"

George Mattis:
"Whitetail - Fundamentals and Fine Points for the Hunter"

James Mellon:
"African Hunter"

Reinald von Meurers:
"Buffalo, Elephant and Bongo"

Sancha de Montebel:
"Big Game Hunting"

Arthur Newmann:
"Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa"

Jack O'Connor:
"The Hunting Rifle"
"Sheep and Sheep Hunting"
"The Best of Jack O'Connor"
"The Last Book"
"The Art of Hunting Big Game in North America"
"The Complete Book of Rifles and Shotguns"
"The Rifle Book"
"The Big Game Rifle"

Etienne Oggeri:
"I Killed for a Living"

Warren Page:
"One Man's Wilderness"
"The Accurate Rifle"

Alfred Pease:
"Book of the Lion"

Theodore Roosevelt:
"African Game Trails"

Robert Ruark:
"Use Enough Gun"
"Horn of the Hunter"
"The Old Man and the Boy"

Tony Sanchez-Arino
"The Last of the Few"
"Elephants, Ivory and Hunters"

Francis E. Sell:
"The Deer Hunter's Guide"

Frederick Courtney Selous:
"A hunters Wandering in Africa"

Philip Sharpe:
"The Rifle in America"

James Sutherland:
"The Adventures of an Elephant Hunter"

John 'Pondoro' Taylor:
"Big Game and Big Game Rifles"
"African Rifles and Cartridges"

SR Truesdell:
"The Rifle: Its Development for Big-Game Hunting"

Terry Weiland:
"Dangerous Game Rifles"

Townsend Whelen:
"The Hunting Rifle"
"The Ultimate in Rifle Precision"

Stewart Edward White:

Ken Wilson:
"Sport Hunting on Six Continents"

I added those with titles. I had James Mellon, "African Hunter" on the original list, but couldn't find a Richard Mellon with the same title.

Also if you want to add some titles for Whelen and White, please do so.

Some more O'Connor titles:

The Rifle Book
The Big Game Rifle

By Elmer Keith:

Keith's Rifles for Large Game
Big Game Rifles and Cartridges

By Warren Page:

The Accurate Rifle

By Townsend Whelen:

The Hunting Rifle
The Ultimate in Rifle Precision

By Phillip Sharpe:

The Rifle in America

By Jim Carmichael:

The Modern Rifle

I sent a note to Rick to see if it is possible for me to be able continue the edit feature on the first post. That would make life a lot easier. I haven't heard anything back.

Got 'em, thanks.

Bieber?

I lucked into an autographed, first edition copy of "The Rifle in America" 20-some years ago in an antique shop in Natural Bridge, Virginia. It's inscribed with a somewhat generic "Greetings, Mr. Shooter".

Shops in small towns are a great place to find books. Regretably, the older books are often very fragile and must be handled with great care. That's one reason I try to find electronic versions, in addition to hard copies, whenever possible.

Wonderful list.

I will add, African Game Trails by Teddy Roosevelt

Got it, thanks.

Now you've done it!