Gift I ordered this book as a gift for a friend. I matched it with some pretty yellow towels and a rubber duck. Sweet presentation. Interesting story. I hope she will loan it to me when she is finished reading it.
The big book of obsession I was sat in my car stuck in a late night traffic jam listening to BBC R4 when an interview with an author about his book on the loss of a container full of bath toys at sea came on. As the interview progressed the more fascinating it became. The obvious enthusiasm and sense of self deprecating humour of the author shone through and his sense of the initial ridiculousness of the tale made me feel like going out to buy and read the book which was of course Moby Duck.What you get with this book is as described in the product description. It starts out with the comic idea of a container load of bath toys being lost at sea bobbing about and turning up in various locations and an author intrigued by the story. But it very quickly becomes more than that. Rather like a Dave Gorman series as the story develops it takes on a life of its own and each twist and turn really does lead to other questions which lead to others and becomes a bit of an obsession as each lead is tracked down.It would have been easy to write a short lightweight comedic piece and left it at that. However within the subtext of the book Hohn has explored the nature of human interaction with the planet and of human nature itself.
Interesting and well written As a high school English teacher I appreciate the writing quality of this book. It's not only a great story it's a great story well told. I recommended Moby Duck to our science department. What a great addition to an ecology class. My only criticism of the book is there are no maps or photos included. I constantly reached for a map to see where Donovan Hohn was as he described his adventures. And I would love to have seen photos of the many interesting people he sailed with. I'm puzzled by why he wouldn't have included both in his book. He could have at least put a map on the end sheets. Neither of these criticisms however keeps this from being a worthwhile read. They merely kept me from giving it a 5th star.
Moby Duck Moby Duck is such a cute and interesting book! I have a picture book about the same topic that I picked up a long time ago. What a great combination.
Couldn't finish it I heard good things about this book it seemed like an interesting and unusual subject so I picked it up. It was indeed an interesting subject but unfortunately the author has the common popular nonfiction problem of thinking that lots of adjectives is the same as evocative and that using a thesaurus constitutes literary skill. I tried to stick with it but when he described his newborn son as meconiumbesmirched I was done.
Lacks Feel of Good Adventure Story Long winded. not as exciting story as expected. Beachcombers and other people the other meets along the are also fairly dull.
Good except for the constant piot shots at photographers Finished reading Moby Duck a few days ago. I enjoyed reading about his hairbrained adventure. However it seems to me that Mr. Hohn like many writers has an attitude toward photographers. Every mention of a photographer in this book is a put down followed with a condescending comment. The photographers who photographed what Mr. Hohn wrote about took the same risks and expense to help show the world the problem of plastic in the Pacific and Arctic but Mr. Hohn seems to think of them as second class citizens. It ruined the book for me and could barely finish it.It is an interesting but somewhat boring read about his adventure and chase of 28000 floating rubber duckies.
Much talk but little Quack Note This review is of the hardcover edition by Viking.Little boys the thinking went were naturally indisposed to bathing. Bath toys not only made hygiene boyishly fun they helped over come the naughty urges that bathing tended to arouse 'The baby will not spend much time handling his genitals if he has other interesting things to do' one governmentissue childcare manual advised in 1942. 'See to it that he has a toy to play with and he will not need to use his body as a plaything.' Enter the rubber duck. from MOBYDUCKWhen reviewing a book I normally don't bother with its subtitle. However in the case of MOBYDUCK by Donovan Hohn I must THE TRUE STORY OF 28800 BATH TOYS LOST AT SEA AND THE BEACHCOMBERS OCEANOGRAPHERS ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND FOOLS INCLUDING THE AUTHOR WHO WENT IN SEARCH OF THEM.Really?The book's front cover artwork shows three cute yellow plastic duckies riding the waves of the open sea.
Good Book The book was a very good purchase. I wish I could tell the author directly. Definetly will buy again fro this very same website thouse kind of books.
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