The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans
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4.5 • 6 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A Science Friday Best Science Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
A Library Journal Best Science and Technology Book of the Year
A Tampa Bay Times Best Book of the Year
A stunning history of seashells and the animals that make them that "will have you marveling at nature…Barnett’s account remarkably spirals out, appropriately, to become a much larger story about the sea, about global history and about environmental crises and preservation" (John Williams, New York Times Book Review).
Seashells have been the most coveted and collected of nature’s creations since the dawn of humanity. They were money before coins, jewelry before gems, art before canvas.
In The Sound of the Sea, acclaimed environmental author Cynthia Barnett blends cultural history and science to trace our long love affair with seashells and the hidden lives of the mollusks that make them. Spiraling out from the great cities of shell that once rose in North America to the warming waters of the Maldives and the slave castles of Ghana, Barnett has created an unforgettable history of our world through an examination of the unassuming seashell. She begins with their childhood wonder, unwinds surprising histories like the origin of Shell Oil as a family business importing exotic shells, and charts what shells and the soft animals that build them are telling scientists about our warming, acidifying seas.
From the eerie calls of early shell trumpets to the evolutionary miracle of spines and spires and the modern science of carbon capture inspired by shell, Barnett circles to her central point of listening to nature’s wisdom—and acting on what seashells have to say about taking care of each other and our world.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The history of seashells makes for a fascinating read in environmental journalist Cynthia Barnett’s hands. She takes us from Florida’s seashell-loaded Sanibel Island to the Maldives and then on to Ghana, exploring how ocean creatures such as the mollusk have evolved over the past 500 million years—and how the shells they’ve left behind reflect that epic history. Through history, literature, religion, and environmental studies, she leads us on a tour of humanity’s love affair with shells, from their use as currency and building materials to their influence on all those mollusk-inspired Pokémon characters! The Sound of the Sea will make your next beach walk that much more interesting.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seashells—and the mollusks that grow them—are a potent force in nature and society, writes journalist Barnett (Blue Revolution) in this riveting survey. "From the shell cults of prehistory to the impressive number of mollusk-inspired Pokémon characters," Barnett writes, "no creatures have stirred human admiration... as intimately," and in a globe-trotting quest, she visits sometimes unexpected places where shells appear: In England, the White Cliffs of Dover are made from ancient shell deposits, while a pre-Columbian Peruvian temple has still-playable horns made from conches. Cowrie shells, meanwhile, were an early-modern global currency, and writers including Edna St. Vincent Millay and Italo Calvino were shell-obsessed. Barnett also covers the contemporary collapse of mollusk populations from overharvesting, pollution, habitat destruction, and climate change. There's much quaint and curious lore, and she proves shelled animals are surprisingly adventurous (cone snails spear fish with their poisonous proboscis, for example). Throughout, Barnett delivers the goods with erudition and evocative prose: Scallops, she observes, are "jet-propelled, zigzagging, shell-clapping, free spirits... the eye rows glow battery-charge blue, like tiny flying saucers have landed in the seagrass." The result is an entertaining, colorful tour of a surprisingly dynamic part of nature.
