Last Chance to See

A fun and insightful read, and I suspect for all that not a book to win new readers. Either you pick it up as a Douglas Adams fan, or as someone interested in getting a boots-on-the-ground peek into specific efforts involving endangered species. Possibly both. For either sort, Adams provides not merely a journeyman's account but an enjoyable tutorial. It reads as though he wrote it that way, too: Don't let the book get in the way of the task, as it were, focus on getting the story right more than publishing his next bestseller.

Adams's tone and narrative voice are key to this achievement. His first couple chapters suggest something recognisably conversational as if from Hitchhiker, though with fewer tangents and less bizarre flights of show more fancy. A sound decision as there is plenty of the bizarre embedded in the environmental stories he tells. Adams avoids veering into the overly comic, something I'd expect of Dave Barry. Adams, on the contrary, modulates his tone to capture the pathos of his story, a dimension only tangentially evident in Hitchhikers'.

The stories here aren't terribly complex, their challenge is becoming better known. Adams helps address this simply by agreeing to make the trip and write it up: his celebrity, presumably, will help spread the word. show less

"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.

One of those special books that, when you finish, you immediately want to find someone who hasn't read it, and press it into there hands, murmuring insistently, "you have to read this!"

I'm a big Douglas Adams fan. The show more Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is one of my all-time favourite series, and the Dirk Gently mysteries aren't far behind. When I set-up my Pantheon list of literary gods, Douglas Adams came straight in at Number 2 (behind Terry Pratchett) - and Last Chance to See was the one, key book that I hadn't read of his.

I found reading this a surprisingly emotional experience. I mean... Adams' voice is so strong in all his work, and within a couple of paragraphs I felt like I was back in his presence... a twelve year old boy sneaking the lamp back on after my parents had gone away, to read just one more chapter... and I felt that wave of grief wash over me again, just like the day I heard that he'd died. But... he's funny, and bright and grumpy and... just brilliant! I was sad to be reminded that he had passed away, but I was also hugely entertained and delighted that, despite being a non-fiction, this was every bit as good as his wildly imaginative speculative fiction.

This is 30% ecology novel about endangered species, and 70% travel book about the adventures of a cranky, middle-aged Brit travelling to far-flung lands to visit said endangered species.

The 30% is fascinating and the 70% kept me grinning.

Some of the phrases have embedded themselves in my head... I will always think of rhinos as "nimble young volkswagens", and kakopos as the birds that have "forgotten that they've forgotten how to fly".

One of those special books that, when you finish, you immediately want to find someone who hasn't read it, and press it into there hands, murmuring insistently, "you have to read this!"

Even writing this review makes me want to go and re-read Dirk Gently... show less

Nobody writes like Douglas Adams writes. He's one of the few guys that can have me laughing uproariously while also pondering something deep and important. Or pondering the sad legacy of humans while laughing. Or shaking my head at the sheer stupidity of humans.

That being said, while there are many funny moments in this book, overall, it's heartbreaking book to read. In anyone else's hands, I believe it would have been pleadingly maudlin.

With Adams, instead, it's hopeful.

Nobody writes like Douglas Adams writes. I miss him.

In 1985 Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine set off in the hope of spotting the Madagascar aye-aye, a nocturnal lemur nearing extinction. The trip was a success and so the duo came back together a couple years later to seek out more animals that were verging on the brink with the idea that their travels and Adams' writing would shine a much needed spotlight on said brink.

Like the Madagascar aye aye, my encounter with Adams' Last Chance to See adventuring was a nocturnal one. In simplicity, I couldn't put it down. The spotlight shone in Adams' humor and intellect, both fleshing out the weight of their experience. That it mattered to him, moved him.

I could go on about Douglas-Adams-as-a-synonym-for-brilliancy but it's been done. What I show more will say is that I love reading Adams because he seems to have been gifted with the rare ability to see the world from a slightly removed angle than the rest and the even rarer ability to translate such a view to those of us unaware.

This is an important book; a swollen, dog-eared, in peril of a broken spine book. A pass-it-on book. show less

Thirty‑plus years ago Douglas Adams of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame and Mark Carwardine, a wildlife zoologist and photographer, set out to find some of the rarest creatures on earth before it was too late and document their encounters with them. This book is a result of that expedition. There are touches of the absurd humor and satire in it that Adams was well known for but what stands out is his insightful commentary about the reasons the creatures became endangered in the first place. I had planned to follow this up with Stephen Fry’s 2009 book, Last Chance to See: In the Footsteps of Douglas Adams but now I’m going to wait because I know it will suffer in comparison.

So, for the first book of the year I decided on something reasonably light, but also informative and interesting - not to mention extremely funny (Adams' writing, not the subject matter which is, of course, very serious). I've been meaning to read this book for years but never quite got round to it. I haven't seen the recent BBC programmes by Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine revisiting some of the species from this book - but it's on my Amazon wishlist now!

The basic premise of the book is that a writer and a zoologist travel around the world visiting very endangered species in order to make a radio programme (for the BBC) and raise the profile of the animals in danger.

Animals such as the giant Komodo dragon of Indonesia, the helpless, show more flightless kakapo of New Zealand (the descriptions of their mating techniques had me crying with laughter!), the white rhinos of Zaire and the blind river dolphins of the Yangtze River in China (which they never did get to see, and I'm sorry to say now never will).

I've always been a fan of Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is one of the few books I've read more than a few times, and The Meaning of Liff is a work of genius. Although the book is obviously about the loss of species across the world, and the fact that humans are to blame for the plight that many find themselves in; this book is more of a travel journal recounting the trials and tribulations met by Douglas Adams and Mark Carrardine as they try to visit the animals.

The book has also certainly met one of it's aims, my interest has been sparked enough to make me go and look for further information on each of the animals featured. show less

I'd watched the Stephen Fry documentary that was a sort of follow up to this book/radio series (which I wish I could get a copy of) and was curious about the first journey. I'm not a big fan of Adams', but after reading this book, I'm more than willing to give Hitchhiker's another try. Last Chance To See is both hilarious (as if anything written by Adams could be serious all the time) and serious. The animals that Adams gets to see are dying out, or close to it. He gives us, through pictures and words, a trip we won't forget, just like the TV series with Fry. What makes this interesting and not your traditional run of the mill endangered species book is the humor that's twisted intimately with the places and animals they're going to show more see. If you liked the Stephen Fry docu, I recommend this book. show less