A dark thriller set mainly in GLASGOW
Ten Great Books to Take on SAFARI
8th August 2025
Ten great books to take on Safari. Going on safari is an unforgettable adventure that immerses you in the heart of the wild. It’s an opportunity to witness incredible animals like lions, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos in their natural habitats. The experience is more than just sightseeing; it’s about the thrill of the camera chase, the quiet moments of observation, and the stunning landscapes that stretch for miles.
You’ll spend your days in a specially designed vehicle, guided by an expert who can track animals and share fascinating insights. Each game drive is a new chapter, filled with unexpected encounters and breathtaking moments that will stay with you long after you’ve returned home.
Here are ten of our favourite safari-set books.
The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith – BOTSWANA
Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi are called to a safari lodge in Botswana’s Okavango Delta to carry out a delicate mission on behalf of a former guest.
The Okavango makes Precious appreciate once again the beauty of her homeland: it is a paradise of teeming wildlife, majestic grasslands and sparkling water. However, it is also home to rival safari operators, fearsome crocodiles and disgruntled hippopotamuses. What’s more, Mma Makutsi still does not have a date for her wedding to Phuti Radiphuti and is feeling rather tetchy herself. But Precious knows that with a little patience, just as the wide river will gently make its way round any obstacle, so will everything work out for the best in the end.
Ride the Wings of Morning by Sophie Neville – SOUTHERN AFRICA
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work as a safari guide on a game reserve in Southern Africa?
Sophie arrived in South Africa to spend help a friend run horseback safaris on a game reserve in 1992.
She had heard of ‘biltong’ but knew nothing of Afrikaans culture. She was aware of poachers, but not of the danger of sausage trees. She understood there were rhino on the reserve, but not that she would end up working as the safari guide. In the dark. On a stallion. Lost. With completely innocent tourists on other horses.
Armed only with a paintbrush, she set off on various adventures into the wilderness, to illustrate the beauty, diversity and warmth of the great continent. This uplifting true story, the sequel to the book ‘Funnily Enough’, is told through correspondence with her family in England.
DON’T RUN whatever you do by Peter Allison – KALAHARI DESERT
In the tradition of Bill Bryson, a new writer brings us the lively adventures and biting wit of an African safari guide. Peter Allison works as a top safari guide in the Okavango Delta, an oasis of wetland in the middle of the Kalahari desert, rich with wildlife. As he caters to the whims of his wealthy clients, he often has to overcome the impulse to run as far away from them as he can, as these tourists are sometimes more dangerous than a pride of lions! Full of outrageous-but-true tales of the people and animals he has encountered – the young woman who rejected the recommended safari-friendly khaki to wear a more fashionable hot pink ensemble: the drunk, half-naked missing tourist who happened to be a member of the British royal family: the squirrel that overdosed on malaria pills: the monkeys with an underwear fetish: and last, but by no means least, Spielberg the Japanese tourist who wanted a repeat performance of Allison s narrow escape from a pair of charging lionesses so he could videotape it – these hilarious stories reveal Allison s good-natured scorn for himself, as well as others. Allison s humour is exceeded only by his love and respect for the animals, and his goal is to limit any negative exposure to humans by planning trips that are minimally invasive – unfortunately it doesn t always work out that way, as he and his clients discover to their cost when they find themselves up to their necks in a hippo-infested watering hole! Full of essential wisdom like Don t run,whatever you do , and never stand behind a frightened zebra (they are prone to explosive flatulence when scared!), this is a wonderful and vivid portrait of what the life of a safari guide is really like.
The Wild Girls by Phoebe Morgan – BOTSWANA
In a luxury lodge on Botswana’s sun-soaked plains, four friends reunite for a birthday celebration…
THE BIRTHDAY GIRL
Has it all, but chose love over her friends…
THE TEACHER
Feels the walls of her flat and classroom closing in…
THE MOTHER
Loves her baby, but desperately needs a break…
THE INTROVERT
Yearns for adventure after suffering for too long…
Arriving at the safari lodge, a feeling of unease settles over them. There’s no sign of the party that was promised. There’s no phone signal. They’re alone, in the wild.
The Lion Hunter by Daniel Pembrey – KENYA
Andrew and Lavinia Riley are on their honeymoon at an African game lodge when they meet a Texan trophy hunter. Andrew, a journalist, senses a timely story about lion hunting, and engages a local guide to learn how the lions are tracked in this remote borderland of north Tanzania. Andrew finds lions, but his inquiries draw him into a different type of danger altogether – with local tribesmen. Soon, his only hope for survival lies in an unexpected source.
‘The murder of the lion Cecil outraged people all over the world. Daniel’s reaction was to write this terrific story, with a totally unexpected twist. I read it in one sitting.’ John Rendall, animal conservationist and author of A Lion called Christian.
An Elephant My Kitchen by Françoise Malby-Anthony – NATAL
Françoise Malby-Anthony never expected to find herself responsible for a herd of elephants with a troubled past. A chic Parisienne, her life changed forever when she fell in love with South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony. Together they founded a game reserve but after Lawrence’s death, Françoise faced the daunting responsibility of running Thula Thula without him. Poachers attacked their rhinos, their security team wouldn’t take orders from a woman and the authorities were threatening to cull their beloved elephant family. On top of that, the herd’s feisty new matriarch Frankie didn’t like her.
In this heart-warming and moving book, Françoise describes how she fought to protect the herd and to make her dream of building a wildlife rescue centre a reality. She found herself caring for a lost baby elephant who turned up at her house, and offering refuge to traumatized orphaned rhinos, and a hippo called Charlie who was scared of water. As she learned to trust herself, she discovered she’d had Frankie wrong all along . . .
Sleuth on Safari by A R Kennedy – SOUTH AFRICA
A bargain deal on a safari + one dead body = An adventure no one could plan for.
Naomi and her estranged sister are off on a trip of a lifetime—an African safari, a bucket list trip for Naomi on which she got a last-minute deal. Naomi thinks traveling with her sister will be the worst part of her African safari until she finds one of their fellow travelers, the unlikable Dr. Higgins, dead. She gets more adventure than she bargained for when she starts investigating what she thinks is murder but the luxury lodge says was a tragic accident. She only has a few vacation days, and a few game drives, to find the killer.
Mrs Pollifax on Safari by Dorothy Gilman – ZAMBIA
Now the incredible Mrs. Pollifax has been sent on a safari to smoke out a very clever international assassin whose next target is the president of Zambia.
“Just take a lot of pictures of everyone on that safari,” the CIA man told her. “One of them has to be our man.”
It sounded simple enough. But it wasn’t. Because shortly after Mrs. Pollifax started taking pictures, someone stole her film. And right after that she was kidnapped by Rhodesian terrorists. And right after that—well, read for yourself….
The Safari by Jaclyn Goldis – SOUTH AFRICA
Odelia Babel, CEO of a sustainable fashion empire, is about to marry for the second time—to a man twenty-five years her junior. Asher Bach is the thirty-something designer of Odelia’s luxury clothing line, the darling of every high-fashion journalist, and madly in love with Odelia.
Eager to celebrate her nuptials with her nearest and dearest, Odelia invites her adult children, her daughter-in-law, her grandchild, and her best friend/assistant to an all-expenses-paid luxury safari at Leopard Sands in South Africa, the Babel family’s favorite vacation spot.
It seems like the perfect trip, but not everyone is thrilled for the happy couple. Amid game drives in the bush and bonfires beneath the desert stars, tensions among the family threaten to boil over. And then, the morning after a big fight with her son Sam—and hours before the wedding—Odelia is found murdered. Sam is immediately the prime suspect, but he claims he has an ironclad alibi—he was with his twin sister, Bailey. Only Bailey is nowhere to be found…
As the heat roils in this “cleverly constructed puzzler that brings all the delights of classic Golden Age mysteries into the 21st century” (Library Journal, starred review), desperate poachers and ferocious animals lurk, and dark motives fester, it becomes clear that whoever killed Odelia isn’t quite finished yet, and the rest of the Babel family is their prey.
Cry of the Kalahari by Mark Owens, Delia Owens – KALAHARI DESERT
Carrying little more than a change of clothes and a pair of binoculars, two young Americans, Mark and Delia Owens, caught a plane to Africa, bought a thirdhand Land Rover, and drove deep into the Kalahari Desert. There they lived for seven years, in an unexplored area with no roads, no people, and no source of water for thousands of square miles. In this vast wilderness the Owenses began their zoology research, working along animals that had never before been exposed to humans.
An international bestseller, Cry of the Kalahari is the story of the Owenses’s life with lions, brown hyenas, jackals, giraffes, and the many other creatures they came to know. It is also a gripping account of how they survived the dangers of living in one of the last and largest pristine areas on Earth.
Enjoy our selection of books to take with you on Safari!
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