Number 42 - Last Chance to See - Douglas Adams & Mark Cawardine

 

Book number 42 in the year has to be Hitchhiker's Guide related, so here is the only book of Douglas Adams that I had managed never to read or own until now.

That's ironic because the only time i met Douglas Adams, it was at a signing tour for this book back in 1990. Unfortunately I was a poor student at the time and just had to settle for getting my radio scripts signed and I couldn't afford to buy this one.

The first Last Chance to See I ordered online turned out to be a follow up by Mark Cawardine and Stephen Fry with the main title in large letters and "following in the footsteps of Douglas Adams" in small print. serves me right for not reading the product description properly. Or indeed looking at the picture of Stephen Fry on the cover...

On my second try ordering it, I received this little beauty, a USA first edition that looks a lot longer than it  is because the paper is probably the thickest in any of the couple of thousand books in my house. 

Anyway... the book is a non fiction account of Douglas traveling to assorted remote locations around the world with naturalist Mark Cawardine to try to find and take pictures of assorted very rare animals for a BBC radio show.

I still remember Douglas telling the packed audience in Manchester Waterstones about the troubles involved in buying condoms in China (to protect a non waterproof microphone so they could put it in water) when you don't speak the language. It was one of the funniest moments of a very funny evening.  That anecdote is present in this book and is only one of many such anecdotes, all told with Douglas Adams' knack for finding the exact phrasing for maximum comic effect. 

I have received more than a few strange looks from people at work this last week for sitting in the lunch room giggling to myself. That's always a good sign when you're reading a comedic book.

This has its serious side as well. The whole book is about conservation of animals. The species they're looking for are some of the rarest creatures on Earth, and in general, the reason they're so rare is because of humans. This is a point that's hammered home time and time again. There is a sense of wonder when he meets the rhinos and  Komodo dragons.  The chapter about the kakapo parrots is poignant and funny at the same time.

This is a book that's going to stick with me for a long time.

Number 40 - Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

 

This month's book group book. It's obviously a popular choice - 5 million copies sold before this printing alone, and most book groups on Facebook, it seems to crop up in someone's listings at least twice a day.

Does it deserve the attention and the sales?

I think it probably does. But there are some definite flaws to the story. Unfortunately, some slight spoilers will be needed to say what these flaws are. I'll try to be vague as possible but you might want to skip this review if you don't want clues.

Kya is better known to the locals as the Marsh Girl.  She was abandoned by her family one by one until she was left alone living in a run down shack in the marshes aged about 9.  Since then she's fended for herself with only the help of one or two friendly locals - from the black people's side of town.  this story being set between 1953 and 1970, means it's deep in the American racist era.

As she grows up aloe in her run down hut, she catches the attentions of two local boys, one nice, one not.

The book opens with the not nice one found dead in 1969, before flashing back to 1953 when Kya's mother walked out.  the chapters alternate randomly between the sheriff's investigating the death, and Kya's growth from child to young adulthood. 

It's all very nicely written. the characters are drawn so well you can almost see them, We have full sympathy for Kya. We understand fully her first encounters with love from her two suitors. there's real tension in the scenes set in 1970. we don't want to see an innocent person suffer.

I really enjoyed this book and was ready to class it as one of the best I've read this year until the revelations in the final three pages which undermine all the messaging in the rest of the book. All the good work up until that point is spoiled.  And the worst thing is, it wasn't necessary.  They could have picked a number of other people, or just left it as a tragic accident and the ending would have been so much better.

It's Owens's first novel, so I will let her off on this occasion. It's a fascinating and moving read with a genuinely sympathetic protagonist. But she fluffs the ending so badly... it's worse the more I think about it. It doesn't actually make much sense as a solution to the events for several reasons.

a generous 7.5/10.  If I think about this much longer, that may slip