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Watership Down

Watership Down

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: More than Rabbits...
Review: This book, pages torn and cover long gone, has been the staple of my library for 15 years. I read it for pleasure long before I was given it to read in school. The story of these simple rabbits tells so much about human society, from our inability to accept what we cannot change to the basic need of a warm, safe place to call our own, that it's morals will not go unheard. I cannot recommend this book enough; it does not matter if you are 12 or 32 or 102, this book shows us all how simple life can be, how even our greatest adversaries are not invincible, and how the smallest inclining and belief can lead to the greatest wonders of all. Their friendship, love and loyalty endears these rabbits to every reader who follows their adventures, marvels at their simplicity, and falls in love with their story.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: If this book is sitting on your shelf, grab it up!
Review: I had this book sitting on my shelf for years and steered clear of it because it was a 'book about rabbits'. I just finished reading it with my 12 year old son and we both adored it. It is realistic, suspenseful and at times funny. I know both of us will read it over and over. I just ordered the DVD as well.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A believable, tragic, exciting, and captivating book
Review: You would think that a book about rabbits would be simple and boring, right? WRONG!!!! This book tells the tale of a group of rabbits who are forced to leave their burrow because a farm is going to be built there. It is the exiting, tragic tale of friendship and the terrors of of rural life as seen by a rabbit. What makes it even more believable is that the various dangers, such as snares and train tracks, are described as how they would be by someone or something who finds the idea incomprehensible. This touching tale is more than just that, though. I also think it is a commentary on how nature has been affected by development. A must read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Suspend your disbelief (and amusement)...
Review: ...long enough to get through the first chapter.

Only an adult reader can grasp the entirety of this book. It touches on politics, mysticism, ecology, and the Darwinian struggle to survive. This would be an amazing enough book if its characters were humans. That Adams can make it work from rabbits' point of view is nothing short of incredible. If you give it a chance, it will entertain the most serious reader.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The cruelty of humanity from a rabbit's point of view
Review: Don't be intimidated by the aspect of rabbits as main characters, this is a truly brilliant work by Richard Adams! I am very much interested in books involving animals... If you've enjoyed works such as: Poppy, Redwall, Wind in the Willows, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, Plague Dogs, and The Dark Portal, then I'm sure you'll love this. The rabbits take on an almost-human role as they fight to survive using their resources and wits after having to flee their home warren on an impulse by Fiver, a runt rabbit with a keen sixth sense. They are faced with many problems on their journey- fear, uncertainty, tricksy predators, and most of all, the desire to return to the safety of their home. A very moving and colorful tale, I recommend Watership Down to any animal or classic literature lover.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Watership Down
Review: This is the worst book I have ever tried to read in my entire life. I could barely get past the first 100 pages. If you are thinking about reading it-don't. Despite critic's ranting about how great this book is suppose to be, I think if you read it, you will find your opinion to be contradictory to these statements. It should be taken off all required reading lists. It is pure torture to endure, and is a poor excuse for a piece of literature.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A classic and beloved novel of leadership and adventure!
Review: This is a timeless and much-loved novel of leadership, struggle, and adventure! A group of individuals, dissatisfied with the government of their "country," and receiving prophesies of its doom, decide to leave and start a colony elsewhere. The individuals, of course, are rabbits, who are confronted with all the dangers of the "elil." The "elil" means their enemies, known to the rabbits as "the thousand" meaning the infinite number of enemies, i.e. foxes, hawks, etc. who prey on rabbits. The most dangerous elil, of course, is man.

This is a wonderful novel that discusses the nature of leadership, teamwork, individual achievement, and struggle, as the protagonists seek to set up a new colony free of dangers from man as well as "elil" and even other hostile rabbits. Their leader, Hazel, is neither the strongest (Bigwig is that) or the cleverest (Blackberry is that) but nevertheless we come to see why he is the emergent leader to whom the others look for guidance and inspiration. This is a fine study in leadership.

The novel never loses sight of its main objective, which is to entertain. This is a fascinating, well-written tale. The storyline moves at a brisk pace, punctuated with interesting episodes of struggle and insight, which always add to, rather than distract from, the main plot. The reader will come to care deeply about the various individual characters of the novel, cheer them in success and root for them in adversity. Adams' prose is superb. This book is a pleasure to read.

This is a novel that adults will appreciate and young readers will love. It is indeed written at an adult level, but Adams' writing is so clear and crisp that younger readers will also appreciate and enjoy the novel. This is a timeless and classic novel that belongs in one's personal library and which most readers will enjoy reading repeatedly from time to time, and share with the younger readers in the family.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Watership Down
Review: Rarely does a book so unique, so astoundingly original, and so gripping come out that will enlighten the world to the furthest sense. Richard Adam's Watership Down broke all pre-conceived barriers in the European world and did the same in America months later.

The richness of the story compares to that of Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. The writing compares to something out of Tolstoy or Steinbeck. Put together, writing and the story that writing tells, if good, will grip a reader and enchant them beyond any reason. I highly recommend this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A CLASSIC IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD
Review: It is heartwarming (in the extreme for me) to see so many glowing and informative reviews about this incredible book.

I read Watership Down when I was in junior high and remembered liking it very much. Then life got busy and I pretty much forgot about it. But occasionally I'd see it on the bookshelves at my local library or bookstore and an itch would start in the back of my mind, telling me that I should revisit its magical pages. So this Winter, I did . . .

How wonderful it is to visit such a fully realized world created by the human mind, but set in an anthropomorphic background (and foreground, too!).

The story is about a band of rabbits---Hazel, Bigwig, Fiver, Dandelion, and Bluebell---who set off from their comfy holes to find a new rabbit warren on the plains of Watership Down. They leave their original warren because Fiver (a small, brooding rabbit with 'The Sight') has a vision of it being destroyed. Not surprisingly, soon after they leave, they find out that the warren HAD been destroyed by big hrududil (tractors) that dug up the ground and killed all those who remained behind.

The trials and tribulations of Hazel and his band of rogue rabbits carries the story along at a leisurely pace, not rushing to get the story out, giving rabbit history and mythology a few well-deserved pages, too.

After Hazel and his fellow bunnies set up their new warren on Watership Down, though, they find that they have a serious problem: no does (females)! Without does, their new warren is doomed to failure, so they set about trying to locate some breeding stock. But what they encounter is a terrible warren known as Efrafa run by the overbearing and callous General Woundwort. The battle between Watership Down and Efrafa is terrible and exciting reading, even for adults.

One other thing that struck me about reading this book (even years later) is that there are so many things discussed in it of an adult nature; rabbit miscarriages, battles, sexual connotations, death and dying, all are covered within these simple pages. And it's done so effortlessly (thank you Mr. Adams), the story's flow is NEVER interrupted.

This book was first published in 1972 (a limited release no less) in England; the publisher wasn't sure if it would be well received since it really wasn't a children's tale, nor adult literature. Thank GOD they took a chance on it. If they hadn't, we would surely have been denied a true literary classic.

A+ rating.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Buy two and give one to your best friend...
Review: My father read us this book (skipping what he thought were the boring parts) when I was in elementary school. I tried to check it out of the library, but was told I needed adult permission to do so (so glad library policies change!). Being the ever devious fourth grader that I was, I plunked down a quarter at the next library book sale and bought my very own second hand copy. I have read and reread that copy and purchased new ones. I think I have three at present. All this to say that this is one of the all time best novels ever written in the English language. Sweeping adventure, personal struggles, mythology, wars & intrigue and wondrous travelogue all in one. If you have ever let the idea that this book centers on a group of "bunnies" keep you from reading it, put that out of your mind. The characters are based on Adams's military unit and they are quite human. At times frightening and at others laugh-out-loud funny, this is a book you will live as much as read. And when you give it a chance it will sweep you away.


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