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    Fathoms: The World in the Whale
    Fathoms: The World in the Whale
    Fathoms: The World in the Whale
    Audiobook12 hours

    Fathoms: The World in the Whale

    Written by Rebecca Giggs

    Narrated by Shiromi Arserio

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Winner of the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction * Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

    A “delving, haunted, and poetic debut” (The New York Times Book Review) about the awe-inspiring lives of whales, revealing what they can teach us about ourselves, our planet, and our relationship with other species.

    When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales reflect the condition of our oceans. Fathoms: The World in the Whale is “a work of bright and careful genius” (Robert Moor, New York Times bestselling author of On Trails), one that blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? How has whale culture been both understood and changed by human technology? What can observing whales teach us about the complexity, splendor, and fragility of life on earth?

    In Fathoms, we learn about whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and whales that have modified the chemical composition of our planet’s atmosphere. We travel to Japan to board the ships that hunt whales and delve into the deepest seas to discover how plastic pollution pervades our earth’s undersea environment.

    With the immediacy of Rachel Carson and the lush prose of Annie Dillard, Giggs gives us a “masterly” (The New Yorker) exploration of the natural world even as she addresses what it means to write about nature at a time of environmental crisis. With depth and clarity, she outlines the challenges we face as we attempt to understand the perspectives of other living beings, and our own place on an evolving planet. Evocative and inspiring, Fathoms “immediately earns its place in the pantheon of classics of the new golden age of environmental writing” (Literary Hub).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJul 28, 2020
    ISBN9781797114019
    Author

    Rebecca Giggs

    Rebecca Giggs is an award-winning writer from Perth, Australia. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Science Writing, and other publications. Fathoms is her first book.

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    Reviews for Fathoms

    4/5

    22 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A reflective and often uncomfortable meditation on whales and how they have featured in our history, culture, and economy. There are occasional descriptions of whale body parts and fluids, as well as several mentions of whale deaths. The book forces one to examine both the mysterious majesty of the whales and the effects our unsustainable industry practices have had on them and the creatures tied to their life cycles.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I learned a lot of really cool things from this book, but I also found its writing style a bit pretentious...
    • 3/5
      Lots of good information peppered through a morass of philosophical babble and over stretched metaphor. The "oceanic consciousness" and "thoughts that exist outside ourselves", it was like listening to a drunk yoga instructor.