India : The Tiger's Roar (Revised ed)

From her infancy the author has been fascinated by that most magnificent and elusive of beasts, the tiger.

Her second book on India, India: The Tiger's Roar, is a personal account of her pilgramage to India's great wildlife parks and tiger sanctuaries.

In India: The Tiger's Roar, Aline Dobbie examines many of India's most famous wildlife parks and tiger sanctuaries and provides a comprehensive study of Ranthambhore, Bandhavgarh, Kanha and Corbett Tiger Reserves as well as detailed backgrounds to Nagarahole, Kaziranga, Pench, Bharatpur and Gir National Park, home of the rare Asiatic Lion.

Anyone considering a trip to watch India's wildlife and tigers in particular will find this book an indispensable and entertaining source of information.

In addition, the author highlights the continuing threat to India's tigers and the on-going efforts to protect them.

Any westerner who has visited this country will find Dobbie's India familiar.

But it is the author's ability to see the country from the perspective of an outsider as well as that of a native that gives her writing a unique perspective. She is able to get close to her subject in a way that would be difficult for the casual traveller to do.

Indeed, Dobbie is a Hindi speaker and uses her many contacts and childhood reminiscences to great effect throughout this book.

The reader will also find valuble information on some of India's historical gems such as Gwalior, Orchha, Sonagiri, Mandu, Sanchi and Bhimbetka as well as the hill station of Nainital.

India: The Tiger's Roar is certainly not a travel guide, nor a guide to the wildlife of India, although it is an excellent source of information on both subjects.

Instead it is a heady blend of travelogue and personal insight, cultural and political philosophy, anecdotes, cautionary tales, historical and religious references and a thesis on the state of Indian wildlife conservation.