Love Letters to Africa

Book excerpt: Don Pinnock, a well-known travel writer, has drawn on his passion for Africa and his experience as a journalist for Getaway magazine to write yet another entertaining and engrossing book of short essays on natural history, full of humor, interest and speculation. Each of his essays reveals something of natures many quirks and offers startlingly large questions from little things that ordinary folk pass over with hardly a glance. The pieces are short and easily digestible, with a bit of philosophy and an interest in the human story. And include ruminations on the following questions: · Are clouds alive? · Where is Africa's most dangerous river? · Why do female hyenas sometimes grow a penis? · Why did Zulu warriors never ride into battle mounted on zebras?