Why Fish Don't Existepub,mobi,azw3格式电子书下载，作者：Lulu Miller-读书派

A wondrous nonfiction debut from the cofounder of NPR’s Invisibilia, Why Fish Don’t Exist tells the story of a 19th-century scientist possessed with bringing order to the natural world—a dark and astonishing tale that becomes an investigation into some of the biggest questions of our lives.

When Lulu Miller was starting out as a science reporter, she encountered a story that would stick with her for a decade. It was the strange tale of a scientist named David Starr Jordan, who set out to discover as many of the world’s fish as he could. Decade by decade, he built one of the most important specimen collections ever seen. Until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake hit—sending over a thousand of his fish, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered.

Miller knew what she would do if she were in Jordan’s shoes. She would give up, give in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and painstakingly began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that, he believed, would protect it against the chaos of the world.

In Why Fish Don’t Exist, Miller digs into the passing anecdote she once heard about David Starr Jordan to tell his whole story. What was it that kept him going that day in 1906? What became of him? And who does he prove to be, in the end: a role model for how to thrive in a chaotic world, or a cautionary tale? Filled with suspense, surprise, and even a questionable death, this enchanting book interweaves science, biography, and a dash of memoir to investigate the age-old question of how to go on when everything seems lost.

Louisa Elizabeth Miller, better known as Lulu Miller, is an American writer, artist, and science reporter for National Public Radio. Miller's career in radio started as a producer for the WNYC program Radiolab. She now co-hosts the NPR show Invisibilia with Alix Spiegel.

citii

04-20

很久没有这么畅快地读书了。Jordan的部分写得非常精彩，整本书把对chaos, nihilism, faith和eugenics的讨论都用故事很完美地串在一起，不得不佩服作者的文字功底。积攒到最后亮出的punchline因为是生物学的常识没有立刻产生冲击，但紧接着有几个集大成的twist非常巧妙。对生命意义的思考最终到达的还是存在主义，特殊时期读倒是让人安心了。Let go of the fish, there will be grandeur in this view of life.

阿波

12-04

喜欢，特别惊喜。一开始以为是科普，读一读又像名人传记，然后发现是推理，再回归科普。最后，竟然，是情书！主线，就是给鱼分类开始，结束于鱼这个种类并不存在。本就是，就是给人给自己也不要分类，不要局限在在自己的tunnel vision里面。我们不懂的还太多。对科学的合理质疑，也很诚恳。科学是不断推翻“理所当然”的那些假设的过程，也就是不断否定以前的科学的过程。了解自然更多了一些，不代表就是真的了解。Be humble.

10-08

非常喜欢这本书，把人的终极疑惑写得淋漓尽致。这本书易读，但是却引人思考。虽然看似是写的他人的传记，实际上是把自己的成长写了遍。也就是在他人的故事中找自己。围绕着人生的意义是什么，人生究竟是混沌的吗？那么我们可能找到秩序吗？看完最后一页，立刻想重新再读一遍。