Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams

In 1985, The Observer newspaper decided to send Douglas Adams to Madagascar to hunt for a virtually extinct lemur. No-one seems quite sure exactly why they did this, including Douglas Adams himself. Quite possibly, it’s because he was quite good at creating strange alien creatures that no-one is ever likely to see, and no-one really expected him to ever see the aye-aye, the lemur in question. Quite against the odds, he did. And so, buoyed with their success at doing what no-one else had done for some time and actually catching sight of the aye-aye, Douglas Adams and Mark Cawardine, the ... more

Mention the name Douglas Adams and most people will instantly think of Zaphod Beeblebrox, Marvin the Paranoid Android, or possibly his recent, untimely death, at only 49, from a heart attack. What hardly anyone will think of is the wonderful book I am going to urge you to all rush out and by - Last Chance to See - which he wrote with acclaimed zoologist Mark Carwardine. I'm sensing a few of you shuffling in your seats already (please don't it's very off-putting) and I can hear the almost inaudible whisper of 'he wrote a book with a zoologist???!'. But book he wrote and what a book it is. It is ... more

(I have put a couple of paragraphs copied from the book in this review. If you think this reveals too much of the story please comment on the comments page and I will consider changing.) I finally got around to reading this book just recently (Hence ‘last chance to read’) after being saddened by the death of my writing hero (see my Douglas Adams Op). I wasn’t sure to expect and didn’t expect what I got. This book not only has Douglas Adams and saving endangered species in the same book (I will remind you he originally intended to call HHGG ‘The Ends of the ... more

You may have guessed that I am a huge fan of the Hitch-Hikers 5-book trilogy. But you may be surprised to learn that this is actually my favourite Douglas Adams book. (Its also DA’s personal favourite and the one he most enjoyed writing - I think that comes across as you read.) WHEN: In 1988 Douglas Adams and zoologist friend Mark Carwardine embarked on an epic-ish adventure to track down various endangered species, accompanied by no more than a BBC sound engineer. They wrote a book about their experiences - published a year later, and the Beeb produced 6 radio programmes aired in the same ... more

Not what you might expect from a Douglas Adams book, this is not fiction, or science really, its about a science fiction/comedy writer following an enviromentalist (Mark Cowardine) around photgraphing (or trying to!) rare and nearly extinct animals and birds. Not in itself a funny subject, the book does manage to merge the two writing styles very well, Mark supplies the experiance and facts, while Douglas takes our role and offers an outsiders view of the plain facts, the sadness of it all and the irony inherant in the whole das situation of mankind destroying some remarkable and beautiful ... more