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David Attenborough established his reputation on television with his Zoo Quest series, and the original accounts of his travels proved him to be an excellent writer and a gifted and amusing storyteller. The reviewer in The Times confirmed that he was 'as skilful a writer as broadcaster', while in the Yorkshire Post it was said his books have 'the same irresistible charm that distinguished his T.V. series'.
This new edition brings together, slightly abridged, David Attenborough's accounts of three journeys – to Guyana where he explored the broad savannahs of the Rupununi, the creeks and swamps of the coast, and the remote forest reserve of the Amerindians; to Indonesia in search of the Komodo Dragon; and to Paraguay to seek, among other animals, the elusive giant armadillo. The Zoo Quest Expeditions abounds with superb vignettes of bizarre characters – Mistah King, the mermaid fisherman; the shanty singers, Lord Lucifer and the Great Smasher; Comelli, the wandering jaguar hunter; and the fat, jolly Gertie who claimed she had a 'highly nervous psychological disposition'.The author also tells, disarmingly, of the hardships of the hardships of the journey by launch and canoe up the rivers of South America, of his travel by horseback through the parched, inhospitable Chaco of Paraguay, sometimes swamp and sometimes desert, and of a hazardous voyage by prau under the captaincy of a gun-smuggler.
At all times the author shows his acute powers of observation, his irrepressible sense of the ridiculous, and his gift as a brilliant raconteur. No one has written more entertaining travel books, and this collected edition, superbly illustrated by photographs, will be hugely enjoyed for its evocative descriptions of animals, people and places.
Introduction
Book One: Zoo Quest to Guyana
1 To Guyana
2 Tiny McTurk and Cannibal Fish
3 The Painted Cliff
4 Sloths and Snakes
5 Spirits in the Night
6 Shanties on the Mazaruni
7 Vampires and Gertie
8 Mistah King and the Mermaid
9 Return
Book Two: Zoo Quest for a Dragon
1 To Indonesia
2 The Faithful Jeep
3 Bali
4 The Animals of Bali
5 Volcanoes and Pickpockets
6 Arrival in Borneo
7 Charlie, the Orang-utan
8 A Perilous Voyage
9 The Islands of Komodo
10 The Dragons
11 Postscripts
Book Three: Zoo Quest in Paraguay
1 To Paraguay
2 The Decline of a Luxury Cruise
3 Butterflies and Birds
4 Nests on the Camp
5 Beasts in the Bathroom
6 Chasing a Giant
7 Ranch in the Chaco
8 Chaco Journey
9 A Second Search
10 Moving a Menagerie
