Reviews for Flora of Mount Rainier National Park

The average rating for Flora of Mount Rainier National Park based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-12-25 00:00:00 Mary Mazzone Book consists of short stories about lives and customs of local people of Papua New Guinea and what happens when a foreign scientist comes to work and build a research station there. It's written from this scientist perspective and I'm lucky enough to work in his department. The stories nicely complement my conversations with colleagues who are from PNG or have spent a notable amount of time working there. The most important messages from the book, in my opinion, are. Firstly there is no such thing as tropical paradise with birds and butterflies and friendly animals, as pictured in many nature documentaries. Yes, wildlife there is amazing and diverse and definitely worth seeing, but we should stop imagining paradise. Secondly, many comparisons author makes between westerners and PNG people show, that we shouldn't be snobbish and think about their believes and customs as silly or unrealistic. We have equally unrealistic expectations from religion, homeopathy and other "cults" we practice with hope they will bring us something good. And third - tropics are safe, if you are prepared. Just keep in mind, a tourist trip there will be completely different experience than actually working and living there. My only criticism is probably related with the translation to English. Some sentences are 6-7 lines long, with way too many ideas and jokes tied up together in one mesh. Feels like translator directly put the sentences from Czech to English, without adapting them to language differences. Takes some time to get used to read this style of writing. Also, pay attention to authors style of humor, it's good, if you come from countries culturally similar to Czech rep. For others - I can definitely see how some people might find it very irritating.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-05-12 00:00:00 Frank B Gibson III Novotny, the biologist, clearly has an interest in all things geographical, biological, cultural, historical, archaeological, folklore, and all things Guinean and Czech. That's alright. In fact good, really. These days information on so many things are out there in magazines, books, TV, that everybody has multiple interests. Everyone's a dilettante. The trouble with this book is that Novotny makes the book appear exactly in this dabbling vein - quite literally - the chapters are not more than a page and a half-long! Its all interesting stuff on Guinea alright. Strange number systems, legends of volcano bursts, tales of people landing on the ocean coast... but too short (per chapter that is) to make it a good "book". But I must admit that some sections towards the end were quite nice. Its somewhere mid-way through the book that I looked back at the cover, and realized that the author really meant the title! Maybe my expectation killed the experience of his Note-book. Well, its over now! I would really recommend this book to anyone who has been to PNG or is soon expected to go there. Will be great reading on the flight/ship. But others? Hmm..