Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger

Average customer rating:

A ROLLICKING ADVENTURE.... FUN!

Great disappointment due to the filthy language and crude humor

An informative book but unfortunately bad choices in writing style

Everything you want

funny and depressing

Carnivorous Nights: On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger
Margaret Mittelbach , and Michael Crewdson
Manufacturer: Villard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Australia | Australia & Oceania | History | Subjects | Books
Wildlife | Animals | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
General | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books
Tasmania | Australia | Australia & South Pacific | Travel | Subjects | Books
General | Australia & South Pacific | Travel | Subjects | Books
General | Travel | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Tasmanian Tiger: The Tragic Tale of How the World Lost Its Most Mysterious Predator

Searching for Ropens: Living Pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea

Tasmania: The Bradt Travel Guide

BIG BIRD! - MODERN SIGHTINGS OF FLYING MONSTERS

The Last Tasmanian Tiger: The History and Extinction of the Thylacine

ASIN: 1400060028
Release Date: 2005-04-05

Book Description

Packing an off-kilter sense of humor and keen scientific minds, authors Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson take off with renowned artist Alexis Rockman on a postmodern safari. Their mission? Tracking down the elusive Tasmanian tiger. This mysterious, striped predator was once the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial. It had a pouch like a kangaroo and a jaw that opened impossibly wide to reveal terrifying choppers. Tragically, this rare and powerful animal was hunted into extinction in the early part of the twentieth century. Or was it?

Journeying first to the Australian mainland and then south to the wild island of Tasmania, these young naturalists brave a series of bizarre misadventures and uproarious wildlife encounters in their obsessive search for the long-lost beast.

From an ancient cave featuring an aboriginal painting of the tiger to a lab in Sydney where maverick scientists are trying to resurrect the animal through cloning, this intrepid trio comes face-to-face with blood-sucking land leeches and venomous bull ants, a misbehaving wallaby who invades their motel room, and a crew of flesh-eating, bone-crunching Tasmanian devils gorging on roadkill.

They bond with trappers, bushwackers, and wildlife experts who refuse to abandon the tiger hunt, despite the paucity of evidence. Sifting through local myths, bar-room banter, and historical accounts, these environmental detectives sweep readers into a world where platypus’ swim, kangaroos roam, and a large predator with a pouch was–or perhaps still is–queen of the jungle.

Filled with Alexis Rockman’s stunning drawings of flora and fauna–-made from soil, wombat scat, and the artist’s own blood–Carnivorous Nights is a hip and hilarious account of an unhinged safari, as well as a fascinating portrayal of a wildly unique part of the world.

Customer Reviews:

A ROLLICKING ADVENTURE.... FUN!.......2007-10-02

This book is a wonderful celebration of wildlife--what's lost and what still survives--in a beautiful and strange part of the world. But what makes Carnivorous Nights great is the oddball voice of its narrators.

While appalled by the destructive forces that pushed the Tasmanian tiger to the edge of extinction, the authors manage to find beauty and humor in the amazing creatures--and people--that still populate this far-flung island.

The illustrations are black-and-white watercolors of Tasmania's animals. And they're like ghostly photos of a long-lost world.

This book really stuck with me, and made me want to travel to Tasmania.

Great disappointment due to the filthy language and crude humor.......2007-08-05

Being an avid fan of the Thylacine, I had great hopes for Carnivorous Nights. Boy was I disappointed!!!!! "The Last Thylacine" 2005 by Terry Domico ISBN 1883385156 is a far better book.

There is some very good information in Carnivorous Nights but it is covered by filthy language (the F word every few pages) and Middle School level humor (nipple clamp joke on page 111, many references to scat or other bodily functions in a so-called humorous manner, etc...) Additionally, I did not like the glorification of illegal drug use by one stoned adventurer who seemed to focus his life around his next hit of weed.

I also did not care for the artwork. It was simplistic and not especially inspiring. The black and white images were just basic and nothing special. I thought some of them looked like they were traced over old photos.

A truly good book could have been here if the authors had just had some common decency and maturity. Not everyone speaks with a potty mouth, nor do all adults think of mating habits and sexual issues all the time about all of nature. Unfortunately, reading Carnivorous Nights was more like digging through a dung heap looking for treasure. Too bad that in this case the treasure was not worth the garbage it was covered in.

An informative book but unfortunately bad choices in writing style.......2007-05-04

Carnivorous Nights on the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger follows three New Yorkers, authors Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson and their artist friend Alexis Rockman as they search for the Thylacine, or Tasmanian Tiger. The thylacine is presumed to have been hunted to extinction with the last known individual dying in Beaumaris zoo in 1936. There have been many sightings since then and many still hold hope the Thylacine persists somewhere on the island of Tasmania.
As you might expect, the trio find little evidence of the Tiger in their travels but provide a lot of information on its natural history and some of the more credible recent sightings. They also spend a lot of time checking out Tasmania's many other non-extinct weird and wonderful animals, and I believe they give a good feel for the general atmosphere on the Island. I read this book a few months prior to my own trip to Tassie and it lead me to visit Marakoopa caves and check out the glow worms, which was really fantastic. As far as an informative and interesting book on the wildlife of Tasmanian goes, it earns five stars.
I had to take two stars off however for what are basically stylistic reasons. Normally this doesn't bother me too much, but in this case it turned what would have been a great book into something that was a bit of an effort to read.

The first problem is that this book intends to be a bit of a wacky-travel-adventure read. That in its self is fine (check out Redmond O'Hanlon's "Into the Heart of Borneo" for a perfect example of how it can work) but the problem here is that we have three Americans traveling in Australia, a first world English speaking country. Let's face it, they don't have any really wacky adventures. In fact the attempt to have wacky adventures seems to distract from the book and dumbs down the text a bit. (see pg. 10 "... we were happy to find out that English was spoken on the island.") Nevertheless the authors try to keep the humor up by making lots and lots of quips. Mostly unfunny quips in my opinion. Most other reviewers found this book funny, and I usually enjoy a humorous travel book (Bill Bryson) but most of this was just off for me. Most of the 'humorous' dialog is attributed to Alexis, which resulted in my wishing about halfway through the book that he'd just keep his mouth shut. But I have to admit I took an early disliking to Alexis due to what was probably the worst part of the "travel adventure" side of the text, his purchase of pot (illegal in Australia as in the US) and his smuggling it around the country. There is something about a tourist abroad willfully committing a crime that is also a crime in his own country that I find really distasteful, and I was sorry to see it treated as a sort of comic aside in this book. To be even handed to poor Alexis, his artwork featured in the book is beautiful and I loved his choice of media.

The second problem and really the worst aspect of the book for me was the narrative voice. Since the book was written by two authors and covered their personal experiences, they opted to refer to themselves as 'WE'. Bad idea. While I can't really offer a better suggestion for two authors to have an equal say in a tale, using 'we' is a bad way to go. At times it was fine, at times it sounded like a married couple, at times it sounded like a olde time king, and at times it sounded like a missive from the Borg. To see how bad it gets one can read the dream sequence on page 118 "That night we dreamed about wombats and feral cats..." Actually I recommend using the search inside function to read a few pages and see whether or not this style will bother you.

A final gripe that is probably worth a third of a star or so is that this book lacks an index, which is probably indicative of its trending to pulpy mass media marketing as opposed to a more intelligent natural history text. And yet it does have a decent set of notes and further reading in the back. While I haven't read any other works by these authors, it feels like they are smart natural history writers lead astray by an editor asking for a dumbed down text in the hope it will have a boarder appeal.

In short, if you have an interest in Tasmania, the Thylacine, or Australia travel in general I can recommend purchasing this book, but I was sorry to see a potentially fantastic book severely damaged by some bad editing decisions.

Everything you want.......2006-10-02

Funny, deep and educational. Environmentally aware and a fantastic travel story. What else could a person want?

The book centers on the Tasmanian tiger but threads through cloning, giant lobsters and other strange Tasmanian beasties, extinction, hope and, of course, all manner of strange Tasmanian scenes.

funny and depressing.......2005-10-29

The book is depressing because it's about extinction and endangerment; it's funny because our authors manage to stay optimistic and cheerful in the face of extinction. They have an extremely clear eye for the foibles of humans, as well as for the traits of the animals they see. It takes talented writers to make roadkill amusing; these guys manage it.

If you've ever read Gerald Durrell, then you would find this book similar, both in the attitude toward travel and the observations of native humans. The humor is somewhat similar, too, although of course Durrell's is a bit dated by now. If you read and enjoy this book, then I'd strongly encourage you to go find and read anything you can by Gerald Durrell, especially his earlier books.

Completely by coincidence, during the same week that I read this book, I read a story by Harry Turtledove in a science fiction magazine, and an article in a newspaper about lemurs. Turtledove's story was about an alternate history where the island of Atlantis did not sink, and it has a great deal of unique island wildlife, like Tasmania or Madagascar. The plot of the story was that John James Audubon goes to visit Atlantis to sketch and paint all the endangered wildlife there - because of course, the incursion of man onto the island has endangered most of the species. The story highlights the casual cruelty of 19th-century practices, killing rare animals just to pose and paint them and stuff them for museums; I contrasted that to the care that Mittlebach et al. take not to kill anything, and Alexis' efforts to connect to the animals he is painting by using their bioproducts to make paint. Then the article in a Maine newspaper was about a 14-year old who had saved money since she was 6 years old to go to Madagascar and work on lemur conservation; she accomplished her trip finally, and I felt that the viewpoint of the young generation on the many endangered island animals also added to my appreciation of what the authors of "Carnivorous Nights" were seeing on Tasmania.

The paintings in the book are wonderful; I only could wish some were in color. I have always been fond of wombats, echidnas, and platypodes (or platypuses if you want to simplify it), and have stuffed toys of each (yes, I am half a century old and have a large collection of plush toy marsupials, insectivores, extinct reptiles, and assorted endangered species) and had the fun of meeting an echidna face to face once; it was the short-beaked kind, not the long-beaked one, but still odd enough.

A short "family-reading" alert: while the topic is ideal for kids, there are a few things some parents might object to - assorted unmarried people sharing hotel rooms, more than a few four-letter words, a lot of discussion of blood, gore, and animal parts. I personally don't think there's anything here an 11-year old wouldn't already have met, but your children may vary, and I suspect that more than one 8-year old would have nightmares after the scene about feeding a Tasmanian devil. But definitely, the whole family should get to see the pictures, and get to hear about baby pademelons and Bennett's wallabies!

Carnivorous Nights - On The Trail Of The Tasmanian Tiger

Average customer rating:

Carnivorous Nights - On The Trail Of The Tasmanian Tiger
Margaret Mittelbach & Michael Crewdson
Manufacturer: Text Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1920885943

Book Description

Covers at least 14 miles east-west by 17 miles north-south and discusses trailheads and trails, climate, geology, history, flora and fauna, campsites, swimming holes and more. Includes six two-page spread topo maps.

What is a Hiker's Guide to the High Sierra? It's a small, compact book that covers all the trails and trailheads in a popular area in the High Sierra. In each guide there is a minimum of 100 miles of trail described. Their compact size (4 ½" x 8") makes them easy to carry. If you're going backpacking, each guide covers the amount of area you're likely to venture through on a backpacking trip. If you're camping in the area, the Hiker's Guide to the High Sierra will give you lots of options for dayhikes.

Customer Reviews:

A fine hip pocket resource.......2002-04-12

The small format High Sierra Hiking Guide Series is clearly an on-the-trail refresher series. For day hikers and 'packers alike one of these and the appropriate 7.5 topos will get you there and back. Most of the lyricism we expect from a Wilderness Press guide is present, though in an abreviated form due to size constraints: for the full treatment and as a home reference volume for picking potential trips (or reliving past ones) Sierra North, Sierra South and Yosemite National Park - A Natural History Guide to Yosemite and Its Trails are the way to go.
These are full decription tomes where you can smell the duff and here the crunch of the granite under your boots. Imagine my horror when I got back east and found their idea of a trail guide was more a mileage marker list, I guess the complexity of the trails is an issue but I've worn my second edition Sierra South to tatters from all the rereading and my East Coast guides (White Mountains, Vermont High Trail etc.) get read to keep me from getting lost and quickly reshelved as they have no feeling. FalconGuides are a bit better but where they overlap as with Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada the Wilderness Press are far superior a read tho if all you want is distance and elevation they'll do.

Spectacular place, unspectacular guide.......1999-06-22

This book is a real disappointment. My impression is that the author is speaking to someone who already knows the trails and the area well. It may be better than nothing, but it could have been much more.

In fact, I have been unable to find a Yosemite backpacking guide that wasn't a disappointment. There must be one somewhere. I am spoiled on excellent guides such as Hiking New Mexico (I don't recall the author), and particularly the Arkansas guides by Tim Ernst. All backpacking guides should be as thorough and thoughtful.

Book Description

Having invented the novel of the western frontier, Cooper went on to invent the sea novel. "The Pilot"'s shadowy hero--modeled on John Paul Jones--leads the American Navy in dangerous raids on the English coast. In "The Red Rover," a notorious pirate is chased by a disguised agent of the Royal Navy. Romance, adventure, political intrigue, revelations of mistaken identity--here is Cooper at his best: a painter of brilliant seascapes, a riveting narrator of suspense.

Customer Reviews:

Another solid Library of America title...........2006-06-07

Comprising two novels, Sea Tales reflects Cooper's interest in matters maritime. More famous for The Leatherstocking Tales which brought us The Last of the Mohicans, few know that Cooper wrote a history of the US Navy which is considered a classic of naval literature. In Sea Tales, Cooper extends his fascination with a fictional bent. The Pilot begins off the shores of England during the American Revolution. To fulfill a secret mission, Cooper chooses one of America's early naval heroes as his protagonist, but leaves only clues as to who this might be. We follow our hero and his allies through twisting and often improbable plots. Yet, as his mission occurs mainly on shore, we find a "sea tale" that is surprisingly landlocked.

Not so in the second story, The Red Rover. Here Cooper casts us upon the savage sea with a vengeance as a buccaneer and the British navy scheme and maneuver to gain the upper hand. The Red Rover is clearly the better of the two tales, but modern readers must be prepared for a verbose narrative with bulging descriptives and implausible plot twists that wouldn't fly in a latter day novel.

Library of America publishes a product that truly finds the sweet spot between quality and price. I own many Library of America editions and they do not disappoint. James Fenimore Cooper's Sea Tales is no exception. Cooper's content is as pleasurable as the book within which it is bound. If you enjoy 19th-century literature, the sea, sailing, or simply authors who truly relish the story they're telling, you'll want to devote the time and expense. 4 stars.

The Red Rover is wonderful!.......2000-10-07

Instead of reading from the beginning, I started with The Red Rover first. I enjoyed it immensely; it was filled with sailors' superstitions, eery encounters with unknown ships, and many tales of the 'unexplained' occurances on sea. There were wonderful descriptions from Cooper that appealed to the senses. The Red Rover is a page-turning tale of suspense. The reader is left to ponder over the identity of the captain Red Rover and the nature of his near magical power over his men, yet Cooper gives the reader a slap in the face when we realize that it is our hero, "Wilder", who is not what he seems! The story continues and ends with more identity-revealing. I finished The Red Rover with a dazzled mind, and then turned to The Pilot. Expecting more intriguing tales of the sea, this book was a let-down in that it nearly focuses on two young lieutenants trying to kidnap their lovers from England and whisk them away, back to America. Redeeming the tale slightly is the vague pilot himself, never named, but patterned on a heroic and rather "chivalrous" John Paul Jones.

Sea Tales - I. The Pilot. II. The Red Rover. III. The Water-Witch. IV. Wing-and-Wing. V. The Two Admirals.

Average customer rating:

Sea Tales - I. The Pilot. II. The Red Rover. III. The Water-Witch. IV. Wing-and-Wing. V. The Two Admirals.
James Fenimore Cooper
Manufacturer: D. Appleton and Company, New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Sea Tales. Includes: The Pilot; The Red Rover; The Water-Witch; Wing-and-Wing; The Two Admirals

Average customer rating:

Sea Tales. Includes: The Pilot; The Red Rover; The Water-Witch; Wing-and-Wing; The Two Admirals
James Fenimore Cooper
Manufacturer: D. Appleton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Average customer rating:

Sea Tales: The Pilot, the Red Rover
James Fenimore Cooper
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books