Last Chance to See

Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardinedouglas Adams & Mark Carwardine

Language: English

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: Jun 15, 1990

Description:

"Very funny and moving...The glimpses of rare fauna seem to have enlarged [Adams'] thinking, enlivened his world; and so might the animals do for us all, if we were to help them live."
THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
Join bestselling author Douglas Adams and zooligist Mark Carwardine as they take off around the world in search of exotic, endangered creatures. Hilarious and poignant--as only Douglas Adams can be--LAST CHANCE TO SEE is an entertaining and arresting odyssey through the Earth's magnificent wildlife galaxy.

**

From School Library Journal

YA-- The BBC asked this team to film some of the most endangered animal species throughout the world. Adams has recorded their adventures seeking the komodo dragon, northern white rhinoceros, mountain gorilla, kakapo, baiji dolphin, and the rodrigues fruit bat. There is biological information here, but it is inaccessible for report writers due to the lack of an index and the wordy descriptions. However, these same accurate portrayals and Adams's entertaining style will expose students to the worlds of these animals. He moves rapidly from informal, laugh-out-loud descriptions of his travels to serious pleas for awareness and conservation of all animals. The full-color photographs are in two separate sections and help readers to visualize the unusual animals (including the authors).
- Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Descriptive writing of a high order . . . this is an extremely intelligent book.”
The Times

“This is life or death stuff, but Adams is a writer who chooses not to shake his finger at the reader.”
Los Angeles Times

“Who would have thought that a book in the field of “ecology/nature”…could be as lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written and even funny as this one is?…ranks with the best set pieces in Mark Twain.”
Atlantic Monthly

After years of reflecting on the absurdities of life on other planets, Douglas Adams teams up with zoologist Mark Carwardine on an expedition to find out what's happening to life on this one. EDITORIAL REVIEW: The record of an odyssey by a zoologist and a zoologically-innocent comic novelist. It began in 1985 with a search for a rare lemur in Madagascar and went on to include expeditions which witnessed fruitbats, man-eating lizards, gorillas, a blind dolphin and the most inept parrot, the kakapot.