The Book of Eels

Eels. Quirky and unexpectedly interesting.

[TW: cruelty to animals, beyond simply plain fishing.]

First things first: eels truly are fascinating, not just in themselves but as an indicator of what a wondrous world we live in and how many mysteries remain. This book does a wonderful job covering the eel's biology and the convoluted history of how humans have learned it, step by painstaking step. There's much more: an informative and respectful deep dive into the life and work of Rachel Carson, and ditto but slightly less so on Sigmund Freud; personal memoir focusing on Svensson's relationship with his father; musings on ecology; a baffling tangent on religion that I had to skip. Worthy subjects all, but the jumping-around between threads, in linear book form, did not work for me.

For a shorter, more focused intro to the fascination of eels, I emphatically recommend this Radiolab episode.

The more we learn about the workings of this world, the more we cherish the mysteries that remain. The eel - its multiple transformation, its migration patterns, its as-of-yet unobserved reproduction - has been one of those elusive riddles that has obsessed scientists for centuries. Svensson writes a wonderful little book that's part science history, part personal memoir, part musings on the nature of mysteries and death.