Augusts in Africa: Safaris into the Twilight: Forty Years of Essays and Stories

Description

"They burn the grass in July to get it short again, and the decent hunting starts in August." -Robert Ruark Americans from Roosevelt to Hemingway to Ruark to Capstick to Robert Jones defined Africa in ways that no European colonist ever would or could. In Augusts in Africa, Thomas McIntyre presents the stories he has gathered from four decades of safari-ing in Africa-and from among the most transforming days, weeks, and months of his life. For those who know it well, these tales may read like accurate reflections of their own experiences on the continent. For others who have journeyed to Africa only briefly, or even not at all, there is a transporting insight to be found in them. And if there is more than one account on the hunting of the Cape buffalo, that is only because it, the buffalo, may simply represent the ideal combination (the "perfect game") of size, strength, intelligence, and vehemence to be found in any large wild animal and is therefore indicative of what draws us back again and again to Africa. Whether crouched in a blind for hours until he can clearly make out the individual rosettes on a leopard's hide or listening to the professional hunter utter "Oh oh, you should run" when faced with a charging elephant cow, Tom McIntyre brings to life amazing African animals and exciting expeditions in Augusts in Africa.

Tom McIntyre has written hundreds of articles appearing in Sports Afield, Field & Stream, Gray's Sporting Journal, Petersen's Hunting, American Hunter, Men's Journal, Outdoor Life, Bugle, Sporting Classics, Fly Rod & Reel, as well as in a score of anthologies. Tom is on the mastheads as a contributing editor of both Sports Afield and Field & Stream magazines. He resides in Wyoming. Craig Boddington spent the past forty years exploring our natural world as a hunter and sharing his knowledge and experiences in dozens of books and through thousands of published articles and essays. He's a decorated Marine and an award-winning author, and he remains a leading voice for conservation and ethical hunting around the world. He resides in California. Andrew Warrington has traveled extensively through Europe and North America, working in the outdoors and studying native game. His illustrations have appeared on the covers, and with the content, of nearly all the magazines devoted to hunting, as well as with some of the finest books on the outdoors, hunting, and wildlife. He lives in northwest England.

"McIntyre has a mastery of language that helps put us there far better than most other writers, even such vaunted names as Robert Ruark and Ernest Hemingway, but Augusts isn't just a story of hunting successes and failures. Instead it's a look at the human condition." "Beautifully written . . . [McIntyre's] experiences in Africa have been some of the most transformative of his long hunting career, and his affection for the continent suffuses these stories and transports the reader along on his expeditions." "Tommy McIntyre's August in Africa is such a book. I'm confident when I say it is his best book. Despite my love for that little Asian gem, A Snow Leopard's Tale, it is one of the two or three best books written about Africa by an American. Maybe in time, its autumnal tone will make it the best. If you have any interest in Africa at all, try this book and read his prologue. If you don't like that, I'll give you your money back." "McIntyre has a mastery of language that helps put us there far better than most other writers, even such vaunted names as Robert Ruark and Ernest Hemingway, but Augusts isn't just a story of hunting successes and failures. Instead it's a look at the human condition."