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Preparing this book and its discovery paths.
Book
Preparing this book and its discovery paths.
Reader fitReaders who enjoy science writing mixed with personal memoir and cultural history.
Lulu Miller interweaves a personal memoir about grief and depression with the life and work of 19th-century fish taxonomist David Starr Jordan to probe how humans try to impose order on a chaotic world. The book alternates between reporting, reflective anecdote, and historical biography while asking what stability—scientific or emotional—looks like when systems fail.
Fast in short bursts: the book develops through compact, self-contained sections that reward close attention to detail and associative leaps. Miller's voice is conversational, curious, and occasionally wry, shifting between reporterly clarity and intimate confession; scratchboard illustrations punctuate chapters and add a tactile, visual counterpoint. The structure is nonlinear and collage-like, so readers who prefer sustained linear narrative may find the hopping rhythm disorienting; those who like fragmentary argument, personal excavation, and science writing with emotional stakes will find the approach engaging.
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