• Features
  • New Books
  • Biggest New Books
  • Fiction
  • Non-Fiction
  • All Categories
  • First Readers Club Daily Giveaway
  • How It Works
 
 
 
Features
New Books
Biggest New Books
Fiction
Non-Fiction
All Categories


Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures

Nick Pyenson

Buy Now

Buy From a Local Bookstore
Publisher
Viking
Date
June 26, 2018
Non-Fiction
Science
A paleontologist and self-styled whale chaser weaves his own adventures into a rich account of the largest creatures on our planet.

Embed our reviews widget for this book

What is this?
Positive
Based on 5 reviews

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

What The Reviewers Say
Mixed James Marriott,
The Times
We live in an age of giants. The largest animals to have lived are not dinosaurs, or woolly mammoths, or saber- toothed tigers. They are whales. Right now, you are sharing the planet with the most enormous animal to have existed: the blue whale ... If you don’t care about whales, you should still read Spying on Whales. I didn’t give two hoots about them last week, but after reading Pyenson’s book, I’m obsessed. Pyenson writes engagingly — although he is slightly over-fond of the scene-setting purple passages that are almost obligatory in popular nonfiction nowadays. He is also guilty of some fairly lame jokes ... Nevertheless, this is a lively survey of the past, present and future of these magnificent animals, which includes enough of Pyenson’s scientific adventures to make you feel that you have a vague sense of what’s going on at the cutting-edge of cetacean science. Great stuff. Save the whales!
Read Full Review >>
Positive Priscilla Kipp,
Bookpage
When a paleontologist writing about whales begins by quoting naturalist Henry Beston, 'They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time'—you know you are in for a wondrous read. And Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth’s Most Awesome Creatures by Nick Pyenson is indeed that ... Pyenson confesses that 'whales aren’t my destination: they are the gateway to a journey of discovery, across oceans and through time,' and he excels in taking his reader along on this journey ... The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft carry whale-song recordings as greetings to alien life-forms, although their meanings are yet to be understood. Despite all that humans have learned about whales, these sounds remain as mysterious as their makers.
Read Full Review >>
Rave Nancy Bent,
Booklist Online
What is it about whales that we find so fascinating? They are the largest animals that have ever lived on the planet, and humans have wondered about them for all of recorded history. Pyenson, an award-winning paleontologist and curator at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, takes a unique look at these enigmatic marine mammals ... Pyenson paints a history of how whales became the magnificent creatures they are today. Illustrated with beautiful line drawings, and heavily annotated, this is a hard-to-put-down quest to understand whales and their place on Earth.
Read Full Review >>
See All Reviews >>

SIMILAR BOOKS
History

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

Nature's Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the L…
Philipp Blom
Mixed

Art

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Tim…
Akiko Busch
Mixed

Culture

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

Figuring
Maria Popova
Rave

Investigative Journalism

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved …
Joshua S Goldstein
Mixed

Non-Fiction

Rave

Positive

Mixed

Pan

Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Dec…
Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson
Positive


What did you think of Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures?
  • About
    • Get the Book Marks Bulletin

  • Categories
    Fiction
    Fantasy
    Graphic Novels
    Historical
    Horror
    Literary
    Mystery, Crime, & Thriller
    Poetry
    Romance
    Speculative
    Story Collections
    Non-Fiction
    Art
    Biography
    Criticism
    Culture
    Essays
    Film & TV
    Graphic Nonfiction
    History
    Investigative Journalism
    Memoir
    Music
    Nature
    Politics
    Religion
    Science
    Social Sciences
    Sports
    Technology
    Travel
  • Lithub Daily

      February 11 – 15, 2019

      • Ottessa Moshfegh profiles Whoopi Goldberg.
      • Toni Morrison on Beloved from The Source of Self-Regard.
      • Kevin Young on the time Virginia Woolf wore blackface.
      • Why have so many “tragic” literary hoaxes been successful?
      • On the (booming) business of romance novels.
      • Meet the literary agent who represents famous writers and also builds them bookshelves.

© LitHub