There's no way I can do justice to this book, 'Watership Down' was one of my favorites growing up. My mother's copy is giving up the ghost - even the rubber bands holding it together are aging out - so I'll be hunting for a nice edition of it soon, because I'm going to be reading it again. The book is an epic travel saga, a high fantasy, a folklore primer, incorporates immersive and enchanting nature writing, and includes my personal favorite fictional language of all time (Lapine)

I have read this often, but this last time around it was a read-aloud with my husband. With one long hiatus we made it though in good time. As a reader I have a terribly limited repertoire of voices (Hyzenthlay and Thethuthinnang ending up being played by Katherine Hepburn and Bette Davis), but it was so much fun to experience this book again. My husband's experience had been limited to the scarring animated film from the 70s.

The characters are also amazing, while Adams made an effort to keep the rabbits rabbit-y with their perceptions, walking patterns, habits, and the like, they have a diverse range of voices (when I'm not reading aloud - my British accents are limited to posh, posher [Claire Foy], Nigel Thornberry, Christopher Lee, and Dick Van Dyke as Bert in 'Mary Poppins') that easily lets the reader keep up with the large cast.

Adams produced a follow-up many years later that was a collection of additional rabbit folklore and a story-arc about Hazel and co.'s experience with a female Chief Rabbit and her warren. It wasn't impressive when I first read it, and it didn't hold up when I tried a few of the stories this past week to get over our Watership withdrawal. The big point missing was the nature writing.

And 'Watership Down' has one of the best endings of all time, there's no room for more.

Watership Down

Next: 'Tales From Watership Down'

Heavily relies on the reader having read the novel Watership Down prior.

The first two parts focus on the bunny folk-hero, El-Alhrairah and his adventures. The last part is a story sequence cum novella about events in and around Watership Down after the close of the novel.

If you hankered for more rabbit adventures after the novel, this is the book for you. I liked the folk tales more than the new adventures of Watership Down. As I've no doubt mentioned before, language, history and legend are prime elements of convincing world building and Adams grasped this.

This was an enjoyable collection of short stories about the rabbits of Watership Down. We get to read about what they were up to before the end of the first book which caused me no end of tears. I honestly have to say that reading about  El-ahrairah in the first story was fine, but after that I found myself getting bored. The book didn't pick up for me until we were following Hazel, Fiver, and the others who were setting into Watership Down.

I do think it was good to see how the rabbits were tested due to a cruel winter, a female rabbit who used to be the Oswla who disagrees with Hazel and others, and a former rabbit who still feels some sway to General Woundwort. 

 I still have to hard pause when reading this book sometimes to figure out what the rabbits mean when referring to certain things. This book came with a dictionary in the back though which was helpful. 

The setting of Watership Down still feels magical to me in this one. We have the rabbits being led by Hazel-rah and how the warren seems to work due to all of them working together at all times. The stories mentioned above though do test the rabbits at times. I really wish that Adams had included a story of Watership Down after the death of Hazel though.

The ending was a little flat to me. I just felt like the stories as a whole didn't flow very well from one to the other. I was expecting something better or a bigger picture to the plot. 

Another one off of NPR's Ultimate Backseat Bookshelf.

I've tried to read Watership Down several times, and I finally finished it! I used to watch the movie over and over as a kid even though it scared the crap out of me. I was talking to a coworker and we both agree that you could read the first half of this book and then leave the rest (like Little Women). I got really nervous at the end and had to spoil it for myself before I could finish (I waited several months before reading the last three or four chapters...). 

It's very well written. I love the world building (I was expecting something similar when I started The Warriors series by Erin Hunter and was sorely disappointed). And this is from someone who doesn't love animal fantasies (I have no idea how I'm going to get through Redwall). It was worth the time it took to read. 

“Watership Down”. 30+ years later I still sometimes get nightmares. "There's a dog loose in the wood... there's a dog loose in the wood..."

Couple the painful nostalgic setting of an old and disappearing rural England, with the horrors of the totalitarian rabbits, and you get something that strikes fear into the deep places of an English born soul I imagine. At least this Portuguese born soul was afraid...We need to get to a high, dry place, where we can see all around for miles, where we will be safe!!!!

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.