Book picks similar to
The Lost World of the Kalahari by Laurens van der Post
africa
non-fiction
travel
history
Cry of the Kalahari
Mark Owens - 1984
Here they met and studied unique animals and were confronted with danger from drought, fire, storms, and the animals they loved. This best-selling book is for both travelers and animal lovers.
The Colossus of Maroussi
Henry Miller - 1941
As an impoverished writer in need of rejuvenation, Miller travelled to Greece at the invitation of his friend, the writer Lawrence Durrell. The text is inspired by the events that occurred. The text is ostensibly a portrait of the Greek writer George Katsimbalis, although some critics have opined that is more of a self-portrait of Miller himself.[1] Miller considered it to be his greatest work.
Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World
Simon Winchester - 2021
It quite literally underlies and underpins everything. Employing the keen intellect, insatiable curiosity, and narrative verve that are the foundations of his previous bestselling works, Simon Winchester examines what we human beings are doing—and have done—with the billions of acres that together make up the solid surface of our planet.Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World examines in depth how we acquire land, how we steward it, how and why we fight over it, and finally, how we can, and on occasion do, come to share it. Ultimately, Winchester confronts the essential question: who actually owns the world’s land—and why does it matter?
Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Alex Haley - 1976
It took ten years and a half a million miles of travel across three continents to find it, but finally, in an astonishing feat of genealogical detective work, he discovered not only the name of "the African"—Kunta Kinte—but the precise location of Juffure, the very village in The Gambia, West Africa, from which he was abducted in 1767 at the age of sixteen and taken on the Lord Ligonier to Maryland and sold to a Virginia planter.Haley has talked in Juffure with his own African sixth cousins. On September 29, 1967, he stood on the dock in Annapolis where his great-great-great-great-grandfather was taken ashore on September 29, 1767. Now he has written the monumental two-century drama of Kunta Kinte and the six generations who came after him—slaves and freedmen, farmers and blacksmiths, lumber mill workers and Pullman porters, lawyers and architects—and one author.But Haley has done more than recapture the history of his own family. As the first black American writer to trace his origins back to their roots, he has told the story of 25,000,000 Americans of African descent. He has rediscovered for an entire people a rich cultural heritage that slavery took away from them, along with their names and their identities. But Roots speaks, finally, not just to blacks, or to whites, but to all people and all races everywhere, for the story it tells is one of the most eloquent testimonials ever written to the indomitability of the human spirit.
The Ice Master
Jennifer Niven - 2000
Soon after, winter had begun, they were blown off course by polar storms, the ship became imprisoned in ice, and the expedition was abandoned by its leader. Hundreds of miles from civilization, the castaways had no choice but to find solid ground as they struggled against starvation, snow blindness, disease, exposure--and each other. After almost twelve months battling the elements, twelve survivors were rescued, thanks to the heroic efforts of their captain, Bartlett, the Ice Master, who traveled by foot across the ice and through Siberia to find help. Drawing on the diaries of those who were rescued and those who perished, Jennifer Niven re-creates with astonishing accuracy the ill-fated journey and the crews desperate attempts to find a way home.
Twenty Chickens for a Saddle
Robyn Scott - 2008
At first she thinks her parents don't have the best ideas, but soon she begins to realize the importance of her father's work. Botswana has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world, but still no one wants to talk about it and, for once, Scott is proud that her parents are willing to be unconventional.
Hunter
John A. Hunter - 1952
Hunter, a professional big-game hunter and former chairman of Tanganyika National Parks. J A. Hunter led a life of adventure, but, perhaps, the most astonishing tale in this book is his incredible adventures while hunting rhino. As a game ranger, he was ordered by the Tanganyikan government to clear out dozens of rogue rhinos from the area around Makueni, and the accounts of his experiences are spine-tingling. Hunter hunted throughout East Africa-for bongo in the Ituri rain forest (former Zaire), lion in Masailand (Kenya), and the man-killing buffalo near Thomson's Falls with his favorite dog (Kenya).
Eastern Approaches
Fitzroy Maclean - 1949
Here Fitzroy Maclean recounts his extraordinary adventures in Soviet Central Asia, in the Western Desert, where he specialized in hair-raising commando-style raids behind enemy lines, and with Tito's partisans during the last months of the German occupation of Yugoslavia. An enthralling narrative, brilliantly told, "Eastern Approaches" is also a vivid personal view of episodes that have already become part of history.
Beneath the Sands of Egypt: Adventures of an Unconventional Archaeologist
Donald P. Ryan - 2010
I heartily recommend his book to all Egyptology buffs.”—Barbara Mertz ( a.k.a. Elizabeth Peters), author of Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs A real-life “Indiana Jones,” Donald P. Ryan, Ph.D., offers a breathtaking personal account of his adventures in archaeology in Beneath the Sands of Egypt. Fans of The Lost City of Z will thrill to the exploits of this “unconventional archaeologist” as he retrieves the remains of Egypt’s past—including his breakthrough discovery in the Valley of the Kings of Egypt’s famous female pharaoh, Hatshepsut.
A Time of Gifts
Patrick Leigh Fermor - 1977
A Time of Gifts is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the reader with him as far as Hungary. It is a book of compelling glimpses - not only of the events which were curdling Europe at that time, but also of its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the storks and frogs, the hospitable burgomasters who welcomed him, and that world's grandeurs and courtesies. His powers of recollection have astonishing sweep and verve, and the scope is majestic. First published to enormous acclaim, it confirmed Fermor's reputation as the greatest living travel writer, and has, together with its sequel Between the Woods and the Water (the third volume is famously yet to be published), been a perennial seller for 25 years.
Adventures in the Rocky Mountains
Isabella Lucy Bird - 1879
Each beautifully packaged volume offers a way to see the world anew, to rediscover great civilizations and legends, vast deserts and unspoiled mountain ranges, unusual flora and strange new creatures, and much more.
The Making of The African Queen Or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and almost lost my mind
Katharine Hepburn - 1987
And why —Come hell or high waterThrough thick and through thinFor better and for worseBut not quite until death did we part —It was great fun. — K. H.
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West
Wallace Stegner - 1954
But it didn't stop him from exploring the American West. Here Wallace Stegner, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, gives us a thrilling account of Powell's struggle against western geography and Washington politics. We witness the successes and frustrations of Powell's distinguished career, and appreciate his unparalleled understanding of the West.<
Roughing It in the Bush
Susanna Moodie - 1852
This Norton Critical Edition of Roughing It in the Bush provides everything that a student needs to analyze and enjoy Moodie's tale. A thorough "Backgrounds" section includes images, a map, contemporary reviews of Roughing It, and letters written by Moodie to her husband during the winter of 1839, at which time he was serving a military appointment in the Victoria District and she and her children were facing life-threatening illnesses. "Criticism" contains ten essays by leading Canadian scholars and authors, among them Margaret Atwood, Carl Ballstadt, D. M. R. Bentley, Susan Glickman, and Michael Peterman. A Chronology of Susanna Moodie's life and a Selected Bibliography are also included.
Stranger in the Forest: On Foot Across Borneo
Eric Hansen - 1988
Completely cut off from the outside world for seven months, he traveled nearly 1,500 miles with small bands of nomadic hunters known as Penan. Beneath the rain forest canopy, they trekked through a hauntingly beautiful jungle where snakes and frogs fly, pigs climb trees, giant carnivorous plants eat mice, and mushrooms glow at night. At once a modern classic of travel literature and a gripping adventure story, Stranger in the Forest provides a rare and intimate look at the vanishing way of life of one of the last surviving groups of rain forest dwellers. Hansen's absorbing, and often chilling, account of his exploits is tempered with the humor and humanity that prompted the Penan to take him into their world and to share their secrets.