David Bristow is the author of some 30 books to date. His most recent venture is a series of four non-fiction paperbacks titled ‘Stories from the Veld’.

They include:

• 20 curious characters – The Game Ranger, the Knife, the Lion and the Sheep,
• 20 amazing places – Of Hominins, Heroes and Hunter-Gatherers,
• 20 environmental stories – Big Pharma, Dirty Lies, Busy Bees and Eco-Activists, and
• 20 bush tales – The Lion, the Dung Beetle and the Veld Toolbox.

Having produced more books than The Beatles recorded albums, he felt he was qualified to release his own “best of” collection. In order to do so, with long-time friend and fellow author Monty Roodt, he formed Southern Right Publishers.

Some of the stories you can read are about the giant Trekboer and desperado Coenraad de Buys, lions and men who look – and act – like them, and a Khoi leader who took on an empire. The places are not your typical beauty spots but those with deeper backstories such as Mapungubwe, Die Hel, and the Heerenlogement ¬– a gentleman’s lodging in a time long past. There are rhinos, rhino poachers and rhino guardians, adventures in the Okavango Delta and perhaps the greatest survival story seldom ever told.

The Game Ranger, The Knife, The Lion And The Sheep offers spell-binding stories of some amazing, little known characters from South Africa, past and very past. Let us introduce you to some of the characters you’ll meet inside.

Starting with Krotoa, the Khoi maiden who is found working in the Van Riebeeck household as both servant and interpreter. In time she becomes the concubine of Danish surgeon Pieter Merhoff and later his wife. But did she jump (allured by the European glitz and good food) or was she pushed (abducted or sold to the Van Riebeeck’s by her uncle Atshumatso, otherwise Herry)? Was she raped or a willing sexual parter of Meerhoff? Women, like fresh meat and vegetables, were in short supply in those early colonial years in the Cape.

Then there is Mevrou Maria Mouton who preferred to socialise with the slaves than her husband on their farm in the Swartland, and with whom she conspired to murder him. What became of them is … best those gory details are glossed over for now.

And the giant Trekboer Coenraad de Buys, rebel, renegade, a man with a price on his head who married many women (none of them white) and fathered a small nation. The explorer Lichtenstein called him a modern-day Hercules. Then there are the men of learning and insight, such as Raymond Dart and Adrian Boshier, who opened up the world of myths and ancient artefacts so we now better understand the ancients and the world they created for us to inherit. Or James Kitching who broke open rocks in the Karoo to reveal creatures that inhabited this region long before even Africa was born.

And so, without further ado, we give you our selection of stories about remarkable characters from the veld. These stories will excite, entertain and enthral you! You will finish reading them wishing you had more!

Natural history and travel writer David Bristow delivers the fourth in his Stories from the Veld series of non-fiction narratives.

You could say this book has a bit of everything: scientific descriptions of animals alongside philosophical discourses on the nature of wilderness, high drama in the jaws of death, and tragedy played out as farce when things go unexpectedly wrong on safari.

You’ll also find out why lions can roar so loudly, why giraffes can barely whisper, why the elephant’s trunk is one of nature’s wonders and why dung beetles study astronomy. The author examines questions featuring little-known information about nature and some of its creatures.

Then there is the quirkier stuff, like men who think they are lions, a woman who watches wolves (otherwise known as brown hyenas), and an explorer who invented his own species. And if that was not enough, there’s the man who fought off hippos and crocodiles only to be rescued by a buffalo, and a woman who lived in a tree.

Written in the same engaging style as his previous three books in the Stories from the Veld series (The Game Ranger, the Knife, the Lion and the Sheep; Of Hominins, Hunter Gatherers and Heroes; and Big Pharma, Dirty Lies, Busy Bees and Eco Activists), these bush tales are written in his usual highly entertaining style, yet are intricately woven through with scholarly insights into his subjects.

This exciting third book from David Bristow covers everything environmental in South Africa that you always wanted to know about.

The topics in this book include pesticides, poaching, petrol, plastics, population, pollination, pollution, pods, politics, pharmaceuticals, people, prophets, power and poop. Find out what industrially manufactured foods and large-scale farming are doing to us; how state capture has derailed our civil service and triggered sewerage spills, oil slicks and air pollution; who benefits most from health supplements; and what are the real costs of generating power and what works best – coal, nuclear, fracking, solar or wind.

You will also read about the good deeds of our eco heroes: those who bring water and hope to stricken towns; who farm regeneratively and sell us wholesome foods; who clean up other people’s messes; as well as individual superheroes who nurture their own back gardens. This book celebrates some of them. Written in the same engaging style as his previous two books in the series Stories from the Veld series (The Game Ranger, the Knife, the Lion and the Sheep and Of Hominins, Hunter-Gatherers and Heroes), this book is a journey into unravelling the environmental landscape of South Africa.

Of Hominins, Hunter-Gatherers and Heroes offers spellbinding stories of some amazing, little-known places in South Africa.

Who knew that on the West Coast, just an hour’s drive from Cape Town, is one of only three places on earth where you can see the fossils of creatures that lived in antediluvian times and died right where you see them now? Or that all Bushman art, whether painted or engraved, is a conversation with the spirit world?

Bristow ventured to some lesser-known or visited places such as the West Coast Fossil Park, Mapungubwe, Hogsback, Lambazi Bay, Port Grosvenor, and Nieu Bethesda. Some old favourites also, like the Garden Route, Kruger National Park, Cape Point and the Johannesburg war museum – but they each get a new treatment.

Written in the same engaging style as previous books in the Stories from the Veld series, Of Hominins, Hunter-Gatherers and Heroes is a journey through a bucket list of must-see places in this “world in one country”.

These stories will excite, entertain and enthral you.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting, preserving and promoting the world's literature.

Following in the footsteps of Jock of the Bushveld, Running Wild is an African story for all ages. It is a tale of resilience, of courage and endurance, a book that will uplift, enrich and warm every lover of the African bush.

The story of Zulu is based on the life of a real stallion that lived on the Mashatu Game Reserve. The versions of the story of Zulu are about as numerous as the people who recount them. The horse and the myth were at times indistinguishable. This account of his life has been stitched together from all those stories. In February 2000, tropical Cyclone Leon-Eline resulted in a storm so severe that the horses of Mashatu broke out of their enclosure and roamed wild and free for days before returning. Zulu was the only one that did not return. He was thought to be lost to the scourges of the Bushveld.

Years pass before Zulu is discovered to be not only alive and well, but running as the lead stallion of a herd of wild zebras. He is recaptured and returned to the safari stables as a much bolder and wiser stallion – knowledge he passes on to the other horses as well as the humans of Limpopo Valley.