100 books like The Deer and the Tiger

Sunquists were my mentors who introduced me to the methods of safely catching wild tigers and radio-tracking them skillfully thereafter. Mel, a pioneer in large carnivore telemetry studies, and Fiona, an accomplished naturalist, writer and wildlife photographer, have collaborated in this book that describes in detail the first ever radio-tracking study of wild tigers they conducted in Chitwan Park Nepal in the early 1970s. It brilliantly captures the ecology of these tigers, the social context of conservation in Nepal, and their own love affair that blossoms after a chance encounter in the park. The sparkling, witty narrative and the accurate tiger science encased within it, make this a memorable read. 

This is a non-fiction classic about ‘tiger culture’ of a remote part of India where tigers do not fear humans as they do elsewhere: in fact, they even hunt down and eat dozens of people every year in this giant Sundarbans swamp where natural prey is scarce. Montgomery is brilliantly evocative while bringing to life both nature and humans of the swamp, making the book a NY Times best-seller. The local culture, where tigers are loathed, feared, and revered as deities—all at the same—is portrayed stunningly. These habitats, tiger behaviors, and local cultures are strikingly different from the ones I describe in my book. Montgomery views the tiger through a filter of human culture, whereas I do so through a filter of hard ecology. Yet, we admire each other’s work because we are both under the spell of the same tiger.   

Geoff is an eminent Historian having scripted many classics such as the Civil War TV series and, Diane, is a former Newsweek journalist who has reported on environmental issues. Both are tiger-keen aficionados’ who are—for some unfathomable reason—also morbidly fascinated by generations of gritty, grimy, and aggravatingly stubborn conservationists in India, who have fought to save India’s wild tigers through the colonial and post-colonial eras. They also write in an engaging, witty style focusing on tiger-obsessed humans rather than the magnificent cat. As one of their ‘subjects’ I believe this book provides the appropriate social and historical contexts for my own book.  

I love tigers and nature. But through a half-century of experience and science in my own struggle to save tigers in an ancient, crowded nation aspiring for modernity and prosperity for its citizens, I have realized that we cannot hope to rewind the clock of material progress back to save wild nature by rejecting technology. Brand, the original counter-culture Guru, boldly shook off such baggage at an advanced age, and became a passionate, early advocate of ecomodernism, which tries to decouple human needs from nature in an effort to save nature through tools of modern science. I arrived independently at similar conclusions after years of hard scientific study of tigers, as well as my lived experiences of Indian society in transition. I believe Brand’s clearheaded manual provides a succinct introduction to ideas I have outlined in my own book as a framework to get to a world harboring ten times… show more.

Turner chronicles the life of George Schaller, a pioneering field biologist who has dedicated his life to saving the world's great wild beasts. You'll travel the world with Schaller as he observes and tries to save some of the world's most endangered animals: mountain gorillas in Central Africa, lions in the Serengeti, snow leopards in the Himalayas, and more. This adventure-packed biography is illustrated with Schaller's own photographs and carries a powerful message about the importance of conservation.

Published 80 years ago and based on the author’s experiences hunting man-eating tigers and leopards in northern India, I read this book repeatedly. Well and sensitively written, it is not a book of boasting, hunting, and bravado but a nuanced account of efforts to protect local people from the ravages of seriously dangerous wildlife.

Corbett, part of the British occupation machinery in India, projects a love of the people of northern India and the wildlife. He is deeply committed to both and laments the need to kill tigers but accepts that protecting ordinary people is the priority.

He provides a wealth of wildlife information and always explains how and why a tiger became a man-eater–often the result of a bad encounter with a porcupine, the breaking of canines in older tigers, or injuries received hunting or being hunted.

This is a story about a teenage girl, Kelsey, whose life is turned upside-down when she discovers she’s the only one who can free an Indian prince from his curse. The story takes place in our modern-day world, but Kelsey is sent on fascinating quests to piece together a prophesy and break the curse. Kelsey seems to be an average young woman, but her bravery and determination help her on the path to freeing Ren, the mysterious white tiger.

This collection features South Asian characters from the present to different times in history. Bhuvaneswar’s prose is gorgeous, her dialogue snappy. From a woman feeling guilty for having an affair with her friend’s husband to an enslaved woman in Renaissance-era Portugal to a queer woman who’d rather move to another country than come out to her parents, Bhuvaneswar’s characters are smart, self-aware, flawed, and fascinating.

Crimes again women are discussed ad nauseam in the media but this was the first time I read a novel that made the subject painfully uncomfortable for me by telling the story not in the voice of the victim but through the reflections of a witness who probes everyone’s culpability, including her own. This powerful debut shines a very revealing light on what it means to be a comfortably middle-class Indian. 

This is a small book. But in its own way, it is rich and detailed when it comes to how profoundly it draws out the relationship between the forest and the Kadars, an indigenous community residing in South India. The authors visiting the forest are researchers from the city, but here in the forest their teachers are the Kadars whose very name means “people of the forest.” With a touch of humour the book, wonderfully illustrated, is an ode to the traditional ecological knowledge, powers of observation, and story-telling skills of the Kadars. The simple activity of walking on a forest path with the Kadars is a revelation of the wealth of knowledge they possess and their relationship with the plants, animals, and even spirits. This is knowledge no ecological textbook can provide, but this knowledge is immeasurable in its value.