Augusts in Africa

“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.