Sample Saturday is when I wade through the eleventy billion samples I have downloaded on my Kindle. I’m slowly chipping away and deciding whether it’s buy or bye.
Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller
Why I have it: One that I wanted to read from the 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction longlist.
Summary: David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, who would eventually be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake – which sent his discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered. Jordan surveyed the wreckage, and began to rebuild his collection – his attempt to persevere in a world where chaos prevails.
I’m thinking:
Ootlin by Jenni Fagan
Why I have it: and another from the 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction longlist.
Summary: Fagan was property of the state before birth. She drew her first breath in care and by the age of seven, she had lived in fourteen different homes and had changed name multiple times. Ootlin is a journey through the broken UK care system – it is one of displacement and exclusion, but also of the power of storytelling.
I’m thinking: Argh! Don’t know because the sample was only the table of contents.
Deep Water by James Bradley
Why I have it: on my ‘2024 waiting for’ list.
Summary: The ocean has shaped and sustained life on Earth for billions of years. Its waters contain our past, the deep history of evolutionary time; our present, as a place of solace and pleasure, and as the highway that underpins the global economy; and – as waters heat and sea levels rise ever higher – our future. Weaving together science, history and personal reflection, Bradley explores the way the ocean connects every living being on Earth, the origins of the environmental catastrophe that is overtaking us and questions what lies ahead.
I’m thinking: Yes.
LOL There’s more in the deep water than just critters, I’ve just read Colum McCann’s Twist, and there’s a whole lot of undersea cables transporting our communications as well, and sometimes, they break!
Yes! The importance of the oceans in terms of communication is overlooked by most.
I had thought it was all made redundant by the emergence of satellites, but it appears not.
Still a place for ‘old technologies’!
I fancy Ootlin having enjoyed Fagan’s fiction. What a pointless sample, though. Hard to see anyone buying it based on a contents list
I’ll probably read it despite not having a sample.
Why Fish Dont Exist was ok. It was a big deal for a hot minute. It talks about the problems today with David Starr Jordan–president of Indiana University and Stanford. I reviewed it soon after it came out. Nothing unusual about it today. 4 years ago was a long time in terms of what is divinely called “cancel culture”
It was a ‘maybe’ for me so your comment kind of confirmed it as a ‘no’ for me.
Here’s my review–only if you really want to read it https://hopewellslibraryoflife.wordpress.com/2020/12/21/review-why-fish-dont-exist-a-story-of-loss-by-lulu-miller/
Does this mean you’re not thinking about Why Fish Don’t Exist?
Oops! I forgot to put in my ‘maybe’!