Wilbur Smith - Ballantynes 04 - The Leopard Hunts in Darkness (unabridged audibook + text)
The Leopard Hunts in Darkness is a novel of stunning power and pace, infused with a deep love for the landscape, the people and the wildlife of Africa.
Alone, disillusioned and empty of inspiration in New York, best-selling author Craig Mellow longs to return to his roots. Sole survivor of the Ballantyne family, who had farmed in the Zambezi valley for a hundred years, he fled the country when the bush war ended, and now he has lost his way.
So when he is asked to return to Africa on a secret mission funded by the World Bank, he seizes the chance. His cover is the writing of a book on Africa in collaboration with the brilliant and beautiful young American photographer, Sally-Anne Jay, but his real task is to send back information on ivory poaching and signs of Soviet interference in the country.
Back in Zimbabwe, exhilarated and full of hope once more, Craig embarks on a giant project – the restoration of the derelict family estates in the Matabele grasslands – only to be caught up in a bloody tribal war and pitted against a power-crazed fanatic who would sell his people into slavery and plunge his country into a new Dark Age.
This is a story of high adventure, of hatred and terrible violence but also of love, love of a man for a woman, of a man for his country, and love of a man for his friend.

Dreams of Empire, desire for land and its hidden mineral wealth and for power over a proud and warlike people: such were the forces that drove Englishmen in Queen Victoria's last years to thrust deep into an untamed continent and found a new dominion.
The Angels Weep is about the way the seeds of hatred sown in battles fought round issues of land and race will germinate and produce anew ugly sprouts of the same tragic stock. An exciting, colourful and moving novel in both its parts, it is the third of the Ballantyne sequence of four novels.

Wilbur Smith - Ballantynes 02 - Men of Men (unabrdiged audiobook + text)
It was called The Devils’s Own: a steep scar in the African earth, around which men toiled with picks, shovels, and dreams of the milky treasures that would become prized, polished diamonds. In this demonic race, native tribesmen became miners. Sometimes they became thieves. And then they became rebels.
Zouga Ballantyne, an African-born Englishman, sees the Devil’s Own mine as his ticket to the North: a realm of waterfalls and fertile plains, teeming wildlife, and seeded fields of gold. But what happens in the diamond mines of the fledgling Boer Free State sets the course for Ballantyne and a cast of comrades, enemies, and lovers—and for the continent itself.

From the visions of imperialists to the fury between a father and a son, from the lengths a man will go for a woman and a woman for her convictions, a tragic clash of generations and civilizations was shaking 19th century Africa, where some warriors fought for their gods - and others for the men who came before them...

Wilbur Smith - Ballantynes 01 - A Falcon Flies (abridged audibook + text)
A Falcon Flies is remarkable for its sense of the African wild, grimly informative about the slave trade, and alive with the obsessions and impossible love of its strongminded heroine. It is the first of the four Ballantyne novels.

Maus : A Survivor's Tale : My Father Bleeds History/Here My Troubles Began
Art Spiegelman's "Maus: A Survivor's Tale" is a unique and unforgettable work of literature. This two-volume set of book-length comics (or "graphic novels," if you prefer) tells the story of the narrator, Artie, and his father Vladek, a Holocaust survivor. "Maus" is thus an important example of both Holocaust literature and of the graphic novel. The two volumes of "Maus" are subtitled "My Father Bleeds History" and "And Here My Troubles Began"; they should be read together to get the biggest impact.