Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life (editie 2020)

Her life unraveling, a failed suicide attempt, and NPR reporter Lulu Miller finds herself searching for a way out of the chaos of her life. She becomes fascinated with David Starr Jordan, a taxidermist, who spent his life up to then, collecting and labeling fish. He traveled the world to find as many different examples, it was his life's work. A collection he would lose most of in the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. What fascinated Miller was that he didn't give up, he saved what he could, found a new, secure way of labeling and went on. How could a person be that optimistic?

She started researching his life and found more than she bargained for, Jordan was not quite the upstanding person she originally thought. Successful yes, he became the first President of Standford University. He suffered personal losses and continued on. He was though, a believer of eugenics, the pilot program for Hitler's final solution. Some startling information on this program and how long it lasted. He would also become embroiled in a murder mystery.

Part memoir, part biography, part a look at our past history, this was a well written and unusual story.
As far as why fish don't exist, you'll have to read and find the answer yourself.

ARC from Edelweiss. ( )

I added this to my library hold list and then promptly forgot what it was about; when it arrived, I took a short glance at the synopsis and decided that I must have had some reason for wanting to read it. This is just to say that I didn't know that much about it going in--I hadn't read any reviews, hadn't looked at the tags--and I think that that was the best way to go into it. For that reason, I'm going to be extremely careful about what I write in my review, though if you want to know more, a look at the list of reviews will give you more of a sense of some aspects of the book.

I thought that this book would be mainly a biography of David Starr Jordan, taxonomist of fish. It was, but it was also a lot of other things: a sort of memoir, and an exploration of Jordan's legacy as a man, far beyond his academic work in fish taxonomy.

I decided to give this a three-star rating, but that rating hides a little bit inside it. Had I stopped reading maybe 80% of the way through the book--to avoid spoilers, I'll just say that I mean probably the bleakest point in the book--I think I actually would have rated it more highly, but the end felt a bit hokey ( )

By all rights, this slim book should get four or more stars, but reading it left me feeling unsatisfied, I'm not sure why. Miller tells two stories, interlocking the biography of David Starr Jordan, prolific and prominent scientist, with her own search for solid ground and joy. Either story would make an engaging book, so I don't know why together they left me feeling let down. Miller meticulously researched Jordan's life and works, and she fearlessly tells her own story with power. I'm puzzled, so, 3+ stars. ( )

A thin book, yet padded. A very shallow and sketchy memoir of her idolization of, and eventual disillusionment with, David Starr Jordan, an ichthyologist and the first president of Stanford. We learn very little about Jordan. But the book is not unenjoyable. I lowered my rating when she said she had never heard of the eugenics movement (really?) and then started misquoting scientists to promote her own agenda. In particular, misquoting Darwin is not acceptable. ( )

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I am giving this a 3/5 star review because, frankly, I had a very hard time finishing it. The subject matter was interesting but I found some parts of the book to be distasteful. There are some things that are not to be joked about and Jordan seemed to be a complete ass. To be honest, there were times when I'd read a whole chapter and then not be able to recall what I had just read. I just can't with books like this...

The three stars were given because the author was knowledgeable and it shows in her writing. ( )