Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams

Advantages: Warmth, humour and some great descriptions.
Disadvantages: Knowing that Adams is gone, and there'll not be more like this

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 ...
...time and actually catching sight of the aye-aye, Douglas Adams and Mark Cawardine, the zoologist who had accompanied him, decided to go looking for some more endangered species. In 1988, they did. The result was “Last Chance to See”, quite possibly the best piece of non-fiction writing you may ever come across, and definitely the best book I have ever read about endangered wildlife. It’s essentially just a description of a journey, or rather several ... Read review

Advantages: Ape-like creatures destroy an insignificant green planet
Disadvantages: This isn't fiction!

...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, essentially, a non-fiction catalogue of a number of endangered species - and when I use the term endangered here I am talking ...
...animals are drinking in the last chance saloon of life. It is Adams gift for description which makes the book so readable, for example, when visiting the baiji dolphin, he likens their system of navigation - echolocation - to the use of bike bells by the Chinese, thus making the animal much easier to understand and, along the way, providing an insight into modern Chinese living. This book is about the animals, but it is so much more than that. It ... Read review

Advantages: Interesting, informative and thought-provoking
Disadvantages: Seemed short although may be i was just enjoying it.

...Medium Rare? - In the last chapter Douglas and Mark go to Mauritius to see (ready?) Rodrigues Fruitbat, Mauritius Kestrel, The Dodo, Echo Parakeet and the Pink Pigeon. They see so many rare animals in this chapter because Mauritius (like the Galapagos islands) has many rare animals. They originally intend to go to Rodrigues but were convinced otherwise by a local who had all of these animals at a conservation centre. The kestrel turns out to be ...
...and has some very interesting mating habits. (One of these birds may be a fake, to see if you were listening (reading)) At the end of the book a chapter has been added to say how the animals have been doing since the pair were there. All of the animals are doing well it reveals. I believe this book isn’t very well known (and you may be reading when you haven’t even heard of the book) but I would definitely recommend it to anyone who ... Read review

Advantages: Everything
Disadvantages: None

...that we can make up the rules for ourselves as we go along." Further point of interest: You can also get Last Chance on CD-ROM the text is accompanied by hundreds of photographs, maps, interviews, sound recordings and datasheets about the animals, its also read aloud by DA. ... Read review

Advantages: Informative, funny and makes you think about some issues too.
Disadvantages: Factual, no Arthur Dent or Dirk Gently!

...endangered species, it has the best of both worlds, some startling statistics about world conditions and the last chances we have to see some species that are on their last breath, and some funny asides by the best comedy SF writer in the history of everything. Go buy it NOW! ... Read review