A review by tanyadillyn
Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

5.0

I knew nothing about this when I grabbed it except that it has "fish" in the title and I've enjoyed Lulu Miller's science reporting. This book is FASCINATING. At first it's a biography of a taxonomist/icthyologist at the turn of the 20th century who is obsessed with cataloging nature and building the tree of life, especially through his classifications of fish. And then suddenly it's about Chaos, and how we keep moving forward despite all the garbage the universe tries to throw at us. And then when there's too much order, it's a story about the horrors of eugenics, and also maybe a murder (outside of the eugenics conversation, I mean), and the value of variation in nature and in genes and in us and who we are as creatures who don't matter in the grand scheme of things, but who matter in massive ways within our small networks and connection. Honestly, this is a quick read and packs so much more than I would have expected, and while I admit it is DIRECTLY in my wheelhouse, there's a lot of good stuff to ruminate on for everyone.