Fathoms: The World In the Whale
Fathoms: The World In the Whale
WINNER OF THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN NONFICTION
WINNER OF THE NIB LITERARY AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE FOR NONFICTION
When Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beach in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales might shed light on the condition of our seas. How do whales experience environmental change? Has our connection to these fabled animals been transformed by technology? What future awaits us, and them? And what does it mean to write about nature in the midst of an ecological crisis?
In Fathoms: the world in the whale, Giggs blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore these questions with clarity and hope. In lively, inventive prose, she introduces us to whales so rare they have never been named; she tells us of the astonishing variety found in whale sounds, and of whale 'pop' songs that sweep across hemispheres. She takes us into the deeps to discover that one whale's death can spark a great flourishing of creatures. We travel to Japan to board whaling ships, examine the uncanny charisma of these magnificent mammals, and confront the plastic pollution now pervading their underwater environment.
In the spirit of Rachel Carson and John Berger, Fathoms is a work of profound insight and wonder. It marks the arrival of an essential new voice in narrative nonfiction and provides us with a powerful, surprising, and compelling view of some of the most urgent issues of our time.
Why Novel North Recommends
‘Fathoms is fascinating in scope and moving in detail. It’s about our relationship with whales, but also our relationship with our surroundings and environment and it’s a book my thoughts often return to.’
Author : Rebecca Giggs
Edition : Scribe Publications, Hardback, 368 pages
ISBN : 9781911617839
Published : 12th November 2020
Weight: 594g
Dimensions: 234 x 153 x 30mm
also may be of interest
Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry that Brings You 90% of Everything
There are 100,000 freighters on the seas. Between them they carry nearly everything we eat, wear and work with. In this unique investigation, Rose George joins the crew of a container ship to chart the murky waters of international shipping, with its powerful naval fleets, pirate gangs, and illegal floating factories, to reveal the hidden industry upon which our world turns and our future depends.
Why Novel North Recommends
‘Deep Sea and Foreign Going was the book that launched me into a world I’ve become fascinated in - the ocean, what goes on above and beneath its surface. Whilst container ships are vital and common place in our oceans, their voyages and the lives and experiences of those onboard are so distant and far removed from our everyday thoughts and lives. It’s a juxtaposition of a travelogue in which the journey is vast and yet day to day alike. It’s a book full of incredible eye opening and startling facts, which Rose George relates with a contagious interest, and in which I found myself completely engaged.’
Author : Rose George
Edition : Granta Books, Paperback, 320 pages
ISBN : 9781846272998
Weight: 226g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 19mm
Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched their icons into our mythologies. They simultaneously fill us with waves of terror, awe and affection - yet we know hardly anything about them.
Whales tend to only enter our awareness when they die, struck by a ship or stranded in the surf. They evolved from land-roaming, dog-like creatures into animals that move like fish, breathe like us, can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and roam entire ocean basins. Yet despite centuries of observing whales, we know little about their evolutionary past.
Palaeontologist Nick Pyenson takes us to the ends of the earth and to the cutting edge of whale research as he searches for the answers to some of our biggest questions about these graceful giants. His rich storytelling takes us deep inside the Smithsonian's unparalleled fossil collection, to frigid Antarctic waters, and to the arid desert of Chile, where scientists race against time to document the largest fossil whalebone site on earth.
Spying on Whales is an illuminating story of scientific discovery that brings readers closer to the most enigmatic and beloved animals of all time.
Author : Nick Pyenson
Edition : Harper Collins, Paperback, 336 pages
ISBN : 9780008244507
Weight: 300g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 25mm
'Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, bound round the world.'
In Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, Captain Ahab is an eerily compelling madman who focuses his distilled hatred and suffering (and that of generations before him) into the pursuit of a creature as vast, dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. More than just a novel of adventure, this is a haunting social commentary populated with some of the most enduring characters in literature. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby Dick is a profound and timeless inquiry into character, faith and the nature of perception.
Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.
Why Novel North Recommends
'Reading Moby Dick, you feel as though you've accomplished something more than reading a classic, you feel as though you yourself have been transported, that you've embarked on an epic voyage and returned changed because of it. An experience which stays with you.
It’s an incredible feat. Profound and humorous. Epic in scale and uncompromising in detail. An adventure classic.’
Author : Herman Melville
Edition : Penguin Clothbound Classic, Hardback, 720 pages
ISBN : 9780141199603
Weight: 845g
Dimensions: 204 x 138 x 46mm
Longlisted for The BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2016
Charles Foster wanted to know what it was like to be a beast: a badger, an otter, a deer, a fox, a swift. What it was really like. And through knowing what it was like he wanted to get down and grapple with the beast in us all. So he tried it out; he lived life as a badger for six weeks, sleeping in a dirt hole and eating earthworms, he came face to face with shrimps as he lived like an otter and he spent hours curled up in a back garden in East London and rooting in bins like an urban fox. A passionate naturalist, Foster realises that every creature creates a different world in its brain and lives in that world. As humans, we share sensory outputs, lights, smells and sound, but trying to explore what it is actually like to live in another of these worlds, belonging to another species, is a fascinating and unique neuro-scientific challenge. For Foster it is also a literary challenge. Looking at what science can tell us about what happens in a fox's or badger's brain when it picks up a scent, he then uses this to imagine their world for us, to write it through their eyes or rather through the eyes of Charles the beast. An intimate look at the life of animals, neuroscience, psychology, nature writing, memoir and more, it is a journey of extraordinary thrills and surprises, containing wonderful moments of humour and joy, but also providing important lessons for all of us who share life on this precious planet.
Author : Charles Foster
Edition : Profile Books, Paperback, 256 pages
ISBN : 9781781255353