I am an author specializing in nature, travel, and adventure writing. I’ve been fortunate to travel to many of the places featured in my books – including Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. I even to travelled to Morocco to study the art of storytelling with the last of the great storytellers. I’ve always been intrigued by stories that tell a personal journey about overcoming obstacles, especially if the story takes the reader to exotic places. So no wonder I jumped at the opportunity to co-author a book with a game ranger and conservationist in Africa that combines historical perspectives, larger-than-life characters, and dangerous experiences with wildlife.
I wrote
When Eagles Roar: The Amazing Journey of an African Wildlife Adventurer
I love nonfiction adventure books that immerse you in the details of an adventure while providing enough background information to understand the historical, cultural, and scientific perspectives of an era. In the mid-19th century, Paul du Chaillu spent years in Western Africa tracking down the njena, the mythical beast. This book makes for interesting reading as the author weaves the true-life adventure story of the discovery of the gorilla with Darwin’s evolutionary debate,and the challenges a Victorian-era scientist faced to prove his credibility.
In 1856, Paul Du Chaillu ventured into the African jungle in search of a mythic beast, the gorilla. After wild encounters with vicious cannibals, deadly snakes, and tribal kings, Du Chaillu emerged with 20 preserved gorilla skins—two of which were stuffed and brought on tour—and walked smack dab into the biggest scientific debate of the time: Darwin's theory of evolution. Quickly, Du Chaillu's trophies went from objects of wonder to key pieces in an all-out intellectual war. With a wide range of characters, including Abraham Lincoln, Arthur Conan Doyle, P.T Barnum, Thackeray, and of course, Charles Darwin, this is a…
I remember my first encounter with African wildlife. I was standing in front of a museum diorama, facing a lion standing full height, its glass eyes gleaming. These displays were crafted so carefully, the animals posed so perfectly, the backgrounds painted so realistically. But who turned these dead animals into works of art? This book describes the life of the man who traveled the world to find and preserve the best specimens. Carl Akeley’s journey is both gruesome and fascinating.
In this epic account of an extraordinary life lived during remarkable times, Jay Kirk follows the adventures of legendary explorer and taxidermist Carl Akeley, who revolutionized taxidermy and environmental conservation and created the famed African Hall at New York's Museum of Natural History. Akeley risked death time and again in the jungles of Africa as he stalked animals for his dioramas and hobnobbed with outsized personalities of the era, such as Theodore Roosevelt and P. T. Barnum. Kingdom Under Glass is "a rollicking biography…an epic adventure…[and] a beguiling novelistic portrait of a man and an era straining to hear the…
I’ve always wondered how an obsession can turn criminal. The lure of the illegal wildlife trade can be very lucrative for those with a penchant for adventure and who are willing to take significant risks. This is the story of how a birder from southern Africa became an international wildlife criminal and rare-bird smuggler. The author wraps the story with the challenges that law enforcement officials face to apprehend and convict. This is a great introduction into the wildlife trade and the efforts people will take to acquire endangered species.
A "well-written, engaging detective story" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) about a rogue who trades in rare birds and their eggs-and the wildlife detective determined to stop him.
On May 3, 2010, an Irish national named Jeffrey Lendrum was apprehended at Britain's Birmingham International Airport with a suspicious parcel strapped to his stomach. Inside were fourteen rare peregrine falcon eggs snatched from a remote cliffside in Wales.
So begins a "vivid tale of obsession and international derring-do" (Publishers Weekly), following the parallel lives of a globe-trotting smuggler who spent two decades capturing endangered raptors worth millions of dollars as race champions-and…
An art teacher recommended this book to me when I wanted to learn more about sketchbook journaling. What better way to learn than to page through the field notes and illustrations from the diaries and journals of 70 famous world travelers and adventurers! For each of these daring men and women, there is a brief introduction followed by a visual treasure trove of sketches, original diary pages, and watercolor paintings. This book will remind you of what exploration and encountering wildlife and other cultures were like before cameras and cell phones.
The sketchbook has been the one constant in explorers' kits for centuries of adventure. Often private, they are records of immediate experiences and discoveries, and in their pages we can see what the explorers themselves encountered. This remarkable book showcases 70 such sketchbooks, kept by intrepid men and women as they journeyed perilous and unknown environments—frozen wastelands, high mountains, barren deserts, and dense rainforests—with their senses wide open. Figures such as Charles Darwin and Sir Edmund Hillary are joined here by lesser-known explorers such as Adela Breton, who braved the jungles of Mexico to make a record of Mayan monuments.…
I think the best books are stories about a personal journey. Beryl Markham’s beautifully written memoir about living in eastern Africa is just that. The famous aviatrix grew up on a farm raising racehorses and later associated with the author Karen Blixen (Out of Africa) and her husband, the professional big game hunter Bror Blixen. In Beryl’s chapters on rounding up elephants by air for Bror’s early safaris, she provides insight into the dangers and fascination men have had through the ages hunting and killing wild animals.
WEST WITH THE NIGHT appeared on 13 bestseller lists on first publication in 1942. It tells the spellbinding story of Beryl Markham -- aviator, racehorse trainer, fascinating beauty -and her life in the Kenya of the 1920s and 30s.
Markham was taken to Kenya at the age of four. As an adult she was befriended by Denys Finch-Hatton, the big-game hunter of OUT OF AFRICA fame, who took her flying in his airplane. Thrilled by the experience, Markham went on to become the first woman in Kenya to receive a commercial pilot's license.
This is a riveting African adventure story told with passion and charm. But as the Zulus say, “There is no river without a shade.” Follow the daring safari of James Currie as his love of birds, fascination with wildlife, and craving for adventure lead him into humorous and life-threatening situations. James captures the essence of what it means to be African today, facing everything from the Big Five to the vestiges of apartheid to the AIDS epidemic. He provides authoritative information on African wildlife and illustrates hair-raising encounters with lions, buffalo, leopards, elephants, rhinoceros, and snakes through exciting and humorous stories.
After Dr. Shawn Jennings, a busy family physician, suffered a brainstem stroke on May 13, 1999, he woke from a coma locked inside his body, aware and alert but unable to communicate or move. Once he regained limited movement in his left arm, he began typing his story, using one hand and a lot of patience.
With unexpected humour and tender honesty, Shawn shares his experiences in his struggle for recovery and acceptance of his life after the stroke. He affirms that even without achieving a full recovery life is still worth…
Locked In Locked Out: Surviving a Brainstem Stroke
After Dr. Shawn Jennings, a busy family physician, suffered a brainstem stroke on May 13, 1999, he woke from a coma locked inside his body, aware and alert but unable to communicate or move. Once he regained limited movement in his left arm, he began typing his story, using one hand and a lot of patience.
With unexpected humour and tender honesty, Shawn shares his experiences in his struggle for recovery and acceptance of his life after the stroke. He affirms that even without achieving a full recovery life is still worth…
