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badgersaurus's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
File this under ‘books that would have hit harder before I became religious’
Some willfull reinterpretation of certain things to fit the author thesis (ie kosher dietary laws’ purposes) make me hesitate to treat anything in this book I didn’t already know as ‘factual’, but the memoir sections are interesting and the overall mood is enjoyable. Again though, I wish this was more about eels and less about people.
Good taken with a grain of salt.
Good taken with a grain of salt.
madameroyale's review against another edition
4.25
I picked up this book on a whim, and found it to be such a fascinating read—mostly because I had no idea we knew so very little about eels! We don’t know where they breed or how or when they choose to, we don’t know how long they live, and we don’t know how they orient themselves geographically to travel across the seas, among many other unknowns. And yet this book magically manages to chronicle the history of humans’ study of eels despite so many open questions. The touches of memoir that are woven throughout are very sweet, and complemented the scientific side of the book nicely. A quick but thought-provoking read.
irmah's review against another edition
3.0
The topic itself was very cool-fun-creative, but the execution made me feel like the book was more of a fishing-heavy autobiography with inappropriate, exaggerated eel analogies, which, in retrospect, may not be the most fun thing to spend a couple of hours on
dibiz116's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty
Moderate: Death of parent and Animal death
jamiezaccaria's review against another edition
4.0
A blend of personal memoir and natural history this book tells you everything you wanted to know about the eel while maintaining a beautiful narrative.
somestuff's review against another edition
3.0
highlights were def the history (loved the ira fishing rights, swedish clergy given fishing rights, mummified eels in sarcophagi and eels during initial colonization of america info) and science and the low points were the freud chapter (way too much freud for a book on eels tbh didn’t spend a chapter on every other researcher ever who had spent a year on eels so) and the section on literature about eels
but i had a good time and learned a lot abt what we’ve learned in the last 2 decades or so abt japanese eels
big plus is i’ll never forget the term sargasso sea again and will remember the stages of the eel life cycle quite well now too
but i had a good time and learned a lot abt what we’ve learned in the last 2 decades or so abt japanese eels
big plus is i’ll never forget the term sargasso sea again and will remember the stages of the eel life cycle quite well now too