● THE SAFARI COMPANION: A Guide to Watching African Mammals - Richard Estes, 1993. $25.00
For those who are interested in knowing more about the behaviour of the animals they will see on safari.
● PHOTOGRAPHIC GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF EAST AFRICA - Richard Davis, 2001, $15.95
Popular, compact, and easy-to-use format. Authoritative text describes key identification features. Full colour photos for each of the 265 species described.
● FIELD GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF EAST AFRICA: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi - Terry Stevenson & John Fanshawe, 2001, $40.00
We recommend this as the ideal Field Guide for a visit to Kenya's wildlife areas. Concise descriptions and excellent illustrations.
● BIRDS OF KENYA & NORTHERN TANZANIA - Zimmerman, Turner, & Pearson, 1996, $29.95
Describes 1,114 species found within this region with very comprehensive text, 124 colour plates and numerous line drawings to illustrate every species.
● NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY FIELD GUIDE TO AFRICAN WILDLIFE - Peter Alden, 1995, $19.95
The most comprehensive field guide to the wildlife of Africa. 577 colour photographs feature 50 habitats, 200 mammals, 300 birds, and many reptiles and insects.
● KENYA THE BRADT TRAVEL GUIDE - Claire Foottit, 2004, $14.93
We recommend this as an excellent travel guide. As the country moves towards a greater sense of individuality for travellers, Claire Foottit's newly researched guide is the ideal planner and travel companion.
. Natural history, conservation and culture in depth
. Where to see wildlife, from national parks to lesser-known regions
. A to Z of activities, special interests and events to help create a personal safari
. Detailed coverage of accommodation, including ecolodges
. Adventure options, from gold-panning to sky diving
● FIELD GUIDE TO THE LARGER MAMMALS OF AFRICA - Chris & Tilde Stuart, 1997, $32.95
In this very useful field guide, over 400 full colour photographs combine with concise but pertinent information on well over 200 mammal species, highlighting the diagnostic features of each mammal.
● SOUTHERN, CENTRAL AND EAST AFRICAN MAMMALS: A Photographic Guide - by Chris & Tilde Stuart, 1998, $15.95
The authors have selected the 152 mammal species most likely to be encountered, and by means of clear field text and color photos, highlight the characteristic features of each species for easy identification. Compact and easy-to-use format. Pocket-size.
Recommended Maps:
● AMBOSELI MAP: The National Park & Dispersal Area. (Includes Selenkay Conservancy) - 2005 $8.20
Synopsis: Amboseli National Park, located in southern Kenya at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, is one of Kenya's most popular national park. The park forms part of the unique Amboseli swamp ecosystem drawing buffalo, elephant, hippo, wildebeest and an abundant bird life on a daily basis. Amboseli's elephants are probably the best known and most studied in the world by Cynthia Moss and her team who are conducting the longest continuous study of elephants ever undertaken. Amboseli is also home to Kenya's Maasai.
● KENYA ROUGH GUIDE MAP: 2004 $9.70
In our view this is the best Kenya map available.
History, Travelogues and Literature:
● SHADOW OF KILIMANJARO: On Foot Across East Africa - Rick Ridgeway, 1998, $14.00
Explorer, adventurer, entrepreneur, Ridgeway takes the reader on an incredible journey. On foot for a month, from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, through the plains of Tsavo, to the sea, he offers a rare ground's-eye view of east Africa as it is today, and how it once was before the incursion of European civilization.
● THE FLAME TREES OF THIKA - Elspeth Huxley, 2000, $12.95
The famous autobiography of a childhood spent in Kenya. Huxley, also known for her novels and mysteries, comes to the African bush at the age of six. This is her eloquent and lively story, infused with a child's sensitivity and honesty. A wonderful glimpse of life in Kenya on the eve of World War I.
● I DREAMED OF AFRICA - Kuki Gallmann, 1992, $15.95
This is a very personal story, a woman's journey of love, loss and rebirth, based on a ranch in Kenya, on the edge of the Rift Valley. Gallmann fulfilled her dream by moving to Africa at 25 with her soon-to-be husband, where they established a 90,000 acre ranch. The book is a beautifully written and at times haunting memoir of what it is like to belong to the land and truly love Africa.
● WEST WITH THE NIGHT - Beryl Markham, 1983, $13.00
At the age of four, Beryl Markham was taken by her father to Kenya. She later became a bush pilot, and in 1936, became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west. In this stylish book, Markham describes her life in Kenya so adeptly that Hemingway was prompted to say, "She has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer."
● THE TREE WHERE MAN WAS BORN - Peter Matthiessen, 1995, paperback $14.95
An African classic. Matthiessen exquisitely combines nature and travel writing to bring East Africa vividly to life. He magically portrays the sights, scenes, and people he observed firsthand in several trips over the course of 12 years.
● THE LUNATIC EXPRESS - Charles Miller, 2002, Penguin books, paperback $6.00
The saga of the turbulent international race for the mastery and development of an immense region of East Africa that all but visionaries thought worthless. It is the narrative of the building of the Mombasa-Nairobi-Lake Victoria Railway itself - a colossal six-year enterprise that was to cost over $7 million and countless lives, from derailments, collisions, disease, tribal raids and the assaults of wild animals. It is a diorama of an earlier Africa, of slave and ivory empires, of sultans and tribal monarchs and the vast lands that they ruled. Above all, it is the story of the white intruders whose combination of avarice, honour and tenacious courage made them a breed apart.
