Jim Corbett was a famous hunter and conservationist who lived in the region of Terai and Kumaon, in North India during the latter half of the 19th century, and through to the mid part of the 20th century. Being born in this region, he grew up with the forested and mountainous region and became very familiar with it. He loved the jungle, was very comfortable inside the forest, and could track down animals.
He became very famous as a hunter, but he was no there for the thrill of killing wild animals, instead killing those who became man-eaters. Some of the animals (typically tigers and leopards) that Jim Corbett killed were those who would terrorize villages, killing people as they moved around after dark. These animals had typically lost the ability to hunt their native prey, being either weak, or having suffered some wounds in battle, or having been shot and injured; in such a state, hunting humans was far easier than trying to kill their traditional prey. Villagers would call Jim Corbett to hunt down such animals, and he would track them down, sometimes alone (accompanied by his dog) and hunt them down.

These were the days before modern vehicles, so moving between places and through the forests would take a fair amount of time to do. This book is the last such book written by Corbett of his adventures, culminating in the last terrific tale of his quest to kill the Talla Des Man-Eater. The stories have vivid descriptions of the forest, as well as of the rural Indian societies of these remote villages and small towns.
Reading these books will almost give you the feel that you are along with him, and able to get inside the minds of the big killer cats, and you learn to appreciate these huge animals, as well as the reasons why they do need to be killed. You also get to read interesting tidbits such as the superstitions among the people inhabiting those areas.

Jim Corbett was a famous hunter and conservationist born and brought up in India during the latter half of the 18th century, and lived up till the mid-1950′s. He was also a colonel in the British Indian army, and also worked for the Railways. He is famous (immortalized to some extent) by the naming of one of the large Wildlife sanctuaries in Uttranchal (India), called Corbett National Park, the home of the Royal Bengal tiger (at current count, there are 164 tigers inside the Park).
Corbett was also much respected by the local population of the region, a mountainous and forested regions; since he was called upon by them to kill many of the man-eating tigers and leopards that roamed in the region. Typically, these were animals that were either old or had suffered injuries during fights or when they were shot, and were unable to kill their natural prey. As a result, they turned to hunting easier prey, such as humans and many of them killed tens or hundreds of humans. The terror cast by such cats was such that people would not move out of their homes during the night.

Corbett had become incredibly comfortable with the jungle, becoming a good tracker and lover of nature. This is when he vowed never to kill or hunt down animals for fun, instead only using his gun when required to kill man-eaters.
The book is an interesting collection of 10 such stories where Corbett tracked and shot down these man-eaters in the Kumaon and other regions. Many of these required much effort to track down these animals, including live baits to get them. As you read about these tracking efforts, you learn about how an animal turns to become a man-eater, and you also learn about the efforts involved in tracking down such a man-eater, especially since such a man-eater loses the natural shyness of humans and can easily attack the hunter. These are very interesting stories.

How many times do you read a book that changes the way you think about life ? Well, welcome to a book that has changed the way of thinking of many people, got people to re-think about what is important in life. The book, through its focus on the inspiring words of a dying man, sends a message to people to focus back on what is important in life, to appreciate the good and simple aspects of life, as well as implicitly also about what your legacy will be like. How you are remembered depends on the way you treat others, not on your own set of riches or ambition. Treating other people with compassion and kindness, mindful of their dignity, giving love and joy, none of these are difficult to do, but we ignore these simple aspects so easily. This book is one of those books; it started out with a small beginning, having been refused by a couple of publishers, but the appeal of the book was such that it became a huge bestseller.

So what is the book about ? It is about the interaction between a well known sports writer named Mitch Albom (who was working with Detroit Free Press, and who saw an interview of his former teacher, Morrie Schwartz, a history professor at Brandeis University (the interview is with Ted Koppel on Nightline). Morrie has been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and is dying. Albom has not been in touch with his former teacher ever since college, sixteen years earlier, and decides to pay a visit, initially on Tuesdays, since his paper is on strike; soon these visits become regular visits.
Albom writes about several things, such as details about Morrie’s declining health, which is quite depressing, about the final conversation between Albom and Morrie, and about what has happened in Albom’s life between his college and visiting Morrie. However, as you progress in the book, you read more Morris’ views, a sense of what the important things in life are from someone who has little left. Morrie is very eloquent and seems to carry an upbeat dignity to the end, and it is through his views on the need for a person to have his own set of beliefs, and not be driven by what is current culture; how you should strive to make a difference and be good. It is particularly through the wisdom of a terminally ill man to make us realize that human relationships and health are more important than all the gadgets, modern conveniences, pressures to get ahead professionally, and the need to advance monetarily.

The complete name of the book is called “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space” and it was another non-fiction book released by Carl Sagan (the famous astronomer and scientist) who wrote a series of books on science and space, and is most famous for his works, Cosmos and Contact. The name of the book is based on a photograph taken by the space explorer spacecraft, Voyager 1. Carl Sagan had pushed for the spacecraft to take a photograph when it was at a huge distance from the earth, a distance of 3.7 billion miles. In this photograph, the Earth seems nothing more than a Pale Blue Dot in the midst of empty space, and this is all that mankind has got.
Carl Sagan also described this photo in a speech he was giving, with these starting words: “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

The book takes a look at previous theories of the geocentric Earth-centered universe, and how that was the idea that could not be challenged, with torture awaiting those who dissented. Slowly, that idea was overturned and we started learning about reality, about our true size in the enormity of the universe, starting with the scale of the solar system, and then continuing with the idea of how to explore the planets in the solar system. Carl Sagan also talks in detail about the Voyager program. The book also has some great photos of the Solar System, courtesy of NASA.

Chapters

Wanderers: An Introduction
You Are Here
Aberrations of Light
The Great Demotions
A Universe Not Made for Us
Is There Intelligent Life on Earth?
The Triumph of Voyager
Among the Moons of Saturn
The First New Planet
An American Ship at the Frontiers of the Solar System
Sacred Black
Evening and Morning Star
The Ground Melts
The Gift of Apollo
Exploring Other Worlds and Protecting This One
The Gates of the Wonder World Open
Scaling Heaven
Routine Interplanetary Violence
The Marsh of Camarina
Remaking the Planets
Darkness
To the Sky!
Tiptoeing Through the Milky Way