part-time by the Anglo American Corporation in Zambia as an Agricultural Consultant. By 1975 the Tanzania Government had acquired the last of his properties and he left Tanzania for Zambia, and then South Africa, where he again tried his hand at farming, an interlude in his life that proved far from happy or satisfactory. Finally in 1979 he returned to Kenya to join Lima Limited as their Agricultural Consultant. Read is married and had one daughter. He was a leading authority on the people of Eastern Africa, speaking several African dialects, but it was with the Maasai that he spent his formative years, and with whom he is most closely associated with. Bibliography Barefoot over the Serengeti The book covers Read's adventures between seven and fourteen years in the Serengeti, homeland of the Maasai, whose customs and lifestyle he reports, as seen through the eyes of a child. Jonathan Taylor writes: "I learnt more about the Masai by reading Barefoot Over the Serengeti than I have from any of the countless scholarly anthropology tomes of colourful coffee table books written about them".<ref>African Footsteps Magazine", 2009, as quoted on the author's homepage.</ref> Beating about the Bush This is Read's second autobiographical novel, covering the period between 1936 and 1952 Beating about the Bush picks up Read's story where "Barefoot" left off, with his parents moving to the Lupa Goldfields to try to salvage their livelihoods after a catastrophic series of events that left them almost destitute, reliant on Read's hunting skills and the help of their Maasai friends. The book moves from Mission School life to veterinary training, active service in Abyssinia, Madagascar, Burma, and India, meetings with the King and Queen to privileged encounters with the hunter-gatherers of the Okiek people or, in Maasai language, Ndorobo people. During six years employment by the Tanganyika Veterinary Department in Dodoma he roamed the African savannas of his childhood, investigating ritual tribal killings and working as a livestock marketing officer. Like in his other works it is obvious that it is the people rather than the events that Read's narrative lays emphasis on. Another Load of Bull After the work for the Veterinary Department the Reads settled as wheat farmers on the Western slopes of Kilimanjaro. With no formal training, Read survived largely on his local knowledge and language skills, supplemented by his cattle buying. Life on 'Mountainside' suited Read, despite the constant