IVe Been Gone Far Too Long: Field Study Fiascoes and Expedition

Recounts the problems scientists have run into during the course of their travels

The ultimate in armchair travel, this sequel to I Should Have Stayed Home is rife with flamboyant animals, culturally rich tribes and bungling Western anthropologists, biologists and doctors. Twenty-one of the last group contributed their hilarious misadventures here: an anthropologist working in Kenya without her husband turns down the native women's kind offers to share theirs. A sick doctor in Peru endures a local remedy involving a cactus, a fork and notebook paper. A biologist in the African savanna watches a playful elephant toss her Land Rover around. A plant ecologist on Mount Kenya realizes that hyraxes (relatives of the elephant, but the size of woodchucks) have taught themselves how to maneuver the zippers on his tent to get to his stash of cookies. And everyone has a story about the snakes that constantly sink their fangs into hapless humans. ("Unfortunately," writes one jaded doctor on an African game reserve who saw his share of hysterical humans bitten by harmless amphibians, "on the rare occasions that victims of dangerous snakes were brought to the hospital, our antiserum had always expired.") Gone Too Long is the perfect way to explore without getting bitten. (Jan.) FYI: Author royalties will be donated to the Wildlife Conservation Society and Cultural Survival.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this follow-up to I Should Have Stayed Home: The Worst Trips of Great Writers (RDR Bks., 1994), 21 biologists and anthropologists provide true stories of their worst days and nights in the tropics. The subtitle sums up the contents quite skillfully. The sometimes lighthearted treatment of the reaction of research subjects to the field worker?"her utter inability to carry all manner of objects on her head, as all Giriama women do effortlessly...provided robust, live entertainment for large circles of family"?is balanced by the often harsh realities of fieldwork, such as a description of a human rabies victim. Because these anecdotes are written by specialists, interesting tidbits of factual information can be found interspersed throughout the book. Recommended for all general collections.?Mary J. Nickum, Bozeman, Mont.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

If field scientists are associated with writing dry, footnoted reports, this collection by zoologists and anthropologists proves the image is a calumny. People in khaki and pith helmets can be funny, when embellishing their misadventures. In fact, some could start second careers as comedians should they be denied tenure. For example, of a toilet from which some published bird observations were made, one author cracks that "the toilet . . . was not mentioned under that obligate section called `Methods'." Critters in odd places are another humorous feature of many of these yarns; a researcher in Amazonia phlegmatically recounts his vertical ascent on finding a poisonous snake in his bidet. None of the authors are household names (although late primatologist Dian Fossey appears in the first article), but they can write with enthusiasm and irreverence about their snafus, which occurred in the 1980s. Set mostly in Africa, these 21 tales will entertain anyone dreaming of heading to the bush to research their own Ph.D. Gilbert Taylor