Life of a talented snake expert. Very tragic end. ( )

Biography of herpetologist Joe Slowinski, who met his match with a venomous snake bite in the jungles of Burma. Fascinating. ( )

I listened to this on audio (Audible download.) Very hard to turn the car engine off. I think the protagonist, Joe Slowinski, was a little cracked, but it makes for fascinating listening. Lots of fascinating detail about the politics of herpetology science. It does seem that this male-dominated profession attracts more than its share of those who like living on the edge. Some described him as a genius. He struck me more as one obsessed.

A nice feature of the book is to highlight and provide background material for a different snake at the beginning of each chapter. All sorts of nifty detail such as the fact that all snakes are venomous, it's just that the ones we classify as non-venomous don't have enough of the nasty stuff to do us any harm. Or that the bite of the Russell viper is extremely toxic and so effective at inducing thrombosis that it is used in a diagnostic test for blood clotting.

The other aspect I found interesting was the role of the media in shaping the way scientists -- not unlike everyone else -- shape their behavior and decisions to maintain, obtain, and seek funding for their little expeditions.

Kay Douglas, on Amazon, said the following of Slowinski, a characterization I agree with: "Author James, in the epilogue, makes the connection between Slowinski's rashness and overconfidence and his death, but I still had difficulty overcoming an aversion to the beer-swilling, macho Slowinski, who at thirty-eight still behaved like a disarmingly charming but socially stunted twelve-year-old. I suppose I've met too many characters in this mold over the years to retain much regard for them. They gravitate toward the never-never land of labs and field research, places that allow them to obsess over a chosen subject, insulated from significant moral and social development."


Well read. ( )

Even knowing from the start what was going to happen to Joe at the end, I found myself transfixed by every single event told about his journey to find and identify snakes. An interesting point of creativity was making each chapter begin with information about a snake, not just any snake, but one that had a key impact on that part of Joe's life. This book could have been a dry, scientific sort of thing that only told what happened from beginning to end in order to memorialize a famous scientist, instead the author used information combined with great storytelling to paint the picture of someone so clearly it was as if you had actually met him somewhere.

I have never loved or hated snakes, but this book made me realize what beautiful creatures they can be. In reading, I discovered their abilities and their faults, I discovered the natural wonder that is the snake itself, and I came to understand why others would spend their time searching for these creatures and surrounding themselves with them in homes or offices. By the end of the book I found myself grateful for all the work that Joe had done and was heartbroken at the loss of one so great. ( )

Being the life of herpetologist Jos. Slowinski, quite eminent in his field, especially for a young man, at the time of his death from a bite from a krait which was being kept as a specimen. This book was informative (and fascinating reading) in several areas; the story is related through the prism of snakes (indeed, each chapter is named after a snake), but in addition to learning about snakes, one learns a great deal about scientific research, rivalries, and even the American government's response to the 9/11 attacks, since, by coincidence, Slowinski was bitten on that date, and the other members of his expedition were very reliant on the embassy to persuade Burma's forbidding government to help them out. The narrative of the disastrous, fatal expedition is a masterpiece of dysfunctional travel narrative, and the fight to save the victim (and the rest of the expedition) is enthralling. The author is a fine narrator as well as being the sort of popular scientific writer who will help out the layperson by explaining and defining his technical terms. ( )