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Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life cover

Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life

Lulu Miller

0

awards won

3

score

#3558 of 3,809 books · #1168 in Biography & Memoir

Shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology (2020).

Why Fish Don't Exist won the Best Book of 2020 from The Washington Post, NPR, Chicago Tribune, and Smithsonian. David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake—which sent more than a thousand discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life's work was shattered. Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish that he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world. When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool—a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet. Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don't Exist is a wondrous fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.

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Publisher
Simon & Schuster
ISBN-13
9781501160271
Topics
Taxonomy and scientific obsessionChaos and resilienceHistory of science

Other awarded books from Lulu Miller

Lulu Miller has no other awarded or shortlisted books yet.

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