The general Culture Shock! book about Sri Lanka is more useful than this one.

wORTH aVOIDING - BAD PICTURES ( A FEW GOOD) NO MATCH FOR THE INSKIPP - NOT A GUIDE BUT A PICTURE BOOK

This book is a very noble effort at a photographic field guide to Indian birds. Not surprisingly, the quality of the photos varies from excellent to marginal-at-best; a few species could not possibly be intentified from the photos provided. Having said that, this book does contain several valuable features lacking from the other Indian bird guides. The range maps are displayed along with each species, with symbols and notes on the relative rarity of each species. Another very nice feature is the inclusion of the older, common (English) names which is great for those who have birded in India for awhile. I also like the smaller size and portablility of this book. The bottom line: if you are going to take one bird field guide to India, I wouldn't take this one- the Grimmett/Inskipps or Kazmeirczak "non-photo" guides are better bets. However, if you are a serious birder and don't mind packing two bird books, I'd highly recommned taking this one along to supplement the information in the other field guides.

This novel follows the lives of various Sri Lankan ex-pats in England and their intertwined family histories back home. While occasionally these types of novels strike a cord and manage to relate the cultural uniqueness of their country into our developed world context, this novel seemed to focus on a few spectacularly boring people and how they turned in and in on each other. My overwhelming emotion looking back on the book is disinterest. As far as I could figure, the characters could come from anywhere on the planet and be anywhere on the plant, and I will continue my search to get the feeling for Sri Lanka in some other book.

The Book is very well written as are all Romesh Gunasekera's works, but it was a litle complex!!I was a little disappointed, by the conmplexity and the way the story was not properly blended!!

Not much good can be said about this collection of essays, speeches and reminiscences from science fiction colossus Arthur C. Clarke. Only one piece of fiction is included: the short short "When the Twerms Came" which could be considered clever, perhaps even cute, but hardly memorable. Not surprisingly, most of the offerings deal with space, or space travel, or predictions about future technological developments (many of which involve space and space travel), with the predictable result that as one gets further into the book, the essays begin to have a vague familiarity about them. Moreover, this volume closes with a piece written in 1977, so most of the collection is 25 years old or older; as a result, much of this material is sorely dated, although Clarke tries to rectify this by revisiting each subject in his introductions. All that aside, it's probably safe to say that the essay is not really Clarke's strong suit. His greatest gifts are his encyclopedic knowledge of science and its history, his almost poetic descriptions of nature, and his rarely seen but always pointed sense of humor. Many of these pieces demonstrate the first of these qualities, but very few take advantage of the latter two, much to the book's detriment. Clarke is at his most eloquent when describing his adopted country, Sri Lanka, (once known as Serendip, thus the title), or when he's discussing his passion for the world under the sea. So much of Clarke's work is borderline philosophical that he rarely indulges himself in humor, but when he does, he is usually very effective with it. (Does anyone remember his Tales from the White Hart? A classic of science fiction humor.) In this volume, he pokes fun at his competition in "Introducing Isaac Asimov" and gives a fascinating account of life in Sri Lanka in "Servant Problem - Oriental Style", but the rest of the book is pretty dry reading. Even die-hard fans of Clarke's work will find very little to get excited about in this one.

Everyone knows Arthur C. Clarke as one of the best -- many would say THE best -- science fiction writer of all-time, but it is often forgotten nowadays that, at least up until the 1970's, Clarke was also one of the best and most prolific popularizers of science. Early in his career, before he ever really got into writing fiction per se, and certainly before he started writing novels, the majority of Clarke's output consisted of technical science pieces and popular science journalism. This collection of such pieces, which appeared in the last 70's, was one of his last of the kind before he began concentrating solely on novel writing and before he retired -- and came back -- and retired again... and so on (anyone who is a writer knows that a writer can never "retire".) The pieces themselves consist mostly of space articles (mainly projections of future society), a few articles about Clarke's home, Sri Lanka (once called Serendip, hence the title), a handful of speeches, autobiographical fragments, exactly one piece of fiction, and a smattering of various other types of articles. As the lifeblood of the book is a series of essays giving future projections for years that have now passed us by, it is easy to dismiss this book as dated, as most have; and, indeed, it will probably never again be in general circulation. However, there is a certain fascination about these articles when looked back upon with hindsight. It is always interesting to see where Clarke was dead-on (describing the internet in almost exact detail nearly 40 years ago, for instance), and where he was wholly off-target (predicting stellar conolization by the end of the 20th century). Few futurists have been as compelling -- and frequently accurate -- as Clarke, and these pieces always make for interesting reading. The two articles on Sri Lanka are very informative and make for great reading, infused with the love and admiration that Clarke obviously has for his home. These pieces, and some of the others, are of a very personal nature, which is quite unusual for the guarded and normally abstract Clarke -- quite a treat for long-time fans of the author who will probably never get an autobiography. His light piece about the perils of hiring domestic servants in the East is one of the most hilarous things I have ever read, reminding us once again that Clarke has a killer, if bone-dry, sense of humor that few other than his hard-core fans ever ackwnoledge. His classic diss "Introducing Isaac Asimov" is included here in full, as is the good Doctor's schintillating comeback. The one piece of fiction is a minor throwaway, and the remainder of the essays and speeches range from very good to moderate. The reason the book is not a superlative collection is because several of the essays are somewhat similar and, as always with a Clarke omnibus, many of them have been printed elsewhere. If you are a Clarke nut, you have probably already some, if not much of what is included here; if you are not, you will probably not even be interested. If you are that hard-core ACC reader, then it will be worth you while to track this long-out-of-print book down in order to read the pieces in it that are not available elsewhere. If you are a casual fan of his non-fiction writing, or a fan of his fiction and looking to get acquainted with the other side of Clarke, I highly reccommend the recent giant collection, "Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds!" which collects the majority of Clarke's major essays into one large collection.

This little book is not very useful for learning such a complex language. There is nothing about the alphabet and the pronunciation guide is confusing.

Right before my trip to Sri Lanka I purchased this book. I find the culture and language fascinating, but I was incredibly frustrated by my lack of understanding of Singhalese. Nearly every word in the Singhalese language is at least twice as long as any word in English.

For a person w/ no previous experience w/ Singhalese this book will be too cursory to provide much benefit. I don't recommend taking it w/ you to Sri Lanka unless you have nothing else. On the other hand, it doesn't cost much, and is probably worth its price tag.

When you're in Sri Lanka you might try to take some impromptu language lessons from a friendly stranger. You'll get more from it.

I found this little book to be a good value- there is so little available on the languages of Sri Lanka- There a lots of little cultural tips as well- An audio tape would be a good accessory-

I found this book to be overall pretty disappointing. First off, the illustrations are horrible. They look like children's cartoon drawings. Why don't the editors of mammal-books hire the same artists who do bird guides? The latter are generally really good.

Secondly, there is a lot of important information lacking. For example the book states that it describes "almost all the species that can be identified in the field easily". I was hoping for a book to 'the mammals of the indian subcontinent' (ALL of them) not a book of 'the mammals of the indian subcontinent that can be easily identified'. The whole section at the end on 'Where to Watch mammals' is pretty useless. I'll get that info from the 'Lonely Planet', thanks. That space should have been spent instead on descriptions (and better illustrations) of more species.

This book covers the land mammals of the Indian Subregion or in other words it cover: India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. However, it also does exclude the smaller and often inconspicious mammals like baths, schrews, and most rodents. A number of small but often conspicious mammals are included. For instance both squirrels and pikas are included. In total it depicts and describes 106 species in deatail. It starts in the typical manner with an introduction to the region, mammals, and mammal observing. This section is highly usefull to the unexperienced reader, but will probably seem quite borring to most, as it is short and only mentiones the most bassal things. The next fourty pages is devoted to the mammal species themselves. This means that there is 2-3 species per page. About each species the book descibes identification, habitat, range (no range maps!), behavior, diet, breeding, status, and similar species. The text is not for pleasure reading, but it is highly usefull in the field. A thing to remember - not mentioned in the book - is that the status refers to subregion only, not the intire world. An example is the Red Deer (Cervus elaphus) which is described as endangered. The next pages are assigned to 12 colour plates with drawings of the mammals. The drawings are not especialy beautiful, but all the important details usefull in identification are remembered. The next 12 plates are devoted to animal tracks. The last third of the book describes 23 national parks/reserves in the region including the famous Chitwan NP and Sunderbars NP. These pages are the highlight of the book. In this part there is a map of each park and a quite thorrow descibtion of acces, accomodation facilities, season to go there, larger mammals of the area etc. Sadly similar chapters in other books have been shown to go quickly out of date. At the end of the book there is a chapter called "futher reading" which obviously seems equal to bibliograpy.

In total the book seems to be good in the field, but there are quite a few large lacks. For instance a number of large species known in the area are not mentioned at all. An example is the Toque Macaque (Macaca sinica). The Slender Lori (Loris tardigrandus) is mentioned only briefly in "similar species" of the Slow Lori ( Nycticebus coucang). This seems strange as the Slende lori occurs in a much larger part of the subregion. Sadley this is also a fact with a number of other species. They also use a number of outdated latin names. An example is the use of the genus Felis for all the smaller cats. In the beginning of the book they mention that the reason for the use of "old names" is because they are more familiar to people! But they are still incorrect in my opinion (I know other people don't find them to be so). It is however still a very good and usefull companion when watching wildlife in the region.