The snake charmer : A life and death in pursuit of knowledge  

Citation

James, Jamie. The snake charmer: A life and death in pursuit of knowledge, Harper Collins, 2008.

Annotation

This chilling true -life adventure of Joseph Slowinskil expedition into the unexplored jungle regions of Northern Burma ends with a fatal poisonous bite from a krait snake, the deadliest snake in Asia. His colleagues kept him alive for 30 hours deep in the jungle, for a rescue that never came. This account gives the reader a fascinating look at the incredible hardships and dangers of this field expedition in 2001 to as impossibly remote place, such as the Burmese jungle to locate rare snakes. ‘It set a new standard of misery for scientific expeditions.’

Slowinski is portrayed as a man filled with ambition, intelligence, passion and recklessness and who died doing the thing he loved.

It is a gritty and dramatic tale not simply about a man’s cruel and ironic death but also about his life, his spirit, and his dreams.