Last Chance to See

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Customer Reviews:

Douglas Adams' best book [Posted on 2008-06-03]
I like everything Adams ever put out, but I consider this one his best. It may not be as appealing to those who are mainly interested in the science fiction aspects of his other work, but the quality of writing and the subject material here are top notch. This book is simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious, and is one of my all-time favorites. As a popular science book, it is simply without equal, and I really wish he could have lived longer to write more like it.

Great Fun [Posted on 2008-06-24]
What a fun, informative, important book. I put it on my summer reading list for my students!

Excellent read - humorous yet depressing! [Posted on 2008-09-18]
Expertly written and Adams interjects not a little humor into an otherwise depressing topic. I wouldn't mind a slightly longer treatment of some of the animals seen, and an afterword detailing the sad demise of a couple of them would be welcome.

Bittersweet Goodbye [Posted on 2008-11-01]
One of my favorite people in the world is the late author, Douglas Adams, best known for being the creative genius behind the wacky, madcap series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (a "trilogy in five parts"). Those books have brought me an immense amount of joy -- but the chance to know Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox and the rest of the colorful (and arguably insane) characters making up Adams' Galaxy, are only part of why I love him so.

Though he made his name as a science-fiction comedy writer, Douglas Adams was so much more than that. He was obsessed with technology (especially all things Mac-related), a self-described "radical atheist," a pathological procrastinator and a passionate proponent of environmental and animal conservation. And it was this, his devotion to the earth and its creatures, which lead him to write the book he was most proud of in his career: a quiet, little title that few have heard of called Last Chance To See.

Last Chance... is an elegy to the endangered species struggling for survival in our world. It chronicles Adams' journey across various continents in search of amazing, but nearly extinct creatures such as the silverback mountain gorilla in Zaire, a flightless bird called the kakapo in New Zealand, and the half-blind baiji dolphin in China.

Adams' trademark humor is evident on every page, but there's also an enormous sense of melancholy present in what he writes:

"I suddenly felt, well, terribly old as I watched a mudskipper hopping along with what now seemed to me like a wonderful sense of hopeless, boundless naive optimism. It had such a terribly, terribly, terribly long way to go. I hoped that if its descendant was sitting here on this beach in 350 million years' time with a camera around its neck, it would feel that the journey had been worth it."

I highly recommend Last Chance To See to every human being inhabiting this planet. It's a funny, moving farewell to the animals we've lost, and a call to action for the ones we're about to lose.

Sweet, funny, and Douglas Adams [Posted on 2008-11-09]
There is the reason why this was DNA's favorite book. Read it and you'll get a glimpse at the soul of one of the best writers of our times. If you like the Hitchhiker books, if you've enjoyed the Dirk Gently novels, and The Salmon of Doubt, this book is a must.

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