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teachinsci's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
4.25
netslummer's review against another edition
3.0
Surprisingly little is known about the Europea eel Anguilla anguill. Scientists have been studying the eel and trying to discover how it procreates for ages. There was a time where Aristotle thought they just spontaneously generated from mud. it wasn't until fairly recently that we even discovered a sexually mature eel in the wild. Eels are fascinating; they mate in the Sargasso Sea and then travel miles and miles to live their lives in rivers while they metamorphose through their various stages of life. Suddenly they decide it is time to travel back home to the Sargasso Sea and mate where they undergo their final metamorphosis into a sexually mature form and procreate....just no one has ever witnessed it.
I found this book fascinating. It was picked by a member of my book club as our current read...I didn't expect it to be a personal memoir though? I don't know the author or care about their life. I was just hoping to learn a bit about eels. Removing the memoir aspects of the book would chop off like a solid third of the book. Still worthwhile reading it as eels are cool but I wasn't expecting a melancholy comparison of the threat of extinction of eels to the death of the author's father...
I found this book fascinating. It was picked by a member of my book club as our current read...I didn't expect it to be a personal memoir though? I don't know the author or care about their life. I was just hoping to learn a bit about eels. Removing the memoir aspects of the book would chop off like a solid third of the book. Still worthwhile reading it as eels are cool but I wasn't expecting a melancholy comparison of the threat of extinction of eels to the death of the author's father...
paigebypage__'s review against another edition
adventurous
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
4.5
Without the chapter about animals dying (not that it isn't relevant, it just upset me a lot) this book is perfect. Loved it. OMG. Eels.
erinflight's review against another edition
3.0
This book is incredibly well written for a non-fiction book, a genre which often struggles with being overly dry or factual. It's also very engaging. I tend to read non-fiction books in much smaller bursts than fiction books, just because they have a harder time holding my attention, but I read "The Book of Eels" in a few big chunks.
That said, the quality of writing is the only thing preventing this book being a 2 star book.
Because it's not really about eels. Not biologically and not historically.
Don't get me wrong, there are interesting tidbits here and there, the first chapter about the bizarre life-cycle of eels is good, the occasional mention of one of the scientists who advanced knowledge of eels is good.
But the rest is a mix of a memoir of the author's childhood (but only the parts peripherally involving eels, which doesn't give him much to work with), and a philosophical treatise about various historical figures who maybe mentioned or worked with eels once or twice in their life.
Like, the book spends a lot of time on Freud (yes, that Freud). Is this because Freud advanced the world's knowledge of eels? No. It's because Freud spent one summer dissecting eels, trying to find their testicles, and failed. He then went on to have an unrelated career.
But that doesn't stop the author spending a chapter talking about Freud's time in the city where he (failed to) advance humanity's knowledge of eels, sharing letters Freud wrote while in this city, his opinions on the women living in that city, and a story about the one time Freud got super lost there. It also doesn't stop the author from returning to him again and again throughout the rest of the book.
I've spent more than enough of my life reading about Freud for various psychology classes. I didn't pick up a book on eels because I wanted more of his delightful opinions on women.
But, more seriously, I read non-fiction because I want to learn something new about the world, whether that's a fresh perspective from a person who's quite different than me, or a brief education about a part of the world I'm ignorant about.
This book offers neither, and instead mostly succeeds on being a semi-philosophical treatise and half-memoir loosely tied together by the concept of eels. It is really well written though.
That said, the quality of writing is the only thing preventing this book being a 2 star book.
Because it's not really about eels. Not biologically and not historically.
Don't get me wrong, there are interesting tidbits here and there, the first chapter about the bizarre life-cycle of eels is good, the occasional mention of one of the scientists who advanced knowledge of eels is good.
But the rest is a mix of a memoir of the author's childhood (but only the parts peripherally involving eels, which doesn't give him much to work with), and a philosophical treatise about various historical figures who maybe mentioned or worked with eels once or twice in their life.
Like, the book spends a lot of time on Freud (yes, that Freud). Is this because Freud advanced the world's knowledge of eels? No. It's because Freud spent one summer dissecting eels, trying to find their testicles, and failed. He then went on to have an unrelated career.
But that doesn't stop the author spending a chapter talking about Freud's time in the city where he (failed to) advance humanity's knowledge of eels, sharing letters Freud wrote while in this city, his opinions on the women living in that city, and a story about the one time Freud got super lost there. It also doesn't stop the author from returning to him again and again throughout the rest of the book.
I've spent more than enough of my life reading about Freud for various psychology classes. I didn't pick up a book on eels because I wanted more of his delightful opinions on women.
But, more seriously, I read non-fiction because I want to learn something new about the world, whether that's a fresh perspective from a person who's quite different than me, or a brief education about a part of the world I'm ignorant about.
This book offers neither, and instead mostly succeeds on being a semi-philosophical treatise and half-memoir loosely tied together by the concept of eels. It is really well written though.
11corvus11's review against another edition
DNF even though I really wanted to. Starts off strong telling me a bunch of stuff about eels I had no idea about. And then it quickly goes downhill because the entire book is about killing eels. Like more than any other science book I have read. And I really did try, but the slaughter just never ended and there ended up being far more slaughter than information by the time I quit.
clarkness's review against another edition
informative
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.5
Absolutely fascinating. I never knew how much I wanted to know about eels and how mysterious they are. The tone of the work was contemplative, almost hypnotic.