Reviews

Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky

kellymcgatha's review

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4.0

My great-great grandfather was a Gloucester fisherman, so I loved learning more about the type of world he lived in. And although I thought I already knew a lot about the collapse of the cod industry, this book was eyeopening. It's so heartbreaking to think about how drastically we've changed the ocean. I will definitely look at things different the next time I visit the Cape and surrounding areas.

biochemcrazy's review

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4.0

Not as good as Salt: A World History, but still pretty awesome. And very educational!

devonducharme's review against another edition

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4.0

Great book. Lots of information about cod. Excited to read salt.

djreise11's review

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

jdarnold's review

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3.0

Pretty good, more like a 3.5 star book, just a little scattered. Felt like the narrative line jumped the rails a few times and wished for more detail about how cod is fished. Given that it is a 10 year old book, wonder how things have changed?

cassbrooklyn's review

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4.0

Very interesting. I’m not into fish and I don’t eat fish, but this book tells a fascinating history of the fish and I learned so much about its influence on the world and politics.

lela's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

3.5

interesting but not totally gripping. 
local history for me so I'm glad I picked it up!

melitzis's review

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3.0

This book is fun to read. It's all about world history and how the COD has had a hand in it. If you like COD (the fish) it also has tons of old fashioned and new age recipes... very handy indeed

bennettanneb's review

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3.0

An interesting survey of a thousand years of the human pursuit of codfish, and the technological advances in the last two hundred years of that pursuit that brought about the demise of large scale commercial viability of the codfish. Mark Kurlansky poses some interesting questions of where the fishing industry as a whole is headed. How do we effectively aid the recovery of the codfish? Is it too late? How do we fish responsibly? There are no clear answers, so we're left with only our hopes for productive healthy oceans and our science that may not know enough of the complexities of the oceanic web of life to help support that.

pursuer's review against another edition

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3.0

A fun book. Definitely scratched the ecology itch I’ve been getting lately.