|
|
 Author Name: Terry Wieland
Title: A VIEW FROM A TALL HILL: ROBERT RUARK IN AFRICA
Binding: Hardcover
Type: BOOK
Publisher: DOWN EAST BOOKS
ISBN Number: 0892726504 / 9780892726509
Seller ID: 1061639
Biography of prominent game hunter & sports writer, Robert Ruark. 6x9 inches, 432 pgs.
'Robert Ruark was unquestionably the most influential safari writer of the latter 20th century. He was a nationally renowned columnist and author during his lifetime, and since his death in 1965 his writings have continued to inspire thousands of hunters to travel to Africa. Millions more, who can only dream of going there, feel they know Africa intimately from reading his work.
Given his stature in the field, it is a shock to realize that Ruark's career as a writer on Africa lasted less than fifteen years. During that span, however, he lived life at a frantic pace, traveling the world, trying to see everything, do everything, report everything. Particularly, he came to know West Africa like a second home, and he watched its struggle for independence with increasing apprehension. In his newspaper columns, he predicted the economic, social, and political chaos that has been daily news from African datelines ever since the colonial flags were lowered.
Ruark's death in 1965, at the age of 49, was premature, but not unexpected. He had lived life too fast. Estranged from his childhood home in North Carolina, exiled from his adult haunts in New York, and finally barred from his adopted land of Kenya, Ruark found his only real home in the tiny Spanish town of Palamos, where he is bured in a quiet corner of the ancient walled cemetery.
In this book, Terry Wieland has written, not a biography of Ruark in the strict sense, but a book about Ruark, his work, the times in which he lived, and the strange allure that Africa had for him -- an irresistible fascination Ruark repaid by immortalizing Kenya as if it were a first, tender love.
WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING!
"Wieland brings Ruark to life with equal measures of sympathy and honesty. The result is an unusually perceptive literary biography and a great tale told about a fascinating figure." --Christopher Camuto, Gray's Sporting Journal
"Wieland's fascinating and vibrant biogaphy of Robert Ruark, the other Hemingway, is something of value indeed." --Bruce Buck, Shooting Sportsman
"Sad, fascinating, and the finest tribute that Robert Chester Ruark will ever have." --David Petzal, Field & Stream
CONTENTS:
Table of Contents
Author's Preface
Introduction
1. Life Among the Giants
2. The University of North Carolina
3. Learning the Ropes
4. Gone to Sea
5. Trials of Babylon
6. The Hard True Life
* Safari: Horn of the Hunter
7. Kenya in Black and White
8. Robert Ruark among the Mau Mau
*Mau Mau: Something of Value
9. Home No More
10. Miles and Miles of Bloody Africa
11. Ruark & Hemingway
12. Exploration and Farewell
* Winds of Change: Uhuru
13. Bwana Bob
* Other Days: The Old Man and the Boy & The Old Man's Boy Grows Older
14. The Lion at Twilight
*Self Portrait: The Honey Badger
15. Ruark & Selby
16. A Tusk and a Book
Epilogue: A View from a Tall Hill
Bibliography
Index
EXCERPT FROM THE CHAPTER, "The Hard True Life"
"From 1951 until the day [Ruark] died, Africa reached out to him with a promise that there he would find something that was worth having -- something that did not exist in Manhattan. Even if he could never articulate exactly what that something was, it was solid and tangible to him.
"During that safari, Robert Ruark got his first view from a tall hill, and what he saw out there on the African plain was of incalcuable value to a writer: He saw a subject that was truly worth writing about."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Terry Wieland is shooting editor of Gray's Sporting Journal and a frequent contributor to Shooting Sportsman and the Petersen publications. His first hunting safari was in 1990, and in the years since he has traveled to Africa an average of once a year. He is also author of Spanish Best: The Fine Shotguns of Spain, Spiral-Horn Dreams, and The Magic of Big Game.
Price =
42.00 USD |
|
Add to Shopping Cart
Tell A Friend About This Item |
|
|
|
<< Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next >> Skip 100 >> |
|
|
|
