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threegoodrats's review against another edition
Pretty interesting, but a lot of it was over my head. I forced my way through the chapter about plants, despite the fact that I have no idea what the plants were that he was talking about and therefore didn’t really learn much from it. From there on, I just skipped around reading what interested me (and that I understood.) I picked this up because I’m interested in learning more about the world around me, but I think this particular book was not the right place for me to start. If you already have a bit more knowledge about nature, I imagine it’s pretty helpful.
betterthanitsseams's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.0
jenifferswhim's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.5
Full of great information, but difficult to read. Two of the chapters were written as stories about Gooley’s adventures with the Dayak in in Borneo. These chapters were the most interesting, but the least useful to me. I would have enjoyed reading this book much more if all the chapters were written similar to the Dayak chapters - telling a story while discovering clues.
cvbazley's review against another edition
Meh. Pretty boring. Not a “sit down” kind of book.
markcastaneda's review against another edition
2.0
This book has phenomenal information in it!!! low rating reflects that the writing was not skillful or effective for the content.
Honestly, I would love if Gooley would write an embellished field guide, formatted with bullets and concision. The chapters, sections, and subsections were effective, as was the index and appendices, but the writing was simply too hard to follow in a narrative format. Lots of lists written as paragraphs. Really hard to stay engaged with.
Author has so much good information to offer, but I retained very little of what I actually read. Took me 3 attempts to follow through with getting the whole book read. This would be a good book for a naturalist course or a hands-on book club, but pretty ineffective for pleasure reading.
Also side-note: Shady felt infantilized in the Dayak chapters. Not necessarily offensive but felt uncomfortable to me idk
Honestly, I would love if Gooley would write an embellished field guide, formatted with bullets and concision. The chapters, sections, and subsections were effective, as was the index and appendices, but the writing was simply too hard to follow in a narrative format. Lots of lists written as paragraphs. Really hard to stay engaged with.
Author has so much good information to offer, but I retained very little of what I actually read. Took me 3 attempts to follow through with getting the whole book read. This would be a good book for a naturalist course or a hands-on book club, but pretty ineffective for pleasure reading.
Also side-note: Shady felt infantilized in the Dayak chapters. Not necessarily offensive but felt uncomfortable to me idk
amoondaluna's review against another edition
informative
Well written with welcome spots of humor, but a bit more specialized than I expected.