Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Best non-obvious safari reads

I talked with someone recently who knows Harry Selby well and is eminently qualified to help Selby with his memoirs. I would not be surprised to see such a book in a year or two.

Bill Quimby

Bill,

I hope you are right. And I think I might know who you are talking about. I would love to see a Selby book. Just the few stories he has told me are worth publishing, but they aren't a fraction of a fraction of all that he has.

Bill,

Glad to see you join in! I actually have "Yoshi" and have it my reading queue. Knowing you had a hand in it will make it more meaningful. I got introduced to Watson Yoshimoto several times at SCI through mutual friends. He was a super polite and gracious in our chats, and repeatedly offered to show me his "museum" and such in Hawaii shoud I ever get their. Never did, unfortunately.

Hatari:

Yoshi donated his extensive collection of lifesize trophies to a museum in Japan before I interviewed him at his home and office in Honolulu for that book.

He and his wife were gracious people, but interviewing him was difficult because he was 90 years old and deaf, and he was drinking a bottle of White Label scotch every day.

To get what I needed to write his book, I spent ten days going through six large filing cabinets where his various secretaries had filed receipts, correspondence, etc. from his many hunting trips over a lifetime, then cross-checking what I found in those files against his entries in the SCI record books, and using what I knew about hunting techniques for the various species and locales to describe "his" stalks. I also interviewed his friends and hunting pals and spent two days in the Honolulu newspaper's "morgue."

I cannot describe how shocked I was when every proof of the manuscript I sent him and Kay was returned without a single change.

Yoshi died within a couple of months after the book came out. I am glad I was able to preserve some of his stories.

Bill Quimby

OK, you asked for non obvious. How about some fiction.

Bartle Bull wrote a series of books on an African PH and his wild adventures before and after the war. It is a very good read.
A Cafe on the Nile
The White Rhino Hotel
The Devil's Oasis

Bill,

Maybe I am in the minority here, but I would be interested in seeing a book from you about writing books. Your experiences with these gentleman that clearly have more experience hunting around the world in one week then I will ever have in my life. I would think that could be an interesting read.

Casey

"Months of the Sun" is my favorite.

"After Big Game in Central Africa" is good.

One of the best books of any type I have read is "Alaskan Yukon Trophies Won and Lost". I know it not Africa but it is a great read.

+1 Excellent! I've read all three.

Cheers!
-Bob F.

Thanks, Casey. Don't know if I could interest a publisher in buying such a book. My specialty niche is helping others prepare manuscripts about their lives as hunters. "Sixty Years A Hunter" is my only book about my personal experiences.

You are correct about my clients. All had done more hunting in more places for more types of animals than most hunters have ever heard of. Their trophy rooms put many natural history museums to shame.

All except three were self-made men who took risks that paid off early in their lives. All but one are/were great people and a pleasure to work with, and we came away from writing their memoirs as friends.

I'll be 80 in just 17 months, and don't know how many books I'll do after finishing the two I've contracts for this year.

Bill Quimby

Bill, I live in a town on the east coast of Florida where, as a friend of mine puts it, "The retirees from Boca Raton go to visit their parents." If looking around me is any indication, even at 80 you'll still have plenty of miles to go.

TV Bulpin wrote some really great book - the Ivory trail, lost trails of the Transvaal etc, all fascinating reads - that's if you are into Southern Africa history and hunting legends.

RevMike:

We own a rental townhouse in a place like your town. Whenever we feel the need to feel younger, my wife and I drive there, just to look around.

Bill Quimby

If it's in my neck of the woods, stop in. You'll feel like a kid again!

This.

Bill, are you going to be in Greer this summer, like usual? My grandfather passed this past September so it will be hard/weird for us to be up there with out him for the first time, but I imagine my wife, kids and I will spend our usual week or so up there. Hopefully, it will be around the time of the Sunrise 3D shoot. We should have no problem meeting up for lunch, we will buy you and your wife a pizza and milk shake at the newish cafe in town. (the owner, Kristi catered our wedding and it was fantastic!)

Hi Casey. PM sent your way.

Bill Quimby

Bror Blixen: African hunter and The African Letters
Percy Fitzpatrick: Jock of the Bushveld (for dog lovers)
FC.Selous: African Nature Notes And Reminiscenes
Harry Manners: Kambuku

I liked Patterson's "Ghost and the Darkness". He undramatically told about huddling in a RR caboose listening to a colleague being eaten, and stalking lions with an Enfield and a borrowed double that fired only one barrel. I'm amazed he lived to write it. Much, much better than the movie, but then books nearly always are.

Patterson didn't go to Africa on safari. He went there to build a railroad. Shooting lion just fell under "other duties as necessary".

I'm told the lions are still in the Field Museum, so if I ever go to Chicago again I'll get a chance to see them.

Was about the only good thing I saw in Chicago once... in the museum. Or whole town for that matter.

Then I looked up and realized I was entering morton grove, with a loaded 1911 under the seat and TX plates on a 3/4 ton truck.... oops..... made it though.

A few more good reads:

THE SHAMBA RAIDERS: Bruce Kinloch
BIG STUFF: C.T.Stoneham
THE ADVENTURES OF SHADREK: Ron Thomson
SHOOT STRAIGHT AND STAY ALIVE: Fred Bartlett
IN ANY KIND OF COVER: Hugo Seia