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There are few women writing non-fiction today with such a sophisticated understanding of language, such a nuanced approach to style, and such a brazen willingness to engage with the big issues, personal and political. This is a gripping and informative book, always intriguing and occasionally dazzling (GUARDIAN )
Thrilling and surprising . . . her prose has an intense, lush quality . . . She has an adventurer's intrepid spirit and a poet's eye for detail and ear for dialogue (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
An extraordinary travel-memoir . . . this is no mere gutsy travelogue, but a poet's attempt to do what a scientist does: "saying precisely what and how you saw" . . . utterly compelling (INDEPENDENT )
Ruth Padel is a wonderful writer and she has produced perhaps the best book ever written on the places where tigers live (EVENING STANDARD )
Thrilling and surprising . . . her prose has an intense, lush quality . . . She has an adventurer's intrepid spirit and a poet's eye for detail and ear for dialogue (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH )
An extraordinary travel-memoir . . . this is no mere gutsy travelogue, but a poet's attempt to do what a scientist does: "saying precisely what and how you saw" . . . utterly compelling (INDEPENDENT )
Ruth Padel is a wonderful writer and she has produced perhaps the best book ever written on the places where tigers live (EVENING STANDARD )
Editor's Choice, The Bookseller
'A wonderful book about a wondrous animal'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I am an avid reader, and in my own mind I tell myself that I read to make myself a better person. If there's any truth in that, then this book is an example of the power to be gained from reading. I don't know why I chose this book - it called out to me in the ways books can, if you know what I mean. Incredibly difficult to classify, it could be travel writing, memoir, cultural studies, science and environmental studies, or maybe politics. Ruth Padel brings all of these issues together in defence of tigers, and tosses in some poetry and literature as well to produce a feast for the mind. The book is brilliant and moving. The big predators, such as tigers, have limited adaptability and their future existence or otherwise tells us a lot about the health of our environment. But the book goes much further - eliminating the habitat of the big animals won't make us safer; destroying their capacity to survive won't make us wealthier or happier, either. Ultimately their habitat is ours, and our own survival is arguably more closely bound to theirs than we have cared to imagine. The book is beautifully written. It is a joy to read, despite the often crushing truth about the treatment of wildlife. Ruth Padel's poetic strengths bring enthralling descriptive power to her travels and observations. Having written this much, I still feel that I have not done sufficient justice to its passion and warmth. So then, read it and find out for yourself.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A really wonderful and life-changing book. The author takes us right into the jungles wherever the tiger lives - or still lives,just. She shows us about tigers' lives, based on most recent scientific research - in fact, we meet the researchers themselves, in all Asia's jungles. She talks for forest guards protecting tigers against poaching, and villagers living alongside it, the poverty, the problems: tigers eating cows, Chinese dealers wanting to buy bones and skin of these beautiful animals. She also shows us "defenders of the wild", conservaytionists and scientists. She walks with them up cobra-filled volcanoes, talks to them on Bhutanese mountain slopes or Sumatran equatorial forest ridge trails. She kayaks down little rapids in Laos, sleeps in jungles, walks through the taiga of Far East Russia. You can really feel the many different jungles, every leech and every leaf, every snake and wild ox. But she also gives us the ancient symbolism of tigers, how people both in west and east, in Asia where tigrs live, fantasize about its power beauty and sexiness, and want some of that for themselves. You hear local myths and tiger magic - she even has a seance with a tiger shaman in Sumatrta, see shadow plays in Java, court theatre in Laos, South India and the mangrove swamps below Calcutt, all beautifully described. But this book is an inner journey as well as an outer journey: a love story, a sort of flight into disenchantment, played out in pockest of London life. It is a spiritual journey as well as a perfect introduction to the problems and truths of conservation.I wanted to stay in the world of this book long after I finished it. It is really beautifully written, with humour and poise, and very very vivid. Do tigers have a chance, in our world now? I think she would say, yes and no. It is poignant but not depressing, and gives you all the arguments of conservation and why we ned to preserve nature.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Reading this book will immerse you in jungles, have you checking your legs for leeches, and teach you more about tigers in the modern world than any other I know. Ruth Padel, the great-great-grandaughter of Charles Darwin, spent five years travelling to the last places on earth where tigers live, to learn about them, their conservation, and the people who are involved in their lives and deaths. But this not a dry scientific read littered with statistics; Ruth is a former Chair of the Poetry Society and the language throughout is beautiful, evocative, engaging and often funny. The description of her travels and discoveries teach much about the complexities of conserving a large endangered animal which is valuable both dead and alive. We have known the tiger is in trouble for a long time - this book reveals why the solution is not as simple as we might think and describes the efforts and frustrations of some of the world's leading tiger experts. If you are heading to Asia - for whatever reason - read this book first for a ground-level understanding of jungle life. Highly recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A beautiful, heartbreaking look at the state of wild tigers
This is a brilliantly well written book about tigers in the wild - what is being done to protect them, how many are there left and what is their likely fate? Read more
Published on 14 April 2010 by Jennifer Malsingh
They roam the jungle of human desires
Published in 2005, with an update of the complete picture by 2006, this book comprehensively covers tiger conservation wherever these animals exist in natural habitats throughout... Read more
Published on 3 Oct 2009 by Eileen Shaw
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