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FS: used books on world and US history and various outdoors "adventures."

ALL PRICES INCLUDE USPS SHIPPING TO US ZIP CODES. I take personal checks and all money orders made out to my "legal" name, and, oh yeah, cash. I don't take paypal or other online payment plans, or in-kind payments like pitbull pups and banty roosters, not even once-fired brass.

How it works: only way to order a book or books is to put an "I'll take books #____" as a "reply" on THIS ad. That reserves that title or titles. Then I'll mark the books sold on the ad (SPF), acknowledge your order on the thread with a reply, PM you my "legal" name and mailing address, and get 'em ready to ship. I try to ship the next mail day after I get your payment.

If you have questions or comments please PM me instead of posting on this thread--I WILL get back to you ASAP.


"Africana"

1)SPF "The River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile" by Candace Millard. Interesting history of long-term exploration that led to European understanding of what a potential treasure house Central Africa really was, and then to its subsequent colonization. The two main British players could have hardly been more different and of course ended up deadly enemies after surviving so much horror and violence. One, John Harris Speke, was the complete English aristocrat: proper, ultraconservative, and a supporter of the military establishment. The other, Richard Burton, was a rebel genius who was a decorated soldier who despised the military, spoke MANY languages, was a well-known "sexual experimenter," and a militant atheist. Candace Millard is the most prominent of Theodore Roosevelt's biographers (see "The River of Doubt"). HB 360 new/exc. cond illus w/maps, b/w photos. $8

2)SPF"For Love of Soysambu: the Saga of Lord Delemere and His Descendants in Kenya" by Juliet Barnes. Four generations of "White Africans" who came to colonize and get rich and stayed to conserve the land they came to love. Unsolved deaths and scandals, agricultural history, and the pressures of new national independence from Great Britain. Soyambu, the African family estate, ultimately became a wildlife refuge and the family's energy and wealth went to protect the wildlife from illegal hunting and trapping. Juliet Barnes lived on Soysambu for many years and is very familiar with the history of the Delameres and and their struggles to survive themselves and modern Kenya. PB 350 pp. new cond illus w/b/w and color photos, Delamere family tree, index, maps and notes. $7

3)SPF "Dangerous Beauty: Life and Death in Africa" by Mark C. Ross. True stories by an American wildlife biologist turned African safari guide. Very well written and always aware of the truths of wild Africa--death, violence, and beauty. Ross, guide, pilot, an firefighter, whose US base was in Colorado, writes beautifully about African nature, but doesn't sugar coat the nature of African politics: this book is "framed" by two brutal wars. HB 325 pp. exc cond illus w/b/w photos $7

"Non-African Adventures"

4) SPF "Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival" by George Kennon, intro By Larry McMurtry. Two years in mid-1860s Siberia exploring for a proposed telegraphic link between Russia and the US. Meetings with previously undescribed tribal people, the rigors of Arctic weather and isolation, and the restrictions of the Czarist government made this project daunting, and finally impossible. But Ohio-born Kennan, one of the ancestors of the Cold War diplomat George Kennan, appears to have had great fun! (What a "camping trip"!) PB 441 pp. exc. cond $7

5) SPF"The Demon of the Waters" The Story of the Mutiny of the Whaleship 'Globe'" by Gregory Gibson. "Diversity in the workplace" is now sometimes viewed as an asset. But in 1822 in the cramped spaces of a sailing ship alone in the expanses of the South Pacific, it wasn't. The mixed cultural needs of the crew, along with a Yankee ringleader now diagnosed as suffering a "mixed personality disorder" (translation anyone?) led to a very real Hell on Earth! The "good old days"? PB 320 very good reading cond, illus w/drawings, diagrams of the ship, maps and b/w repros of contemporary newspaper illustrations. $5

6) SPF"Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West" by d'Arcy Jennish. In the GPS era it's hard to imagine what the 18th Century Pacific Northwest was like. David Thompson, a British teenager who arrived from a "public school" in London as green a "greenhorn" as ever was, ultimately explored and mapped what is now the American Northwest and Western Canada. This part of North America was then a chaos of battling native tribes, competing fur and trading companies from Britain and the US, and the administrations of both colonial Canada and the US, not to mention the Russians. who had footholds in Northern California and Alaska. Thompson navigated all that and the maps he originated ultimately helped define the borders that we now have. PB 317 pp. exc. reading cond ills w/maps, original illustrations by Thompson, and sketches by Canadian artists. $6

7)SPF "Fighting Indians of the West" by Dee Brown and Martin F. Schmitt. Classic paperback history of the Great Plains and Arizona Indian Wars, plus the Modoc War in California, as told by the author of "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee." PB 253 pp. good reading condition, lllus w.over 120 b/w photos unearthed by Mr. Schmitt, sketches, painting repros, maps and bibliography. $4

8) "The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the OK Corral and How It Changed the American West" by Jeff Guinn. The Big Picture of The Gunfight--where Black Hats and White Hats all end up a dirty gray! Painstaking research by a prize-winning Western historian that gets down to the real characters and motivations of frontier hustlers that drove both history and paperback and Hollywood myth. PB 395pp good reading cond w/slight cover wear, illus w/map of Tombstone on "The Day," Cochise County AZ, and the former Arizona Territory; many historic b/w photos, index, bibliography, and research notes. $7

9) SPF"Snake River of Hell's Canyon" by Johnny Casey, Cort Conley, and Ace Barton. The prehistory and history of one of America's most spectacular features. Sections cover the explorations and the persons who dared explore, and then the three sections of Hell's Canyon in great detail including their physical details and histories. Lots of interesting characters. PB 407 pp, exc/new cond published in ID w/14 maps of the Canyon, many, many B/W photos of the Canyon's people, boats, rapids, mines; tales of Canyon life....and death. $8

10) SPF"Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks" by Susan Casey. Casey takes us to the "Devil's Teeth," the Farallon Islands about 30 miles West of the Golden Gate Bridge. A large population of White Sharks lives there feeding of the sea lions and other marine mammals that also flock there. There's nothing about the Farallons that isn't dangerous: currents from all the California rivers that drain the west slope of the Sierra Nevada collide with the huge North Pacific Humboldt Current, making for rough seas at best. And "going ashore"--where there is no shore--can be downright suicidal....PB 293 pp. new cond w/color photos, 2-page map. $6

11) SPF"A Wetland Biography: Seasons on Louisiana's Chenier Plain" by Gay M. Gomez. The Chenier Plain is a 2,200 square mile region of wetlands and low wooded ridges ("cheniers") along the Gulf of Mexico. About 6000 people live there, many of Cajun ancestry. They combine modern service and farming occupations with traditional ones like fur trapping, fishing, alligator hunting and farming, and waterfowl hunting. Gomez shows how these wildlife-based traditions provide both economic incentives for conservation and sources of personal and cultural identity for the residents. Details of how it all "works" and what threatens it. PB (U. Texas Press) 283 pp exc. cond illus w/maps, b/w photos, many charts, tables and lists of the wildlife and the economics of the wildlife based industries and sports, bibliography, notes, and index. $7

12) Four recent issues of "Gray's Sporting Journal" sold as one. Four issues of "Gray's" for four bucks each--August, October, November/December, and the 2024 "Expeditions and Guides Annual" The first three are the usual (I should say "unusual" since this is an unusually fine publication!). mixture of articles and columns on hunting and fishing, plus kit to buy and use for them. The last is their issue that showcases available international guide services and outdoor lodges and other locations to stay while you are "sporting." But this specialized issue also always has a variety of articles and photo essays on hunting and fishing, plus recipes, tech articles on guns and fishing tackle, and hand painted illustrations plus beautiful color photos of hunting and fishing at foreign and domestic locations. All four issues, gently read once, for $16 shipped.

Thanks for reading my long post!

Mike Armstrong aka Mesa

1,3,4 and 6 I will take please

Pm sent

I'll take # 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Thanks Mike!

Books #s 1, 3, 4 and 6 SPF to GBOB

Books #s 2,5,7,8,9, and 10 SPF to BALLISTIK

Thanks for your orders, guys!

PMs to you in a couple of hours.

Mike Armstrong aka Mesa

I will take # 11

Book #11 SPF to 5960. PM ASAP.

Mesa,

Good to see you posting again!

Thanks slowmover12--Very nice to hear from you again too!

All books are sold; just the "Gray's Sporting Journal" magazines (#12) remain. But they're very nice, too! Lots of hand-painted illustrations just like all sporting mags had when I was a kiddie in the late '40s and the '50s.

Plenty of starving but talented artists around then and color photography was rarer and more expensive than a well-trained painter....

Mike Armstrong aka Mesa