Earth Lounge: An Environmental Book Discussion: "Why Fish Don't Exist"

Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don't Exist: a story of love, loss, and the hidden order of life by Lulu Miller examines how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail. When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard an anecdote of how nineteenth-century scientist David Starr Jordan built one of the most important fish specimen collections ever seen, until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake shattered his life's work, then confidently began to rebuild his collection, she took Jordan for a fool—a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet.