Coffee-table picture books

Chobe – Africa's Untamed Wilderness by Daryl and Sharna Balfour. ISBN 1-86812-692-7 Published in 1997 by Southern Book Publishers (Pty) Ltd, PO Box 3103, Halfway House 1685, South Africa. An almost day-by-day account of a year that this renowned couple spent in Chobe and Selinda. Good pictures and a readable diary-format style give a fair picture of the changing seasons and the wildlife.

Okavango – Africa's Last Eden by Frans Lanting. ISBN 0-8118-0527-1. Published in 1993 by Chronicle Books, 275 Fifth Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. Probably the ultimate in coffee-table books includes minimal text but many impressive and beautiful images that were originally commissioned for the National Geographic magazine.

The Swamp Book – A View of the Okavango by Bob Forester, Mike Murray-Hudson and Lance Cherry. ISBN 1-86812-154-2. Published 1989 by Southern Book Publishers Ltd, PO Box 548, Bergvlei 2012, Jo'burg. This interesting and quirky coffee-table book includes highly readable sections on the Okavango Delta, and some of its more common flora and fauna, as well as comments on a few interesting historical accounts of travel there. Photographs include several taken under water.

Okavango – Africa's Wetland Wilderness by Adrian Bailey. ISBN 1-86872-041-1. Published 1998 by Struik Publishers Ltd., Cornelis Struik House, 80 McKenzie Street, Cape Town 8001, South Africa. Bright colour plates and a generally informative text make this a good coffee-table overview of the Delta.

The Miracle Rivers – The Okavango and Chobe of Botswana by Peter and Beverly Pickford. ISBN 1-86812-755-9. Published 1999 by Southern Books, PO Box 3103, Halfway House, 1685 Jo'burg. A coffee-table book with some colour plates and grainy black-and-white shots. Text is a mixture of quotes and travelogue with attention (and almost homage) paid to various hunting operations.

Savuti – The Vanishing River by Clive Walker. ISBN 1-86812-365-1. Published in 1991 by Southern Book Publishers (Pty) Ltd, PO Box 3103, Halfway House 1685, South Africa. Using many simple line drawings, and just a sprinkling of generally impressive photographs, this is less pictorial than most coffee-table books. It concentrates mainly on Walker's personal experiences in Savuti, where he spent time with Lloyd Wilmot, amongst others, and witnessed the final drying out of the Savuti Channel. It's a good read, though too large to easily travel with.

Okavango: Jewel of the Kalahari by Karen Ross. ISBN 0-563-20545-8. Published in 1987 by BBC Books, BBC Enterprises Ltd, Woodlands, 80 Wood Lane, London W12 0TT, England. Written by Karen Ross in parallel with her research for a short series of films, produced by Partridge Films for the BBC. The film series is stunning, and certainly raised the UK's awareness of the Okavango Delta considerably when it was first shown. The book's also first class. Its photography is good, though not exceptional, but the depth of its text raises it well above the normal standard of coffee-table books. Though perhaps slightly dated now, it's still well worth getting hold of.

Running Wild: Dispelling the Myths of the African Wild Dog. Text by John McNutt and Lesley Boggs Ross; photography by Hélène Heldring and Dave Hamman. ISBN 1-86812-717-6. Published in 1996 by Southern Book Publishers, PO Box 3103, Halfway House, 1685, South Africa. Some beautiful pictures of dogs in the Delta (the 'Mombo Pack' in the early 1990s) plus informative text about their behaviour and group dynamics – put into the context of observations made throughout northern Botswana.

The Lion Children by Angus, Maisie and Travers McNeice. ISBN 0-75284-160-2. First published in 2001 by Orion Books Ltd, 5 Upper St. Martin's Lane, London. Taken from the UK to live in the Okavango (around NG34) by their parents, who moved there to research lions, this an entertaining scrapbook written by the children about life in the bush. Whilst basically a children's book, it's a lot of fun to read and occasionally quite insightful.


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