William Collins Kings of Their Own Ocean Tuna and the Future of Our Oceans.

by Karen Pinchin

Kings of Their Own Ocean Tuna and the Future of Our Oceans ABISBOOK William Collins.

Genres: Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

Published July 4, 2024

About the author

Trained as a news reporter and cook, Karen Pinchin is an investigative journalist and creative non-fiction instructor based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She specializes in writing about food systems, culture, and social justice. Kings of Their Own Ocean (2023) is her first book.

Reviews

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this. It’s an incredible look at the human element of fishing for bluefin. Each section was fantastic and I loved how every chapter was so distinct while still tying together under the biography of Al and his family.

[Jonas]

Kings of Their Own Ocean was written by Karen Pinchin and published just last year in 2024. It is about the Bluefin Tuna population(s) living in the Atlantic and the history of the last 80 years or so of fishing them. But the fish make up only half of the main cast in this book, the other half is made up of people involved in the fishing industry in one way or another; fishermen, scientists and everything in between.

This book was an interesting and for the most part engaging read, especially considering that Kings of Their Own Ocean was Pinchins debut. Despite this I did have some problems with it.
But first one more positive thing, and that is that this book felt really well researched and I am sure Pinchin knows her stuff. However, with that comes my first point of critique and that is, that I think this would have been more enjoyable as a few long form articles rather than a book. I just did not enjoy the whole of the book evenly, and I think I would have enjoyed the text more when served in a way that was more split up. I do not really know if it makes sense, but whilst reading it felt more like reading a reportage (even if a rather long one) than a 300-page book.
The next thought I have about the book is more coherent and probably easier to understand. And that is, that it was not what I expected. I went into this expecting an account of all the dirty going ons in the tuna fishing industry, but this is not what this book is. Whilst it does show the errors made and the greed (inherent in most industries today) of some actors, they are not really condemned or moralized, but rather viewed through a more human-centred lense as she tries to get to the humans behind these actions. This is not inherently bad of course, but it does mean that it is more centred around humans rather than on the fish. When fishermen, or humans more generally, are involved the tuna are (often) portrayed as a ressource, it is only when humans are out of the picture that the fish get to be fish; living beings. Make of it what you will, probably your reading will be different but that was how it seemed to me.
Another thing that did not sit completely right with me during my reading was the portrayal of one of the main characters, namely Al. Al was a fisherman and very active tagger of bluefin. Whilst reading, before it was made clear that he died some years ago, I got the feeling that his was a posthumous account. I can not underscore it with a particular example, but his story was told in a light that seemed to glorify him in the light peculiar to deceased people. Whilst I do not think that was the intention of the author, but more due to her relying on his widow for the most part, (and whilst I do not want to fault the widow either) it did feel weird in a not-so- positive way.
One last negative that caught my eye is, that the book does not deliver what its subtitle promises. The books whole title is “Kings of Their Own Ocean – Tuna and the Future of Our Oceans”. Whilst it does go into the tuna part, it did not delve into “the Future of Our Oceans”, at least not to the amount so as to warrant getting teased for in the title.
Then there is a whole string of narrative about the role of scientists involved in the recent history of bluefin tuna. This portrayed science more generally in a rather confusing and contradictory way, which of course it is at times. What left an ambivalent feeling in me was not the history of the science itself but rather, that I was left not knowing (or not remembering, if so I am sorry for including this) what the current scientific consensus about Atlantic bluefin tuna populations is. However, as explained before, this seems to be more of a human-centred book and taking this into account I understand its portrayal of science and the choices made even if I do not particularly agree with or like them.

So to conclude, I did enjoy parts of "Kings of Their Own Ocean" and the stories told were interesting for the most part. However, I would have wished for it to have a different angle on the topic and in addition actually get into what the title promises, that is what the future holds for our oceans. If you read this review and the book interests you, please go ahead and read it nonetheless. I would be curious to hear what you thought about it and if you felt different while reading.

[Morgan Laird · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read. More about people and tuna fishing than about tuna though.

[James Biser · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an entertaining tale of the natural history of tuna. It discusses the last century of the fish and the people who prey upon them.