This is a collection of competently written magazine stories about conservationists and adventurers mostly written for magazines that cater to those interests like Outside and National Geographic Traveler. If you are interested in those subjects and those kinds of people, this book would be of interest to you. But it fails to make the leap that would make these folks interesting to those of us who don't live and breathe polar expeditions, environmental campaigns or other subjects covered here. And, I'm sorry to say, a couple of instances of inexplicably bad (or nonexistent) editing were quite jarring -- like the description of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. learning his father had been assassinated. Bowermaster describes Kennedy waking up early to read the Washington Post for California primary results, then feeding the paper slowly into the fire at the family home. Followed immediately by a quote from Kennedy describing the priest waking him up with the news while he was at boarding school. So where was he? And surely someone, either at Outside or in this publishing house, knows what "penultimate" means. Yes, these are quibbles but in nonfiction credibility rests in the details.
The best section of the book was the one titled "Artistes," which featured profiles of Africa conservationist Peter Beard and filmmaker George Butler -- the story of the fiasco of Butler's film about Teddy Roosevelt's safari adventures was particularly good. ( )

I found this an interesting book. It was occasionally difficult to read. I found reading it one chapter/person at a time was the most expedient way to read the material. In one fell swoop it would have been a hard slog. I found the allusion to the title as 'almost' the most interesting part of the book. Many of the stories were older and had been published some years ago. In a way, I found it interesting to compare writings from 10 - 15 years ago to current thoughts in the conservation/environmental movements. As with some previous reviews I doubt that I would have kept reading except for the need to do the obligatory review. Not a book I would purchase on my own. ( )

I was so pleased to be awarded an early reviewer copy of Wildebeest in a Rainstorm by Jon Bowermaster. Then it became a millstone around my neck. It took me months to get through it as a nightstand book, and rarely did I reach for it with anything even remotely approaching enthusiasm. It would be fair to say that without the obligation to review the book honestly I would have long ago abandoned it unfinished.
The subtitle of Wildebeest in a Rainstorm is “Profiles of Our Most Interesting Adventurers, Conservationists, Shagbags and Wanderers.” Actually, the collection seems more random than that. It appears as if Bowermaster and his editor struggled for some way to combine a collection of his articles profiling vastly disparate individuals into a book length volume. These biographical profiles – of Peter Beard, David Brower, Richard Branson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others – are then further subdivided on the table of contents as “The Conservationists, The Artistes, The Sportsmen.” In fact, it seems the only thing these subjects have in common is that they were interviewed by Bowermaster for articles that he wrote over the last two decades. [Side note: I still have no idea what a “shagbag” is – the internet definitions refer to either “a bag for carrying balls” or “a loose woman or slut.”]
Bowermaster is a competent writer if you favor the kind of travel article writing common to Outside Magazine or National Geographic. Since all of these biographical vignettes were penned for publication in these kinds of journals, there is much commonality to the style. The weakness in the biographical profiles is that they all seem to lack any kind of depth of analysis. The writing itself is also somewhat dull.
Bowermaster’s unemotional, prosaic writing manages to transform the character sketch of even the most vivid and colorful adventurer into a kind of dull catalog of who did what and when. For a writer, it is often challenging to animate a subject and flesh out the inherent complexity that lies behind the public face. For most of Bowermaster’s subjects this should perhaps require less effort because they turn out to be such larger than life characters: adventurers, conservationists, sportsmen, activists -- sometimes rolled into one! But the author seems to take just about everything he is told at face value. And his reporting style is so bland that even the most heart-stopping events – a wildlife photographer mauled by an elephant in Africa or the drawn out murder of a climber in his tent by hostile locals in Pakistan – do little to provoke the reader’s empathy or imagination.
While I learned something about many individuals I had hardly heard of prior to this book, the sketches were largely forgettable. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to read this book except a true Bowermaster aficionado who wants to see his many articles collected into a single volume. Unfortunately, I do not fall into the latter category. ( )

Wildebeest in a Rainstorm is a collection of biographical articles; profiles as the author calls them that are grouped as conservationists, artistes, and sportsmen. The common theme to all is a bit elusive; however each person has a connection to outdoors, nature, spaces and places. Reading this was a good way to add insights into the subjects lives - - some that I already knew of and others whom I was largely unaware; an eclectic mix that ranges from David Brower, Robert F. Kennedy, Peter Beard, Will Steger, Warren Miller, and the final installment focused on Jake Burton Carpenter. Carpenter was a pioneer competitor in snowboarding and this chapter provides a snapshot of that sport in its infancy, the raw edge of the physical games that are rapidly changing, evolving. This title provides an introduction to varied characters; it's greatest contribution is providing enough information to make the decision whether to read further about each. An obvious shortcoming is that these biographical sketches include few women. (lj) ( )

I had a great deal of trouble with this book. If I had known it was a collection of magazine articles I would never have requested it. What made it the most difficult was the first three articles were not all that interesting to me, which was disappointing because I am into conservation! My conclusion was that it wasn't that the people weren't interesting but that the author didn't hook me from the beginning. However, after the first three stories this section really picks up and climaxed for with the article "Rumormongering Among The Insectheads" (maybe because I am an insecthead and maybe because it was original published on nationalgeographic.com. National Geographic has such wonderful writers that I would have been surprised if it hadn't been stellar. This seems to be true for the entire book. The quality of the author's writing seemed to depend on the publication for which it was written. I also noticed another interesting fact that might have made the sections easier to read. The author's writing got better as the years passed (of course). The editors should have considered starting the sections by date with the earliest articles first. The mixture of quality would give me a false sense of momentum and then I would be frustrated. I also was disappointed because I will not be able to use this book in my class library because there are some very adult words in some of the articles which could offend some. It is definitely not a book I would have bought, but one which I enjoyed many parts of after some struggle. ( )