Publisher Description

Let Savannah Diaries take you on a safari of discovery though Africa's most beautiful national parks and big game sanctuaries, in the company of its spectacular wildlife and the remarkable characters - scientists, conservationists, wardens and safari guides - who have devoted their lives to protecting its unique heritage for future generations. Written by the preeminent expert on African wildlife, Brian Jackman, Savannah Diaries reveals the staggering size and scale of sub-Saharan Africa in a celebration of the continent's wild places and their abundance of living creatures.

Author Biography

BRIAN JACKMAN is a freelance journalist and author with a lifelong passion for travel and wildlife. For 20 years he worked for The Sunday Times, during which time he was voted Travel Writer of the Year in 1982. In that same year he also won the Wildscreen '82 award for the best commentary script, Osprey, at the first International Wildlife and Television Festival in Bristol. Today his work appears mostly in The Daily Telegraph, BBC Wildlife Magazine, Travel Africa and Conde Nast Traveller, where he is a contributing editor. Although his travels have taken him around the world, he is best known as Britain's foremost writer on African wildlife safaris, and has spent more than three years in total under canvas in the bush. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a trustee of the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust and a patron of Tusk Trust. His African books include The Marsh Lions and The Big Cat Diary (both with Jonathan Scott), and Roaring at the Dawn. He also edited My Serengeti Years by Myles Turner, and Battle for the Elephants, by Iain and Oria Douglas-Hamilton. Other books include Touching the Wild, The Countryside in Winter, The Dorset Coast Path, The Great Wood of Caledon (with Hugh Miles), and two bestsellers, We Learned to Ski and The Sunday Times Book of the Countryside. He is married, with one daughter and two grandchildren, and lives in Dorset.

Table of Contents

Author's Note
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Preface
Map
Introduction: Lions at First Light
Chapter One: Maasai Mara
Chapter Two: Serengeti
Chapter Three: Adamson's Africa
Chapter Four: Northern Kenya
Chapter Five: Elephant Country
Chapter Six: Southern Tanzania
Chapter Seven: Zambia
Chapter Eight: Zimbabwe
Chapter Nine: Okavango
Chapter Ten: The Kalahari
Chapter Eleven: The South African Lowveld
Chapter Twelve: Namibia
Chapter Thirteen: Monsoon Shores
Glossary
Source notes

Review

'Brian Jackman is a passionate but unsentimental conservationist who lives surrounded by reminders of what's gone before. He writes with relish for the experience he is recalling and for the language in which he sets it down. His prose is clean and uncluttered, his sense of history acute.' The Sunday Times

'The author has that priceless gift of imparting his own enthusiasm without over-emphasis. it is a pleasure to be in his company.' The Sunday Telegraph

'Brian Jackman not only writes well, but has that rare gift of communicating his own sensual perceptions.' Birds Magazine

'Few writers are able to evoke a sense of place as effectively as Brian Jackman.'
In Britain Magazine

'An ability to convey the beauty and magic of the place and its wildlife'
Bridport News

'Brian's book is a delight for all those who have been bitten by lions or would like to be. It is full of the great spaces of Africa that, as he says, are much bigger when you're foot.'
Simon Barnes, The Times

'It is hugely evocative of the African bush and its animals'
Good Book Guide

'This is a collection of inspiring, passionate and often rather depressing insights from the real deal.'
Wanderlust Magazine

''A picture may be worth a thousand words - but it depends whose words they are. Those of travel writer Brian Jackman capture the essence of wild places more vividly than any top-end digital SLR camera.' BBC Wildlife Magazine

'Perfect for bedtime reading.' Stephen Moss, The Guardian

Long Description

Let Savannah Diaries take you on a safari of discovery through Africa's most beautiful national parks and big game sanctuaries, in the company of its spectacular wildlife and the remarkable characters - scientists, conservationists, wardens and safari guides - who have devoted their lives to protecting its unique heritage for future generations. Written by the preeminent expert on African wildlife, Brian Jackman, Savannah Diaries reveals the staggering size and scale of sub-Saharan Africa in a celebration of the continent's wild places and their abundance of living creatures.

Review Quote

'Brian Jackman is a passionate but unsentimental conservationist who lives surrounded by reminders of what's gone before. He writes with relish for the experience he is recalling and for the language in which he sets it down. His prose is clean and uncluttered, his sense of history acute.' The Sunday Times 'The author has that priceless gift of imparting his own enthusiasm without over-emphasis... it is a pleasure to be in his company.' The Sunday Telegraph 'Brian Jackman not only writes well, but has that rare gift of communicating his own sensual perceptions.' Birds Magazine 'Few writers are able to evoke a sense of place as effectively as Brian Jackman.'In Britain Magazine

Feature

[Setting] - The whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

Excerpt from Book

From Chapter 7: Zambia."The buffalo bull had been killed in the night. Only the horned head and a black bag of bones remain at the scene of the crime; but the butchers, the Kutandala lion pride, are not far from camp, sleeping off the effects of their feast in the thorny thickers beside the Mwaleshi River. I'd heard them in the small hours, grunting and growling as they fought over the carcass. Now it is dawn and we are looking for them, walking quietly through the dark bush, talking in whispers. In front is Tryson Nkhoma in his green ranger's uniform, cradling his .458 calbire rifle. Then comes Rod Tether, my guide; and then me.

Description for Sales People

. Written with minimal scientific jargon for a passionate and popular audience.. Brian Jackman is Britain's foremost writer on African wildlife.. Stresses the importance of conservation and protecting Africa's wildlife heritage.. Based on 40 years of travel in the African bush.. Includes a foreword by Virginia McKenna.

Details