If you're a Jim Corbett fan, this would be a wonderful book. As I've never read anything else by him, it came off as a bunch of semi-disconnected stories. He doesn't bother, for instance, to mention _where_, exactly, all this is happening until about the third chapter (and then only vaguely); I deduced India and the hills because I'm a Kipling fan and some of the descriptions matched. Jungle explorer from childhood, with a healthy dose of caution (/fear) keeping him reasonably safe at 8 years old, armed with a catapult (slingshot). He was hunting even then - but mostly for the pot, not for fun or the joy of killing. As he advanced in weapon skill and jungle experience, he mostly kept that attitude - there are a lot of reports of killing predators (tigers, leopards), but mostly there's a good reason (the animal is either wounded or is starting to threaten or attack humans or their animals). There's some sport hunting as well, generally with Corbett acting as guide for someone else who wants to make a kill. The timeline jumps around a lot - he's the youngest boy in the area, he's a teenager hunting, he's the youngest cadet in his school, he's a grown man (with a wife) and apparently in charge of hunting and arranging hunting for the...district?, back again to teenager...Each story is at least interesting, but overall (to someone unfamiliar with his other books), it's rather too meandering. There's a chapter late in the book where he pretends that you-the-reader is taking a class in jungle lore from him; he describes, as if you're seeing it, how to determine the age of tracks, what sort of trees are growing in the area - both what they look like and what they're useful for - describes standing still so the leopard crossing in front of "us" doesn't notice us, and so on. That chapter was very interesting and enjoyable to me. But overall, the book isn't for me; I don't hunt for sport or enjoy hearing about it, and aside from that chapter his descriptions of the jungle and its creatures are mixed with a little too much shooting for my taste. Glad I read it, I might pick up another Jim Corbett book if I came across one (he's an excellent writer), but I doubt I'll bother to reread this. ( )

I loved this book as a boy in India. Corbett's jungle adventures were exactly the sort of thing I would have wanted to do. Corbett is also a fine stylist and a sharp but self-deprecating observer. What a guy. ( )