Exploring Our Enduring Fascination with the Mysterious Eel: An Insightful Guide to the Natural World

RobMarch: About a lot more than Eels. Read it.

United States on Sep 16, 2023

Nicholas S. Ackerman: An ambiguous work, supplementing the known science with some philosophical, historical and biographical tangents. The large gaps in knowledge about eels make for a curious book about the balance between the known and unknown

United States on Aug 15, 2023

Glen: This discovery of the natural history of eels is explained through the eyes of a young son and his father and their fishing experience. Non-technical but informative.

Canada on Jun 26, 2021

Dave the Rave: No fins! Scales so tiny you can't see them? Wraps around your arm like a piece of heavy rope?? No thanks, thank you.

The only question this book successfully raises is "How come it took so long to disprove Aristotle when he was so obviously wrong"?

Canada on Mar 23, 2021

antonio ruiz de elvira: No me ha gustado la forma de escribir, el autor no es un profesional. Me ha gustado el relato de la biologia de las anguilas. No me ha gustado el meter recuerdos personales, que son indiferentes.

Spain on Mar 22, 2021

Thomas Tansey: Interesting and edifying. I hadn't realized there was so much to learn about eels. For instance, they go through four metamorphic stages, from willow leaf to glass eel to yellow eel and finally to the mature stage, silver eel, the breeding stage. The eels, and the author mostly discusses European eels, migrate back to their birth place in the Sagasso Sea after several years. They navigate with great olfactory sensitivity, and maybe by sensing the magnetic lines of the Earth. There is much mystery about them even now. No one has ever seen two eels mate in the Sagasso Sea.. In fact, no one has ever seen a mature eel in that sea.

The eels are subjected to staggering losses in numbers on their migration. Predators eat them. Ocean pollutions weaken them. They can get infected with a herpes virus and a nematode infestation. Human dams interfere with their travel. They can live a long life if, with one for sure living for 88 documented years, but that was under very unusual circumstances.

There is a Japanese eel too. It apparently migrates to an area in the Pacific west of the Marianna Islands. Japanese people like to eat eel. So far the Japanese eel has not been bred in...

United States on Jan 20, 2021

juliejust8: I learned all about what science knows (and doesn't know) about eels but this book is about so much more and that is what makes it a great read.

Canada on Jan 16, 2021

Frederick S. Goethel: Eels are creatures that many people, myself included, shy away from. Snake like, they are mysterious and somewhat disgusting to hold and feel. But eels are true fish, and like some other species of fish (salmon for one) they live a part of their lives in the ocean and part in freshwater.

This book covers both the author's recollections of catching eels in his neighborhood in Sweden and a scientific look at the eel, or what is known of its lifestyle. The part of his remembrance of catching eels was slightly interesting, but what is know scientifically of the eels is fascinating.

Eels got through various phases, and the reason is unknown, From the willow leaf eel to the glass eel and onto the silver eel, each phase has a purpose, but what that purpose is, is unknown. The author does an excellent job of tracking the eel from the Sargasso Sea to the banks of streams throughout Europe and back again to the sea.

I recommend those this book to those who have contact with eels and to those who are interested in their life style, as it really is fascinating.

United States on Sep 21, 2020

VerbRiver: In “The Book of Eels,” Patrik Svensson enlists Aristotle, Sigmund Freud, and Rachel Carson to help tell a son/father story wrapped in a resistant mystery.

Eels have an ancient, amply recorded history in diets and commerce, leaving their shadows in literature and mythology. Much is known about their unusual life cycle. Yet when it comes to the beginning and the end of that cycle, science seems to have embraced the rules of horseshoes and hand grenades where “close enough will do for now.” No one has ever witnessed the birth of an eel.

Patrik Svensson and his father become beneficiaries of the eel enigma.

The father worked as a road paver all his life. What he loved, however, was the stream and adjoining land where he grew up. For him, eel catching was less than an obsession but more than a diversion. Most important, it was a chance to be with his son.

In turn, the author combines life with his father and the life of the eel into a narrative illuminating both stories. The writing is very fine. Chapter Ten, just four pages long, describes a particularly bizarre way to catch eels and all by itself justifies buying the book.

Svensson sews...

United States on Sep 07, 2020

anonymous: Who knew how fascinating these creatures could be? The books almost reads as if it were fiction...captivating stuff. A real must read for the curious!

Canada on Aug 01, 2020