Are you looking for a thumping good read on an obscure topic? I'm always happy to oblige. Check out Eagle Dreams, by my very close and dear acquaintance Stephen Bodio. For a summary of the book's character, I cannot better the kind review of John Derbyshire:

This is a very striking and unusual book, sufficiently so that I imagine the people responsible for awarding it a Dewey Decimal number, in order to properly shelve it in libraries, must have engaged in some head-scratching. Is Eagle Dreams sport, travel, or zoology? You will have to make up your own mind. I have put it among my travel books, along with Paul Theroux, Eric Newby and Robert Byron; and I believe that those distinguished persons would welcome Stephen Bodio into their company as an equal.

The book is about the Kazakh eagle falconers of western Mongolia (pehaps you saw the pictures in National Geographic?). Falconry, along with many other animal domestications, very likely began in this part of the world, and the Kazakhs are the gods of falconry. They suppliment their herding income by hunting fur-bearing mammals, mostly fox, but occasionally wolf and lynx, with their eagles; and they also enlist the help of horses, tazi dogs, and even dachshunds (a gift from the Germans Stalin exiled to Kazakhstan in the '30s). Their tradition survived the Soviets, and is currently coming face to face with modern tourism, which may be its salvation or its doom.

Eagle Dreams was a very difficult book to get published, due to the abstruseness of its subject and to its political incorrectitude, for falconry is unquestionably a blood-sport. The book has therefore received appallingly little attention from the mainstream media. Mr. Derbyshire's recent mention of Mr. Bodio, apropos of gun freedoms here in southwestern Outback, will probably do the book few favours with the liberal establishment. But these things which so offend New York publishers may well appeal to the world's anti-idiotarian intellectual crowd. Fellow bloggers, we seek a favour: if you are at all moved by the idea of a 5,000 year old alliance between man, horse, hound, and a gold-feathered thunderbolt from heaven in pursuit of their prey, please give Mr. Bodio's book what publicity is in your power, or at least mention it to anyone you know who may be interested.

To prove that eagle falconry is a very noteworthy practice, I cite no less an authority than the Circassians, in whose writings I have recently found very stirring references to the sport:

... what appeared to be a horseman showed up in their midst. This is how they tell of his manner and appearance. The horse on which he rode had a neck like a snake's. His lance, which he wielded against the Chintas, rumbled like thunder. On his head was a gleaming helmet that shone like the sun. To either side of this rider ran two hounds, staying ever near, and above him soared a great eagle circling in the air. He struck fear into the hearts of the Chintas when they saw him, and in their panic they could not escape from before him. That horseman came among them and hewed them down, destroying the army that had invaded the land of the Narts.

...Then [baby Shebatinuquo] was placed in the underground house, and a mighty horse, a sharp eagle, and a swift hound were all brought and placed there with him so that they might be raised together.

May I be so bold as to suggest that these salvations of Nart culture may yet come to the aid of all cultures worth saving?