Bushmaster: Ditmars and the World's Largest Viper

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Hans Breuer (twoton)
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Bushmaster: Ditmars and the World's Largest Viper

Post by Hans Breuer (twoton) »

mjd123
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Re: Bushmaster: Ditmars and the World's Largest Viper

Post by mjd123 »

Hans, its a great book. I had a chance to read it prior to publishing and thought the author did a wonderful job. He also used some of my old photos of Ditmars.
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Hans Breuer (twoton)
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Re: Bushmaster: Ditmars and the World's Largest Viper

Post by Hans Breuer (twoton) »

Thanks very much!! Ordered! (well, actually, I ordered it right after I posted the above, but that's me :-))
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The Real Snake Man
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Re: Bushmaster: Ditmars and the World's Largest Viper

Post by The Real Snake Man »

I saw someone on Amazon complain about grammatical errors. That is one thing I cannot tolerate in a book, at least when they appear to be excessive (I mean, every book has typos). Can anyone verify that this complaint was valid, and whether or not it hampered the reading experience?

-Gene
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Hans Breuer (twoton)
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Re: Bushmaster: Ditmars and the World's Largest Viper

Post by Hans Breuer (twoton) »

Will verify when I've read it. Nothing, not even bad writing, puts me off like grammatical and orthographical errors.....
The Real Snake Man wrote:I saw someone on Amazon complain about grammatical errors. That is one thing I cannot tolerate in a book, at least when they appear to be excessive (I mean, every book has typos). Can anyone verify that this complaint was valid, and whether or not it hampered the reading experience?

-Gene
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Tom Lott
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Re: Bushmaster: Ditmars and the World's Largest Viper

Post by Tom Lott »

There's a review of this book, appropriately, in the Trinidad Guardian, which may be viewed HERE.

I recently finished the book, and while it does contain some typographical errors and a few puzzling sentences, they were not so numerous as to mar the experience. It is best viewed as a newer biography of Ditmars that does contain some information about the man of which I was unaware. Any reader with more than a superficial interest in herpetology, however, will be quite conscious of the fact that it was not written by a herper - so don't expect to gain any better understanding of Lachesis sp. by reading it.

One stylistic issue that I found somewhat distracting was the author's constant switching back and forth between his contemporary research on Ditmars and his narrative of Ditmars' biography. Since the author is a filmmaker, this style would probably be better served in that medium than in book form. I also highly suspect that some of the purported dialogue quoted in the older segments is most likely fictional.

It's an interesting read, but not terribly informative.
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csalemi731
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Re: Bushmaster: Ditmars and the World's Largest Viper

Post by csalemi731 »

I am a few chapters into the book and agree with the typos and switching back and forth between ditmars and the writers experiences. I am enjoying it so far. i have always been a fan of ditmars, Beebe (who is mentioned in the book as well) and any other book relating to the history of the bronx zoo.
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Hans Breuer (twoton)
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Re: Bushmaster: Ditmars and the World's Largest Viper

Post by Hans Breuer (twoton) »

I finished the book a while ago, and most of the above is true. Very engaging book about a very interesting man. However, the World's Largest Viper touted in the title gets rather short treatment.
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