Overview

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 book 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.

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9780718894733

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David Attenborough has been interested in natural history for as long as he can remember. As a child he had a succession of pets - grass snakes, salamanders and tropical fish among them - and explored the countryside around his home in Leicester, watching birds and collecting fossils. Eventually, he won a scholarship to Clare College, Cambridge, where he took a degree in natural sciences. After doing his national service in the Royal Navy, and a brief spell in educational publishing, he joined the BBC Television in 1952. There he produced a wide variety of programmes - archaeological quizzes, short stories, political discussions among them - but eventually he persuaded the Corporation to let him go to the tropics to make films about animals and so started the series of Zoo Quest Expeditions, three of which are described in this book. In 1965, he abandoned programme-making to become Controller of BBC 2 which at that time was less than a year old. For four years he was responsible for the network's editorial policies and for turning it into the first colour network in Europe. In 1969, he was appointed Director of Programmes, responsible for both BBC Television's networks, but in 1972, after eight years behind a desk, he resigned and returned to programme-making. Since then he has produced several remarkable series, Eastwards with Attenborough, The Tribal Eye, and most recently, Life on Earth.

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