Why Fish Don't Exist

"It appears to be, and to an impressive scholarly extent is, about David Starr Jordan — the founder of Stanford University, a brilliant ichthyologist and a deluded eugenicist."

"This is the book I’ve recommended to people more than any other in the past year. Lulu Miller, founder and former host of NPR’s Invisibilia podcast, weaves together personal memoir and scientific history to ask questions about how we maintain optimism in the face of adversity and find order amid chaos. If that sounds weighty, let me reassure you – the book is surprising and delightful, with one unexpected turn after another. There’s a murder mystery … and also fish. Actually, there aren’t fish. Y’know what? Just read the book."

"Lulu Miller's Why Fish Don't Exist might have been my favorite read of the pandemic. It presents itself as a biography of the taxonomist David Starr Jordan, but then it morphs into a multilayered meditation."