Here are 100 books that The Devil's Cormorant fans have personally recommended if you like
The Devil's Cormorant.
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I’ve been passionate about the natural world since I was a child. This passion took me to many remote corners of the globe, and I always returned with a desire to share what I observed. As a science writer and journalist, I’ve been fortunate to tell multidisciplinary stories from the tops of the Andes to the reefs of Papua New Guinea and many places in between. As a writer, I know the importance of reading, and I’m constantly seeking out books by journalists and authors obsessed with topics that are often obscure but always fascinating—topics that have led them on journeys of exploration they share through their books.
I love how journalist Susan Casey takes us inside this story and ultimately becomes part of it while revealing remarkable facts about white sharks and the scientists who study them. As a journalist, I can relate to how her obsession almost drew her too deep into a largely unknown and dangerous place inhabited by an animal that was as much myth as reality to her before she came face to face with it.
There is a lot to like about this book, but for me, ultimately, the immediacy, honesty, and vividness of her writing made me unable to put it down.
Since "Jaws" scared a nation of moviegoers out of the water three decades ago, great white sharks have attained a mythical status as the most frightening and mysterious monsters to still live among us. Each fall, just twenty-seven miles off the San Francisco coast, in the waters surrounding a desolate rocky island chain, the world's largest congregation of these fearsome predators gathers to feed. Journalist Susan Casey first saw the great whites of the Farallones in a television documentary. Within months, she was sitting with the program's two scientists in a small motorboat as the sharks - some as long…
I’ve been passionate about the natural world since I was a child. This passion took me to many remote corners of the globe, and I always returned with a desire to share what I observed. As a science writer and journalist, I’ve been fortunate to tell multidisciplinary stories from the tops of the Andes to the reefs of Papua New Guinea and many places in between. As a writer, I know the importance of reading, and I’m constantly seeking out books by journalists and authors obsessed with topics that are often obscure but always fascinating—topics that have led them on journeys of exploration they share through their books.
I love a book that reads like a novel but is outrageously well-researched and transports me to another time. I love vivid characters who provide me with new lenses to better understand better historical events I thought I already understood.
This fast-paced nonfiction book about the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks that gripped the nation and inspired Jaws kept me on the edge of my seat. It also provides a look at the shark science of the day and the perceptions that informed it. It's definitely a beach read!
Combining rich historical detail and a harrowing, pulse-pounding narrative, Close to Shore brilliantly re-creates the summer of 1916, when a rogue Great White shark attacked swimmers along the New Jersey shore, triggering mass hysteria and launching the most extensive shark hunt in history.
In July 1916 a lone Great White left its usual deep-ocean habitat and headed in the direction of the New Jersey shoreline. There, near the towns of Beach Haven and Spring Lake--and, incredibly, a farming community eleven miles inland--the most ferocious and unpredictable of predators began a deadly rampage: the first shark attacks on swimmers in U.S.…
I’ve been passionate about the natural world since I was a child. This passion took me to many remote corners of the globe, and I always returned with a desire to share what I observed. As a science writer and journalist, I’ve been fortunate to tell multidisciplinary stories from the tops of the Andes to the reefs of Papua New Guinea and many places in between. As a writer, I know the importance of reading, and I’m constantly seeking out books by journalists and authors obsessed with topics that are often obscure but always fascinating—topics that have led them on journeys of exploration they share through their books.
When a journalist becomes so obsessed with a story that she embarks on a global and often dangerous quest to uncover truths that many wish would remain hidden, I know the book she produces will be at the top of my “to read” pile the day it is released.
As someone who has reported extensively on wildlife crime and the ornamental fish trade, I could not put this book down. In the final equation, however, it was the bigger question that the book asked that has kept it front of mind for me all these years later: What is our relationship with wild things, and what dark places can we go if we allow our desire to own these things outweigh our respect for them.
A riveting journey into the bizarre world of the Asian arowana or "dragon fish" the world's most expensive aquarium fish-reveals a surprising history with profound implications for the future of wild animals and human beings alike. The Dragon Behind the Glass tells the story of a fish like none other: a powerful predator dating to the age of the dinosaurs. Treasured as a status symbol believed to bring good luck, the Asian arowana is bred on high-security farms in Southeast Asia and sold by the hundreds of thousands each year. In the United States, however, it's protected by the Endangered…
I’ve been passionate about the natural world since I was a child. This passion took me to many remote corners of the globe, and I always returned with a desire to share what I observed. As a science writer and journalist, I’ve been fortunate to tell multidisciplinary stories from the tops of the Andes to the reefs of Papua New Guinea and many places in between. As a writer, I know the importance of reading, and I’m constantly seeking out books by journalists and authors obsessed with topics that are often obscure but always fascinating—topics that have led them on journeys of exploration they share through their books.
I love books about obsession, and when they are told through the mind of a thoughtful and intelligent journalist, all the better in my book! As a journalist who has covered fisheries at the intersection of science and sustainability, I knew I had to read this book. I knew it would be important, but I had no idea I would love it so much.
Like the best nonfiction books on my shelf, this one is multidisciplinary and includes science, history, crime, environmental justice, and more. I moved seamlessly through the narrative, which carried me from dock to boat, science to policy, history to global dilemma. When a book leaves me reconsidering my place in the world, as this one did, I know it’s one to which I will return.
This is a tale of human obsession, one intrepid tuna, the dedicated fisherman who caught and set her free, the promises and limits of ocean science and the big truth of how our insatiable appetite for bluefin transformed a cottage industry into a global dilemma.
In 2004, an enigmatic charter captain named Al Anderson caught and marked one Atlantic bluefin tuna off New England's coast with a plastic fish tag. Fourteen years later that fish - dubbed Amelia for her ocean-spanning journeys - died in a Mediterranean fish trap, sparking Karen Pinchin's riveting investigation into the marvels, struggles, and prehistoric…
As an avid trail-runner and mountain-biker who’s done a ton of outdoorsy things, from sailboat racing on the Chesapeake Bay to rockclimbing to backpacking in the Pacific Northwest, I’m convinced that nothing gets you closer to someone’s experience than a well-told first-person account. The best personal narratives make you feel the cold, glow with the exhilaration, and burn with ambition to go, to do, to see for yourself — and can even make you look at the world, and yourself, in a new way. These books, different as they are, have all done those things for me.
Building your own sailboat from scratch, then sailing it from California down to Baja, camping, and surfing along the way: how can that not be a cool story? Christian Beamish manages the perfect blend of introspection and backstory with descriptions of sea, sky, land, and the people he meets along the way.
Christian Beamish, a former editor at The Surfer's Journal, envisioned a low-tech, self-reliant exploration for surf along the coast of North America, using primarily clothes and instruments available to his ancestors, and the 18-foot boat he would build by hand in his garage. How the vision met reality and how the two came to shape each other places The Voyage of the Cormorant in the great American tradition of tales of life at sea, and what it has to teach us.
Greg Shed is a self-taught California illustrator specializing in Americana. In addition to commercial work and portraits, he has illustrated more than a dozen children’s books—several of which are about American history. A dedicated researcher, Greg has traveled from the Plymouth colony to the American prairie in search of authenticity and details. He has consulted with Native American craftsmen on the manufacture of native period attire. He is known for capturing golden light in his paintings, which often depict Native American cultures, wildlife, and landscapes.
Creation’s Journey ties actual native stories and beliefs with genuine artifacts from the vast collections of the National Museum of the American Indian. It provides a refreshing approach to our understanding of indigenous people’s utilitarian objects and how important they are in their daily lives. The photos in this book show the care for detail and craftsmanship that was pervasive in everyday Native American objects and clothing. It inspired me to commission native Americans to hand make the various costumes shown in my book.
Drawing on the vast collections of the National Museum of the American Indian, Creation’s Journey retells the story of native life from the Arctic to the Tierra del Fuego, and from childhood to old age.
My first experience of sailing was in an open dinghy in the North Sea in winter; the second was capsizing in the path of a hovercraft at Cowes. I was put off for years. But once Jenny and I moved to spectacular British Columbia, we were inspired to try again. In 1985 we left on what would become a 4-year circumnavigation of the world; more recently and over several years we made our way back under sail from Cape Town to BC, spending a year in Patagonian waters. My other (paying) career has been as a diplomat, which is everything long-distance-sailing is not: people, rules, compromises, convention. Over the years, things have more-or-less balanced out.
In 1986, New Zealander Gerry Clark set off on what would turn out to be a three-year circumnavigation of Antarctica aboard his home-built plywood yacht Totorore. The ostensible objective was a study of seabirds – notably albatrosses – but this is no ornithological treatise. In the Chilean channels and the intricate waterways around Tierra del Fuego, Totororeand her crew lurch from one near disaster to another, each recounted Tilman-like in an understated style. Later, he is dismasted twice and the voyage becomes a desperate struggle for survival. We were lucky enough to meet Gerry – and have him sign a copy of this book – in 1990; it’s rightly described as “one of the most remarkable small boat adventures of all time.”Tototore and crew disappeared one night in 1999, en route to retrieve satellite transmitters from albatrosses on Antipodes Island, off New Zealand.
`I love the sea, I love the birds, I love adventure. In what better way could I indulge myself, in these later years of my life, than to undertake an expedition in the great Southern Ocean? In 1983 at the age of 56, Gerry Clark set out from New Zealand in his 10 metre home built wooden yacht to circumnavigate Antarctica in a quest for new information about seabirds. In this graphic account of the ensuing 3 year 8 month voyage, he describes his adventures in some of the remotest, wildest and most spectacularly beautiful parts of the world.
How do we decide what is true and untrue, what is real and what isn’t? It’s something I’ve tried to understand since I was a child. In each book I chose, a character has to face a universe completely unlike what they’d believed—in some cases, what they’d spent their entire lives devoted to. How someone would react in such a situation is deeply fascinating to me, and each of these books has not only stayed with me for years but has profoundly influenced my own writing and worldview.
I first read this one in high school, and to say it blew me away is an understatement. Five people in sixteenth-century Peru die in a bridge collapse, and a devout Catholic priest sets out to see why—what about God’s plan for the world can be discerned from an examination of why these five, and no others, died that day.
This book's impact on my worldview was enormous: how we take what we experience and use it to make sense of our world. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve reread it, and it still strikes me to the heart every time.
“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
Discover a Masterpiece of Timeless Intrigue
Step back in time with Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey. First published in 1927, this enthralling classic has captivated readers with its poignant exploration of fate and the human condition. Set against the vibrant backdrop of early 18th century Peru, Wilder's narrative weaves a tale so compelling it promises to leave you pondering the intricate tapestry of life long after the last page is…
I am a professor of Latin American history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My teaching and research focus on Andean history, and I have written several books on the period of political violence that pitted guerrillas of the Shining Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) against Peruvian security forces and peasant militias during the 1980s and 1990s. I have been researching in Peru for twenty years, from Lima’s shantytowns, to the Andes mountains, to the Amazon jungle. A Peruvian-American, I maintain strong family ties to the region and am a proud, yet frequently heartbroken, supporter of the national soccer team.
Few scholars possess the ability to take complex historical situations and present them in a manner that is equal parts educational, palatable, and engaging. Brooke Larson is one of those rare talents. When I was in graduate school, I devoured Larson’s Cochabamba, and soon found myself looking to get my hands on anything authored by her. Needless to say, I was eager to read Trials of Nation Makingwhen it was released. I was not disappointed. This wonderfully engaging history examines the role that race and ethnicity played in the framing, founding, and forming of Andean republics, where Creole elites sought to solve the so-called “Indian Problem.” But this is no top-down history. As Larson masterfully illustrates, Indigenous historical actors employed a range of strategies—from legal action to open rebellion—to demand participation in nation-making processes.
This book offers the first interpretive synthesis of the history of Andean peasants and the challenges of nation-making in the four republics of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia during the turbulent nineteenth century. Nowhere in Latin America were postcolonial transitions more vexed or violent than in the Andes, where communal indigenous roots grew deep and where the 'Indian problem' seemed so daunting to liberalizing states. Brooke Larson paints vivid portraits of Creole ruling elites and native peasantries engaged in ongoing political and moral battles over the rightful place of the Indian majorities in these emerging nation-states. In this story, indigenous…
Being an out lesbian isn't my sole identity. I'm a writer of five award-winning novels, an improv artist, and co-founder of an improv school—and I’m even more than that. I wake up in the morning, brush my teeth, make myself a cup of tea, like to cook, like to walk, and adore reading—especially fiction. And while I am madly in love with my partner of 30 years (wife of 5) it's just one aspect of my life. My point being, LGBTQ2+ people do more than “be gay”. I like books that reflect this. I love a writer who crafts beautiful sentences, constructs imaginative stories, and provides me with endings I didn’t see coming.
I love books that take me to other worlds, and The Copper Eggdoes not disappoint. Peru! As the heroine searches for a lost treasure, the readers get to learn all about ancient Peru. It’s a great adventure and so well researched. It had me Googling the web to learn more. There is also a fun romance and a dastardly villain. Think Indiana Jones goes LGBTQ2+. What’s not to like?
The ancient Chimú believed their people came from three eggs: the rulers from a gold egg, their wives from a silver, and the workers from a copper egg.
Archaeologist Claire Adams receives a mysterious package that lures her to Peru in search of a treasure-filled tomb. She must find the tomb before looters do. She’s helped in her quest by old friends and by a strange connection to an ancient copper egg. Claire’s ex, Sochi Castillo, has her own plans for the tomb. She has two jobs—one within the law, one considerably outside it. If Claire finds the treasure first,…
