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The Snake Charmer: A Life and Death in Pursuit of Knowledge
by: Jamie James

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 597.9092
EAN: 9781401302139
ISBN: 1401302130
Label: Hyperion
Manufacturer: Hyperion
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: June 03, 2008
Publisher: Hyperion
Release Date: June 03, 2008
Sales Rank: 23380
Studio: Hyperion

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Editorial Review:

Book Description:
Although it was still too dark to see well, Joe absentmindedly thrust his right hand into the sack to extract the specimen and have a look. Immediately, he winced with pain and yanked out his hand. A tiny black-and-white banded snake, less than ten inches long, was dangling limply from his middle finger, its fangs still sunk into his flesh.

In the fall of 2001, deep in the jungle of Burma, a team of scientists is searching for rare snakes. They are led by Dr. Joe Slowinski, at forty already one of the most brilliant biologists of our time. It is the most ambitious scientific expedition ever mounted into this remote region, venturing into the foothills of the Himalayas. The bold undertaking is brought to a dramatic halt by the bite of the many-banded krait, the deadliest serpent in Asia. In the moment he pulled his hand from the specimen bag and saw the krait, Joe knew that his life was in grave and imminent peril. Thus began one of the most remarkable wilderness rescue attempts of modern times, as Joe's teammates kept him alive for thirty hours by mouth-to-mouth respiration, waiting for a rescue that never came.

A daredevil obsessed with venomous snakes since his youth, Slowinski was a modern-day adventurer who rose quickly to the top of his field, discovering many previously unidentified snake species in his brief yet exhilarating career. The Snake Charmer is at once brilliant biography and exotic travel literature, blended with an accessible introduction to the bizarre, fascinating-and sometimes controversial-world of snake science. The narrative transports the reader into primeval wilderness, from the Everglades to Peru to Burma, in search of rattlesnakes and boa constrictors, kraits and cobras.

Joe Slowinski's career was fast and exciting, his tragic final expedition a pulse-pounding struggle between man and nature. In The Snake Charmer, renowned journalist and author Jamie James captures the life and death of this charismatic, endlessly fascinating man. Exhaustively researched in interviews with Slowinski's colleagues and family, and the author's own trek into the wilds of Burma, this is narrative nonfiction in the tradition of Into the Wild and The Perfect Storm.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- the snake charmer
Excellent biography of a great scientist. Well written and very insightful. I highly recommend it.

Rating:

- "Into the Wild" for poisonous snake collectors
About halfway through this book I had a feeling of deja vu in that I was reading Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer but this time this young man with a loose screw(and an alcohol problem) for a brain collected poisonous snakes barehanded.

This book is not the page turner that Into the Wild was but I found myself thinking how many people this young man hurt by dying so foolishly. I know there must be many people, both personally and in his field, that knew this man had a screw loose but couldn't pinpoint his mental problem. Many probably did try to warn him but it was no use.

Maybe its a reflection of the soceity we live in. ESPN glorifies "extreme sports" in which people risk their health and lives pursuing some ridiculous sport. This man was probably no different. He probably thought he was impressing his friends and co-workers by repeatedly picking up dangerous poisonous snakes barehanded when ... Read More

Rating:

- Tragic story beautifully and eloquently told
Jamie James has written a fascinating account of the life (and unfortunately, premature death) of Joe Slowinski, and woven into the narrative details about herpetology in general and various snake species in particular. Joe was charismatic, brilliant, and impulsive. His sad, tragic end is not made easier to accept but becomes more understandable against the backdrop of Joe's entire life. Both he and Steve Irwin brought an infectious enthusiasm to the study of herpetology, and both their lives were tragically cut short. They will both be sorely missed.

Rating:

- Un-Putdown-able!!
When I first heard about Joe Slowinski's bizarre and tragic death by snakebite in Burma, I was fascinated and wanted to learn more. The moment I saw this book, I grabbed it---an impulse move that was a lot safer than Joe's impulsive grab into the snake bag containing the krait.

This book is riveting, being simultaneously a character study, an adventure story, a peek into the world of academic science, and a biology primer. It succeeds in all categories, making it almost impossible to put down and haunting afterwards. The author's writing is concise yet accurate and descriptive.

As a trained biologist and a herpetologist on the hobbyist level, I appreciated Joe's fascination with snakes. I am a turtle person myself (oddly, nothing much is said about the turtle people in the prestige rankings among herpetologists) but have also had a snake. I can verify that herp meetings that feature snakes ... Read More

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