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#NewYearNewBooks Day 30: #WhyInTitle

I 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

This 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

Holy crap this was a ride. 🤯

This book will lead to a lot of talk at book club next week.

This 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

At 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.

Incredible 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

A 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

The 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?

An 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.

Search 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

What 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.

A 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 was less interesting to me. When Lulu talked about her own life wow! That‘s what I would have liked to read more of.

A personal story while at the same time discussing how animals are divided and named.

My 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.

https://wellreadneck.wordpress.com/2020/12/18/why-fish-dont-exist-a-story-of-los...

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.

Currently reading

4/5

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

it‘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.

Lulu Miller tells the story of David Starr Jordan, a somewhat wide-eyed, slightly bumbling taxonomist who takes delight in the natural world and lives a bit of a charmed life, becoming the first president of Stanford. It‘s actually almost boring. Then, Miller flips the script, revealing the full picture of Jordan in all his complexity. And, frankly, evil. Fascinating and brilliantly structured.

Highlights of my August reading are on my blog: https://lindypratch.blogspot.com/2020/08/august-2020-reading-round-up.html

Bisexual science journalist Lulu Miller was searching for the secret to resilience when fish taxonomist & eugenics proponent David Starr Jordan caught her attention. His deep desire was to turn chaos into order. Part biography, part memoir, part history & murder mystery, this book is wholly fascinating. A PW review calls this “frustratingly disjointed,” but I enjoyed the #audiobook (read by the author) so much that listened to it twice. #LGBTQ

When people have this feeling of personal inefficiency, compulsive collecting helps them in feeling better.

Miller on the leading role the US played in eugenics ideology: “This was not a fringe movement. It crossed party lines. The first five presidents of the 20th century hailed its promise. Eugenics courses were taught at prestigious universities all across the country. […] In 1916 an American guy named Madison Grant published a eugenics book that a German guy named Hitler would later call his bible.”

The longer we examine our world the stranger it proves to be. Perhaps there will be a mother, waiting inside a person deemed unfit. Perhaps there will be medicine inside a weed. Salvation inside the kind of person you had discounted.

I‘ve been back in my dye studio; my current project being to get as many yellows as possible. Yesterday‘s experiments were with elecampane. I had a great audiobook to keep me company. #audiocrafting

FANTASTIC. Had to read bc Lulu Miller (of NPR, used to co-host the Invisibilia podcast) - love her (writing and speaking) voice. Also had to read bc it's about this long-dead fish scientist named David Starr Jordan, who had a ship named after him to which I have close personal connections. Learning more about him was...eye-opening. A wild, twisty tale during which Miller gets deep about science, categorization, her own life, and life in general. ❤

A quirky book that defies easy description. Writing about David Starr Jordan - isn't easy - he's a man with a distinctly dark past and abhorrent set of ideas about the world. However, Miller's passion to reveal his story, her weaving of biography, memoir, autobiography and science makes a really thoughtful, different reading experience that will linger in my mind for a long while.

Morning reading - whilst the rest of the neighbourhood sleeps is just the best time! 👍🏼

There are 15 beautiful illustrations in this book - all created by Kate Samworth. They‘re made using a nineteenth century method of scratch board - white clay hardboard coated with black India ink and then a scratched away with a sewing needle. 💕