Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life | 
pickLulu Miller, of NPR, is an excellent writer and reader. This book feels like a high energy NPR story. And I would like to tell you how wonderful it is, but it does have issues. It is entertaining throughout, and she touches on the meaning of life and the MAGA mentality, and her personal life, while providing a biography of pioneering American fish taxonomist and eugenicist (!) David Star Jordan. (Also, fish do exist)
pickI really enjoyed this book - mostly about David Starr Jordan but interwoven with little bits about the authors own questioning of life and chaos and orderliness. I loved how it started one way then we‘re left with a different opinion altogether. The bits about the history of eugenics was something I knew little about and the story of it, and Clara specifically, was heartbreaking. #wpnf25
New audiobook I started today (it‘s on the Women‘s Prize for Nonfiction longlist)
pickIf it hadn‘t been for the #wonf25 I never would have known about this, so I didn‘t know what this was about when I pick it up at the library. Thankfully, Louise Savidge on her YouTube channel had made me aware of some
About taxonomist David Starr Jordan that started with the stars and flowers near him. Turning to fish and discovery thousands. A man that tries to find order in all the chaos. And how this ordering and labeling takes a dark turn
About Francis Galton and eugenics in 1883, but... 🤬🤬🤬
pickThis book defies easy categorization, which if you've read it you'll know is quite fitting. An engaging look at how humans have attempted to place order on the natural world, and how wrong we can be. About a turn of the century naturalist-scientist who was compelled to discover the order of life, and used his scientific mind to promote dark, dangerous, and deadly ideas. About how we find meaning and hope in a life ruled by chaos. Loved it. 👇
pick"What do you do after letting go of hope?"
Well damn. LoL I should have done more research before starting this today. I didn't know the name David Starr Jordan so the first half of this lolled me into a false sense of feel good science story, then the book takes a shocking turn, and then a gross turn.
I do think the book is very well done, I just wish I was in a more stable mood for the twists and turns.
TW for eugenics
🎧 the tagged. A nature book in nature.
Book 2 #NFNovember has been on my list since 2022. @Bookwormjillk
pickThis was a great little non-fiction book. It‘s kind of both a biography and a story of Lulu Miller‘s life. I‘m convinced gosh really don‘t exist!
pickI was recommended this book with the caveat to go in blind and I suggest the same. Part memoir, part biography, it poses a perspective on the chaos of life.
#Nonfiction2023 Goodbye Earl @Riveted_Reader_Melissa
pickThis is a weird little book that I think works best if you don‘t know much about it going in. It seems at first like just a biography of a historical figure I‘d never heard of, with some personal stories from the author woven through but it becomes more than that. I enjoyed how she pulled the story threads together.
This was my #DoubleSpin for June
pickHoly crap this was a ride. 🤯
pickThis book will lead to a lot of talk at book club next week.
pickThis is a story within a story, and both of the stories are true. Lulu Miller wraps a memoir of a troubled time in her life around a biography of the persistent researcher and scientist named David Starr Jordan. Much more interesting than that sounds with the caveat that, if you are familiar with Jordan's name and his history this story won't work as well for you as if you aren't.
Full review: https://bit.ly/rvw-FishDont
pickAt first I was sort of annoyed by this book but the further I got the more that I realized what I was reading was a person discovering a critique of hierarchy and I began to love it. Is this book actually a playfully sneaky anarchist introductory text? Perhaps.
pickIncredible writing. Gorgeous chapter art. There's a decent chance you will experience what I did, which is several moments akin to 'whoah, that's not what I thought I'd be reading about!', but hang in there. This work is well-researched, compassionate and NOT an apologist for the wrongdoings in science's past. It's hope for the future. Two people's stories are told, and I'm glad for the one who found a better mindset and a happy ending.
"...one day came home declaring he was DONE WITH SLEEVES-after they had toppled his test tubes one too many times. In a huff, he had stormed toward his closet with a pair of scissors and then spent the next few years going to work dressed in a way that can best be described as Academic Pirate."
The beauty of memoir: outlandish character descriptions are doubly awesome because they're about real people! ?
Highly recommend this unique work of nonfiction. A biography of scientist, David Starr Jordan, mixed with memoir and a touch of true crime.
#Laboratory #SavvySettings
@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
pickA coworker has been recommending this one; another warned me about eugenics part of the story (which… it‘s about a taxonomist from the turn of the previous century-I am unsurprised by the racism, but Jordan *actively campaigning* for eugenics laws was more than I‘d have braced for) and I STILL hopped on twitter twice to exclaim about this book. Thanks, Libro.fm for the comp copy!
CW: extensive talk of suicidal ideation, eugenics/racism/ableism
pickThe story of turn-of-the-century taxonomist David Starr Jordan takes a strange, inspiring, disturbing, and enlightening turn in this biography turned memoir turned “science adventure” by Invisibilia co-host Lulu Miller. This is the kind of science writing I love best—as informative as it is personal and meaningful. After loss, how do we go on? In the midst of chaos, why do we struggle to classify? What will knowing fish don‘t exist mean for you?
pickAn easy read that had me talking about it to anyone who would listen. It has a little of everything - science, history, biography, psychology, self exploration...and it has me at least partially convinced...fish really don‘t exist!
A book on perspective & how once an organism (read: human) (read: woman) is classified a certain way, these value assignments are hard to break. A book obsessed with “mattering,” aiming to make peace with “being.” The dandelion as example: weed? medicine? decoration? sustenance? So many labels & perspectives. “To get stuck on a single hierarchy is to miss the bigger picture, the messy truth of nature...”
Beautiful engravings in a book on a 19th/20th-century ichthyologist. Admiration & revulsion for a scientist who places too much emphasis on “progress”, collecting & classification.
194 “That it is our life‘s work to mistrust our measures... To remember that behind every ruler there is a Ruler. To remember that a category is at best a proxy; at worst, shackle.” Sometimes falls into that sort of breathless, podcasty discovery/indignation but clever.
pickSearch to find meaning in a chaotic world. Impulse towards ordering & hierarchies. Tricks of naming & language. Dangers of categorization. Creation of value systems. Hubris. Positive thinking. David Starr Jordan, earnest naturalist & taxonomist turned prez of Stanford and... eugenicist & possible murderer? Biography/memoir. Choppy but engaging prose that reads maybe too much like a podcast. Birds=dinos & I guess “fish” really no longer exist? 2020
pickWhat a ride! I loved so much about this; where the book went, about David Star Jordan, about Miller‘s life, her writing, and how she makes you think.
So much goodness wrapped into this one.
pickA paradigm shift! It‘s human nature to categorize our world, living things, and even each other. What if our neat little categories are wrong? How much more about the planet and life on it will science uncover? When will humans learn to “live and let live”? A great book at the end — the details about the first Stanford president were less interesting to me. When Lulu talked about her own life wow! That‘s what I would have liked to read more of.
pickA personal story while at the same time discussing how animals are divided and named.
pickMy brain exploded so many times while I was listening to this. Required reading for being a person. Science researched Miller becomes obsessed with icthyologist David Starr Jordan as she searches for order in her own life. His story and legacy lead her down many poignant turns.
Thinking this will be good one for the end of the year. The prologue discusses how the only constant is chaos. How do you plan when you don‘t know what the world will throw at you. Seems fitting for 2020.
pick4/5
I've really struggled with how to describe this book. It's a book about fish, taxonomy, eugenics, and murder, but I think at it's heart it's the authors attempt to use science to answer the question "how do we go on, given the belief that life is meaningless?" I won't give away the answer the author finds, but it mirrors the understanding I have developed of the role of science and technology.
Continued in comments.
1. Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller
2. Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert
3. My wonderful sister @rachelsbrittain reorganized my bookshelves so they're cute now! I'll post pictures later.
#weekendreads
pickit‘s a book, yes, but author Lulu Miller is a long time science reporter for public radio and her storytelling style and instincts are an enormous part of this story. It‘s got so many twists and turns - Confidence, despair, bringing order to the natural world, murder (?!)... Part memoir, part biography, part scientific adventure, that swerves into how words shape and define the way we see ourselves and the rest of the world.
