Big Snake: The Hunt for the World's Longest Python

Although I expected much more from this book, it was a fairly interesting travelogue. The title is an attention getter but misleading overall. I thought I was heading for an Austin Stevens' adventure with a 30 foot reticulated python and this was anything but. So for all of you with "snake phobia," fear not.

This book was sort of funny, as intended. I didn't learn much about snakes as I intended.The classic clash of expectations.

I read 155 pages of this book and found it boring in the extreme.A lot of it was history and not so much about the author.I could not continue reading it it was so boring.Now I know why it was so cheap to buy.

Twigger is a great writer at publishing adventure novels in which he starts the quest but never seems to complete it. His books are about growing up and finding himself, but he rarely finds his subject (BIG SNAKE). A self-help book for the over educated who are looking at making their mark by desperately trying to find their niche in life ie: being a writer.

Well, as treatises on growing into manhood go, it's about average. What gets me is the title: why call it a hunt for a python? All the author hunted was other people to find a snake, and his own elusive maturity. I also cannot imagine going into such an endeavour so unprepared. It would have been more interesting, at least from a herp point of view, if a reticulated python hunted Twigger.Buy this book only if you have a man in your family that refuses to grow up, and you want to show him into what he could deteriorate.

Robert Twigger chooses to do odd things and then write about them. I started with 'Angry White Pyjamas' about his time training with Tokyo riot police. How unlikely is that? Then 'Lost Oasis' when he went tramping around the Egyptian desert. 'Big Snake' and we are off to South East Asia, Malaysia and Indonesia ostensibly to catch the world's largest snake and win a longstanding prize of $50,000. Apart from being off beat stories all of these books are really good yarns written with humour, with a self-deprecating spin. His late grandfather, the Colonel features often in this tale and the glimpses into the late Colonel's life gives more than a clue about where Mr Twigger's 'off the wallness' may come from. I salute his memory and his grandson's entertaining books. Next on the shelf is 'Voyageur' about his epic trip across the Rockies in or with a birch-bark canoe. Keep up the good work Mr Twigger -please.

An interesting and enjoyable book. You certainly learn quite a bit about snakes in general and their habitat in the Far East. I very much also enjoyed the numerous quotations and observations from early explorers and the philosophy and exploits of RW's late grandfather, Colonel Twigger. Overall this book is well worth reading but perhaps not quite up to the standard of the truly outstanding Angry White Pyjamas.

Arrived, as expected.