Fathoms

Giggs is first and foremost a great writer. Her powers of description and analysis pop off the page. The first 100 pages of Fathoms are particularly strong as she zeroes in on disturbing and fascinating topics such as all our garbage showing up in the bellies of stranded whales or scavenger ecosystems created by whale carcasses once they fall to the ocean floor.

Fathoms is a remarkable narrative about the human relationship with whales, and how our understanding of that relationship lends insight to both the human condition, the state of the oceans, and of course, the survival of whales. While reading Fathoms you will learn a great deal about how you perceive nature, and how whales are a barometer for that insight. You will experience both the compassion and savagery of humanity, and you will ponder questions about the meaning of life. Fathoms is wide-ranging, and includes great insights about how technology changes our relationship to the natural world, and our understanding… show more.

I used to think of whales as a great success story in the history of humans and our plundering of the ocean – after all, these fabulous beasts were swiftly transformed from a heavily hunted, industrial resource into protected, cherished wildlife. But as we are learning more all the time, things are more complicated than that in the ocean. As Giggs eloquently tells us, humanity has replaced whaling with many other modern troubles for the great whales. Her writing is vivid and fresh, at times a sweeping personal narrative, for instance as she contemplates a dying whale stranded on an… show more.