Last Chance To See
Created | Updated Mar 5, 2003
The rare book on rare creatures, "Last chance to see" has long been known as the hardest of Douglas Adams' books to locate. And it lives up to it's reputation. I did manage to catch a glimpse of it last year in the Uni library, however, me being me, I wanted to own it. It is in my nature to try to tame books. So for just over a year now I have been hunting in every book store I come across, trying my hardest just to get a glimpse of this elusive beast. Finally my long and heartbreaking search is at an end.
Growing weary of my elusive search, I did the unthinkable, I asked one of the locals if they have seen this book. They looked at me dumbfounded. They had not heard of this mythical creature, and had no idea what I was talking about, yet they searched the infinite archives of knowledge and told me the most wonderful words I have ever heard in my life. "We will get it in for you, it will take about a week and a half to two weeks."
Two weeks later I received the long awaited phone call "Sir, your book has arrived." I quickly hurried off to the book store who had located the beast to visit it. It was everything I had wanted.
Then upon reading this marvel, I encountered one of my favourite quotes ever written. "The fifteenth most poisonous snake in the world is the Indian Cobra, and the other fourteen all live here (Australia)."
This book is a wonder, most of the species that Douglas Adams saw with Mark Carwardine I had never even heard of. For example, the Kakapo. A large, harmless flightless parrot with less than 50 known to exist in the world. Without reading this book, I probably never would have heard of this eccentric bird, and now I feel a great sense of dread that we will soon lose this them. Yet if there are people out there who care enough about these animals, and according to Douglas there are some very determined people trying to save them, we may just be able to save some of these endangered animals.
If only we could save them all...
Growing weary of my elusive search, I did the unthinkable, I asked one of the locals if they have seen this book. They looked at me dumbfounded. They had not heard of this mythical creature, and had no idea what I was talking about, yet they searched the infinite archives of knowledge and told me the most wonderful words I have ever heard in my life. "We will get it in for you, it will take about a week and a half to two weeks."
Two weeks later I received the long awaited phone call "Sir, your book has arrived." I quickly hurried off to the book store who had located the beast to visit it. It was everything I had wanted.
Then upon reading this marvel, I encountered one of my favourite quotes ever written. "The fifteenth most poisonous snake in the world is the Indian Cobra, and the other fourteen all live here (Australia)."
This book is a wonder, most of the species that Douglas Adams saw with Mark Carwardine I had never even heard of. For example, the Kakapo. A large, harmless flightless parrot with less than 50 known to exist in the world. Without reading this book, I probably never would have heard of this eccentric bird, and now I feel a great sense of dread that we will soon lose this them. Yet if there are people out there who care enough about these animals, and according to Douglas there are some very determined people trying to save them, we may just be able to save some of these endangered animals.
If only we could save them all...
