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Fathoms: The World in the Whale
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78/99
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28/99
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87/99
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About This Book
When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales shed light on the condition of our seas. Fathoms: The World in the Whale blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? Will our connection to these storied animals be transformed by technology? What can observing whales teach us about the complexity, splendour, and fragility of life? In Fathoms, we learn about whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and whales that have modified the chemical composition of our planet's atmosphere. We travel to Japan to board the ships that hunt whales and delve into the deepest seas to discover the plastic pollution now pervading the whale's undersea environment. In the spirit of Rachel Carson and Rebecca Solnit, Giggs gives us a vivid exploration of the natural world even as she addresses what it means to write about nature at a time of environmental crisis.
Reviews
"more descriptive than prescriptive concerning the plight of whales and, by implication, the health of the Earth."
"Most importantly, she analyzes how their behavior can be predictive for the Earth's future."
"[A] scintillating debut ..."
"[a] delving, haunted and poetic debut."
"With fresh perceptions and cascades of facts, Giggs considers our ancient and persistent whale wonderment, high-tech whale hunting, the 1970s Save the Whales movement, global warming, mass extinction, and pollution, including the oceanic plastic plague."
"Fathoms shows whales to be what humans have long suspected: not just enormous but enormously complex, with lives and capacities that made them masters of the seas."
"Can you feel compassion for whale lice?"
"Recommended for readers interested in nature, ecology, and environmentalism."
"Yet it is Giggs' poetic and insightful analysis that elevates this book into something unforgettable ..."
"But the book shines most brightly in its poetry ..."
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