Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams, Mark Carwardine

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 in association with his name 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, ...  Read the complete review

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 zoologist who had accompanied him, decided to go looking for some more ...  Read the complete review

(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 Earth’ as it was going to be about 6 of them), it also has his ...  Read the complete review

Douglas Adams is the best selling author of comedy sci-fi novels such as Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This book chronicles his travels throughout the world, with zoologist Mark Carwadine, searching for some of the most endangered species on the planet. This unlikely pairing has produced one of the most poignant and significant books ever written on the subject of species facing extinction. The species searched for are often less obvious and "media friendly" than the usual giant pandas, tigers and orang utans. Rodriguez fruit bats, Komodo dragons, aye-aye lemurs and the kakapo (a huge flightless parrot from New Zealand) are some of the animals ...  Read the complete review

Everyone has either heard of or read the Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy by Douglas Adams. However, not so many people seem to have heard of Last Chance to see by Doug. I can tell that for two reasons, one it is not listed here and two I bought it in hardback from a cheapo bookshop for a fiver. A fiver well and truly well spent say I! If you’re a fan of Doug’s brand of humour you’ll love this and at the same time get more of an insight into the man himself and most importantly the subject of the book. Endangered species. It starts when our hero is asked by a magazine to visit Madagascar to meet a guy about endangered species (Mark Carwardine, ...  Read the complete review