Exploring New Zealand Eels: A Journey to the Sargasso Sea

RT: Excellent, informative, entertaining. You will learn about this mysterious fish called the eel. The author does a great job taking you through his experiences like a global adventure. Easy to read.

United States on Nov 02, 2023

Serge Danielson-Francois: I enjoyed this cultural history of eels much more than the 2020 book of the same title. I thought the iterative approach to unfolding the significance of the del in New Zealand/ Micronesia was well done. The juxtaposition with live on the weir in North America made for enlightening contrast.

United States on Jan 08, 2021

William Whelan: Good but a bit academic

United Kingdom on Dec 14, 2020

T. Imaging: I didn’t know much about eels. Their life history is fascinating and mysterious. The book is part travelogue, part biological description, and part exploration of how various cultures treat eels. The book kept my interest.

United States on Nov 06, 2020

Sangoman: Fascinating eels.

United Kingdom on Nov 07, 2019

G. Yun: Eels, yeah, right. . .but this is a truly fascinating and engaging read. These are uniquely mysterious fish that, because of their resemblance to terrestrial snakes, have an image problem. It's a quick read and it might make you want to order unagi at your local sushi restaurant.

Canada on Jun 20, 2016

malesser: Prosek fandom might regret that there's no painting or illustration here, but to get into only his graphic art is to know just part if his talent. He's a great author, earnest in the way he covers a subject and great at engaging a reader in science and the natural world through human stories. Eels is a great read for geeks on fish and fans of naturalist journeys where science and culture mix. Don't read if looking for the definitive book on eel science, but do if you like a good journey into the natural world and uncommon main characters.

United States on Oct 06, 2014

Jonathan Haskell: It's a fascinating read and a fascinating animal. This book really holds your attention with its human story of Ray in the Catskills who traps eels in his homemade weir on the Delaware River and smokes them. Also talks about Pacific Eels and their significance to the Maori.

France on Jul 07, 2012

Mr. D. V. Belfield: Strange, this book. Really distinctly strange.
Such a magnificent opportunity to let it rip on one of this planet's most entrancing inhabitants, strangely not grasped as you feel the author clearly could have/ should have/ wanted to, but didn't.

But look, don't let me put you off; as books written by fishermen go, ESPECIALLY on eels, this is probably the most readable, enjoyable and worthy of such an enigmatic and deeply wonderful fish. It is a real improvement on Tom Fort's book, which sadly gave off the distinct odour of arrogance - 'ONLY us fishermen REALLY know or care about fish'. This is not the case - not anywhere near being the case. The capacity for delusion in the great white male ranges wide and far.

By and large however, James Prosek has produced an engaging account of his travels set around the eel. For my liking, the book is too simply or sparsely written in its style; I could have done with far more beef - description, atmosphere and detail. Why there isn't more hard biology to flesh out the interviews with the research scientists, and why we couldn't have been allowed more scenic observation (Hell he went around the world, New Zealand, Micronesia,...

United Kingdom on Oct 26, 2010

Chris Bowser: I just finished reading "Eels, An Exploration..." by James Prosek and it earns its five-star rating on every page. For those of you on the fence about eels in general, you will be pulled in by the marvel of this fish's life story and the mystery of what we do and don't know.
Prosek not only covers the requisite natural history/ecology of the animal, he does it through interviews and accounts of the top scientists and fisherfolk. He places the reader on the desk of a ship in the Sargasso Sea, or knee-deep in a cold mountain stream catching silver eels in the moonlight.
What puts this book way ahead of the traditional natural history pack is that Prosek doesn't just stop at the "gee whiz" of science, fascinating as it is for this fish. He constantly connects with a deeper, harder to understand, almost spiritual aspect of this amazing creature. It's a fine thing to report on the scholarly accounts of fish through history, but he goes another level up to find the people, places and stories wrapped around eels. I was touched by the book's authenticity in dealing with several cultures' connections to eels, even today. Prosek's drawings and footnotes are excellent, but it's his...

United States on Oct 03, 2010