Product Description

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. In Zaire, Bali, New Zealand’s Fiordland and on the Yangtze River, as well as on some of the remotest small islands in the world, Adams and Cawardine are awed by the strangeness and incredible beauty of the wildlife surviving there. From silverback mountain gorillas and African elephants to flocks of Rodrigues fruit bats, via baiji dolphins, pink pigeons, komodo dragons and echo parakeets – probably the rarest bird in the world – Last Chance to See is an amazing insight into the lives of some of the most endangered creatures on our planet.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15103 in Books
• Published on: 1991-11-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

The Times
‘Descriptive writing of a high order . . . this is an extremely intelligent book’

Listener
‘The best in Adams’s writing . . . constantly springing on the reader the kind of dizzying shift in perspective that was the stock in trade of Hitchhiker’

Atlantic Monthly
‘Lively, sharply satirical, brilliantly written and funny . . . ranks with the best set pieces in Mark Twain’

Customer Reviews

Take a Chance on Douglas...
Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine show us `more exotic wildlife than you'd be wise to shake a stick at' highlighting many of the species of animals on the verge of extinction in this excellent book which is as relevant now as it was when first published in 1990.

Originally commissioned to write an article for the Observer newspaper on the virtually extinct Aye-Aye Lemur in 1985 Douglas and Mark teamed up four years later to make `Last Chance to See...' initially as a Radio programme and then written up as this highly entertaining and informative book. We go on a trip to see Komodo Dragons, Mountain Gorillas, White Rhinos, Kakapo Parrots, Baiji Dolphins before arriving at a bird sanctuary on Mauritius. This is the perfect ending of the book as Mauritius is where the Do-do became extinct and the parallel is drawn that if we don't want history to repeat then we must learn the lessons it teaches.

I read this book after enjoying Adam's Hitch Hiker and Dirk Gently books and although this is very different to them the brilliance of his writing shines through and we are entertained whilst the message is hammered home. So long and thanks for all the facts...

If you only ever read one book - make it this one.
It is hilarious - it is sad - how can you cry and laugh at the same time? Read about the Kakapo!
I bought and read this book the week it was released. I quoted from it this afternoon. My 6 year old son asked me about Kimodo dragons - he wants one for his birthday - I could explain exactly why I was saying no. I think that although this book is over 15 years old it is extremely relevant to today. We must learn about our disappearing world - this is the easiest, funniest and most painless ways to do it. I hope Douglas and Mark were as proud of this book as I am of their writing it. Every week we lose hundreds of species - I'm not the conservation gestapo, however I do think more about what I do to the world since I read this book. Maybe you will too.

Last Chance to See
Most readers will probably be more familiar with Douglas Adams fictional output, but any fans of Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy et al would be making a grave mistake if they failed to investigate this book. Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine's globe-trotting journey to visit some of the most endangered species on the planet is not only a thought-provoking treatise on the plight of extinction but also a funny and warm travelogue, with Adams playing the role of perpetually bemused Englishman abroad. Amusing, insightful, important and highly readable.