Overview
What is it about eels? Depending on who you ask, they are a pest, a fascination, a threat, a pot of gold. Eels emerged some 200 million years ago, weathered mass extinctions and continental shifts, and were once among the world's most abundant freshwater fish. But since the 1970s, their numbers have plummeted. Because eels--as unagi--are another thing: delicious. In Slippery Beast, journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell travels in the world of ""eel people,"" pursuing a fascination with this mysterious creature. Despite centuries of study by thinkers from Aristotle to Leeuwenhoek to Sigmund Freud, much about eels remains unknown. Eels cannot be bred reliably in captivity and infant eels are unbelievably valuable. A pound of the tiny, translucent, bug-eyed ""elvers"" caught in the fresh waters of Maine can command $3,000 or more on the black market. Illegal trade in eels is an international scandal measured in billions of dollars every year. In Maine, federal investigators have risked their lives to bust poaching rings. Ruppel Shell follows the elusive eel from Maine to the Sargasso Sea, stalking riversides, fishing holes, laboratories, restaurants, courtrooms, and America's first commercial eel ""family farm."" This is an enthralling, globe-spanning look at an animal that you may never come to love, but which will never fail to astonish you.
Full Product Details
Author: Ellen Ruppel Shell ,
Coleen Marlo
Publisher: Tantor Audio
Imprint: Tantor Audio
ISBN: 9798228006614
Publication Date: 06 August 2024
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Audio
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Author Information
Prize winning journalist Ellen Ruppel Shell has contributed to scores of publications including the Smithsonian, Scientific American, Science, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Professor Emeritus of science journalism at Boston University, she was a longtime contributing editor and correspondent to the Atlantic, and the author of four previous books, including Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. Coleen Marlo is an accomplished actor and multi-award-winning audiobook voice artist and producer. In 2010 she was named Audiobook Narrator of the Year by Publishers Weekly, and she won the Audie Award for Literary Fiction in 2011. During her distinguished career, she has been nominated twice for Audie Awards by the Audio Publishers Association, has won numerous Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, and has been an AudioFile Earphones Award winner. Additionally, she has been honored with many starred audio reviews by Library Journal and Publishers Weekly. Coleen is a member of the prestigious Actors Studio and taught acting for ten years at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute. Furthermore, she is a proud founding member of Deyan Institute of Voice Artistry and Technology. Coleen can be found on the Web at coleenmarlo.blogspot.com and on Facebook at ColeenMarloAudiobook.
