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 ...
...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 ...

Soho_Black 21.11.2004 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams

...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 ...

x_elf_x 30.08.2002 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams

...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 ...

R_Easton 12.10.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams

...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. ...

Trillian 27.08.2003 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams

...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! ...

Raybid 24.06.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams

This is an inspiring and truly great book, told with Adams' trademark quirky sense of humour. This book is partly great travel writing, partly natural history, partly brilliant comedy and partly committed environmentalism. Even if you are not into saving the planet, this book is still worth reading due to Adams' great gift for telling a story. It is a wonderful evocation of the terrible damage we are doing to the environment, as well as containing ...
...his travels and the hardships - bureaucratic as well as physical -Adams encounters in accessing some of the remotest parts of the globe. Adams sets out to discover the rarest animals on theplanet, with the help of a biologist Mark Carwardine. There are many stand-out moments from the book. The brilliant description of the Komodo dragon's island home, followed by the devastating anti-climax when we realise that it has been made into a tourist trap, ...

drewish 28.11.2004 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams

"Last Chance to See" is a book that Adams co-wrote with Mark Cowardine - Cowardine seems to have provided the information and afterword whilst Adams himself appears to be the principal author. It recounts a series of expeditions the two embarked on to track down a number of endangered species. Adams claims that his main job was to make fun of them, and does so admirably; but his real satirical targets are the human beings who are responsible for ...
...to make their expeditions a failure. Douglas Adams might be a surprising choice to write such a book, but his style entirely suits the subject matter and he retains his unique wit even in a non-fiction book whose main aim is to provide information. In my opinion it even has claims to be his best book, and should certainly receive more attention from people who know him only from his "Hitch-Hiker" books. ...

NeilHudson 01.10.2000 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams

This is the way to write about endangered animals. Adams has a serious story to tell, but he does it with so much caring, gentle wit, and laugh-out-loud humour, that it’s a sheer delight to read this book from cover to cover. This may very well be the best book that Adams ever wrote. He ranges from insightful and philosophical musings to hilarious accounts of all the (mis)adventures that he and zoologist Mark Carwardine had while travelling to find ...
...begins with a brief introductory chapter, entitled “Twig Technology.” There then follows five chapters, one for each endangered animal that Adams and Carwardine (accompanied by various personnel from the BBC) travelled to see: the Komodo dragon, the northern white rhinoceros, the kakapo, the Baiji dolphin, and the Rodrigues fruitbat. Several other endangered animals are encountered along the way. The book ends with a finishing chapter by Adams, and ...

AtheistHistorian 17.03.2004 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams