false 44998662 1959519 2915281 0307267156 9780307267153 12 <![CDATA[Tuna: A Love Story]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2915281.Tuna_A_Love_Story 3.27 30 The author of The Book of Sharks, Imagining Atlantis, and Encyclopedia of the Sea turns his gaze to the tuna—one of the biggest, fastest, and most highly evolved marine animals and the source of some of the world’s most popular delicacies—now hovering on the brink of extinction. In recent years, the tuna’s place on our palates has come under scrutiny, as we grow increasingly aware of our own health and the health of our planet. Here, Ellis explains how a fish that was once able to thrive has become a commodity, in a book that shows how the natural world and the global economy converge on our plates.

The longest migrator of any fish species, an Atlantic northern bluefin can travel from New England to the Mediterranean, then turn around and swim back; in the Pacific, the northern bluefin can make a round-trip journey from California to Japan. The fish can weigh in at 1,500 pounds and, in an instant, pick up speed to fifty-five miles per hour.

But today the fish is the target of the insatiable sushi market, particularly in Japan, where an individual piece can go for seventy-five dollars. Ellis introduces us to the high-stakes world of “tuna ranches,” where large schools of half-grown tuna are caught in floating corrals and held in pens before being fattened, killed, gutted, frozen, and shipped to the Asian market. Once on the brink of bankruptcy, the world’s tuna ranches—in Australia, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and North Africa—have become multimillion-dollar enterprises. Experts warn that the fish are dying out and environmentalists lobby for stricter controls, while entire coastal ecosystems are under threat. The extinction of the tuna would mean not only the end of several species but dangerous consequences for the earth as a whole.

In the tradition of Mark Kurlansky’s Cod, John Cole’s Striper, John Hersey’s Blues—and of course, Ellis’s own Great White Shark—this book will forever change the way we think about fish and fishing.

]]> 54665 3.79 385 83 2008 0 2009-03-03T08:22:27-08:00 456766 275 2009-03-03T08:22:27-08:00 0 2009-03-02T11:22:52-08:00 453029 236 2009-03-02T11:22:52-08:00 Never lets up. 0 2009-03-02T09:29:09-08:00 452496 211 2009-03-02T09:29:09-08:00 0 2009-03-01T21:02:29-08:00 450735 180 2009-03-01T21:02:29-08:00 This book is moving me to paroxysms of disbelieving anger. 0 2009-02-28T22:16:58-08:00 446869 150 2009-02-28T22:16:58-08:00 Superb, angry, erudite His best since Monsters of the Sea 0 2009-02-22T23:06:59-08:00 420103 83 2009-02-22T23:06:59-08:00 Like all Ellis's books, it's already so comprehensive that it puts most writers to shame, on pg. 40! Wow 0 2009-02-18T09:28:30-08:00 400826 40 2009-02-18T09:28:30-08:00 5 0 false Tue Mar 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 31 18:06:10 -0800 2009 Tue Mar 17 11:50:03 -0700 2009 1 more...]]>