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Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Science & Technology (2020)A wondrous debut from an extraordinary new voice in nonfiction, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and—possibly—even murder.
David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake—which sent more than a thousand of his discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered.
Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world.
When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool—a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet.
Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist reads like a fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.
David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake—which sent more than a thousand of his discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered.
Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world.
When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool—a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet.
Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don’t Exist reads like a fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.
225 pages, Hardcover
First published April 14, 2020
4821 people are currently reading
117345 people want to read
About the author
Lulu Miller
12 books730 followersLouisa 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 9,281 reviews
September 12, 2021
There are books, and then there are the life-changing sorts of books. For me, this is one of the latter.
This is a memoir that details a time in the author's life when she was sorely in need of a role model. She had recently made a huge, life-ruining mistake, destroying a relationship she valued, when she came across a story of how a historical figure, taxonomist David Starr Jordan, in the wake of an earthquake, starting pinning nametags to the dead fish specimens he worked so hard to catalog so that never again would a California earthquake threaten to upend his progress. Miller couldn't get the image of him poking lifeless fish bodies with pins out of her head. Jordan became a fascinating specimen himself, at least to Miller, and she began doing research on this man who looked at the entropy of the world and raised his fists.
But while Miller unearthed some admirable qualities of the scientist - things she could use to inform the type of person she wished to become - she also found some very dark secrets lodged in his story, and the whole research process got her to thinking about whether the universe's chaos can actually be tamed.
I enjoyed this book the whole way through, but it was the ending that knocked my socks off. It overturns everything that came before it, but also puts the rest of the book into perspective. It's the most brilliant ending to any book I've ever read and was literally jaw-dropping.
It's a stunning book, basically. One of my all-time favorite works of nonfiction. I rave about it more over on Booktube!
This is a memoir that details a time in the author's life when she was sorely in need of a role model. She had recently made a huge, life-ruining mistake, destroying a relationship she valued, when she came across a story of how a historical figure, taxonomist David Starr Jordan, in the wake of an earthquake, starting pinning nametags to the dead fish specimens he worked so hard to catalog so that never again would a California earthquake threaten to upend his progress. Miller couldn't get the image of him poking lifeless fish bodies with pins out of her head. Jordan became a fascinating specimen himself, at least to Miller, and she began doing research on this man who looked at the entropy of the world and raised his fists.
But while Miller unearthed some admirable qualities of the scientist - things she could use to inform the type of person she wished to become - she also found some very dark secrets lodged in his story, and the whole research process got her to thinking about whether the universe's chaos can actually be tamed.
I enjoyed this book the whole way through, but it was the ending that knocked my socks off. It overturns everything that came before it, but also puts the rest of the book into perspective. It's the most brilliant ending to any book I've ever read and was literally jaw-dropping.
It's a stunning book, basically. One of my all-time favorite works of nonfiction. I rave about it more over on Booktube!
April 23, 2021
I had a hard time with this one. It was well written, felt well researched, and the audiobook was a solid performance by the author. I'm not surprised at the book's overall rating, and think if it had covered almost any other subject I would've enjoyed it a lot more. But I went into it already knowing that David Starr Jordan was a bastard eugenicist, and it made reading the first 75% of this book and its glowing account of his life and work and perseverance uncomfortable to the point of excruciating. By the time we finally got to reckoning with the profound damage he'd done, I'd given up hope that the author was even going to address it at all; and though I was impressed by how it was eventually handled and how thoroughly those beliefs were condemned, it felt like far too little too late. It felt to me as though the author was more (or at least equally) distraught at discovering her hero was a flawed individual than at the immense and immeasurable horror his beliefs and power and actions enabled him to inflict. And that's not even counting the fact that he definitely murdered that lady, I mean, holy shit this dude was literal trash.
I think a lot of people will be able to enjoy this book much more than I did, and I don't really fault them for it. As a neurodivergent woman of color with a chronic pain disorder, I'm honestly not particularly interested in listening to white women assuaging their guilt over their "problematic faves" on a good day, let alone when that person would have actively called for my forced sterilization (if not death) on the basis of my existence and then went on to directly enable the state's ability to do so. Gotta say, that makes it pretty difficult to engage with descriptions of him as a young man as "sultry" or sympathetic in any imaginable way.
If this book had been any longer, I probably wouldn't have finished it; I think it was the perfect length for the amount of information there was to get across. And the writing is really engaging, even if it was a little too quippy and personable for my usual preferences in nonfiction. I kept listening hoping that the text would eventually address the racism and bigotry, and technically we got there eventually and I do believe it was addressed well. But it just felt a little too dismissive for my tastes; being one of the fathers of American eugenics is not merely an unfortunate footnote in the life of an otherwise-decent man, and I would've liked to see that acknowledged at every turn rather than being used as an emotional "gotcha" toward the end of the book. And I had a difficult time engaging with the author's journey of self-reflection that seemed to be the real crux of the story. I keep ending up railroaded by white podcast/NPR personalities writing what I think is going to be a nonfiction book and turns out to be a camouflaged memoir, and I'm really over it tbh.
I think a lot of people will be able to enjoy this book much more than I did, and I don't really fault them for it. As a neurodivergent woman of color with a chronic pain disorder, I'm honestly not particularly interested in listening to white women assuaging their guilt over their "problematic faves" on a good day, let alone when that person would have actively called for my forced sterilization (if not death) on the basis of my existence and then went on to directly enable the state's ability to do so. Gotta say, that makes it pretty difficult to engage with descriptions of him as a young man as "sultry" or sympathetic in any imaginable way.
If this book had been any longer, I probably wouldn't have finished it; I think it was the perfect length for the amount of information there was to get across. And the writing is really engaging, even if it was a little too quippy and personable for my usual preferences in nonfiction. I kept listening hoping that the text would eventually address the racism and bigotry, and technically we got there eventually and I do believe it was addressed well. But it just felt a little too dismissive for my tastes; being one of the fathers of American eugenics is not merely an unfortunate footnote in the life of an otherwise-decent man, and I would've liked to see that acknowledged at every turn rather than being used as an emotional "gotcha" toward the end of the book. And I had a difficult time engaging with the author's journey of self-reflection that seemed to be the real crux of the story. I keep ending up railroaded by white podcast/NPR personalities writing what I think is going to be a nonfiction book and turns out to be a camouflaged memoir, and I'm really over it tbh.
December 8, 2025
you learn something new every day.
i picked this up for a substack post in which i let you guys choose my reads, having absolutely never heard of it.
i would know if i had, because this is not the kind of title you forget.
i had, therefore, 0 expectations, beyond the fact that once i started and found this to appear to be a book about a fish science guy from the olden days, i knew it had to be more than it appeared. you guys know me better than that.
i was right on that front.
this is at times definitely a book about an old man, but mostly it is about the world we live in, in all its cruelties and hopes. which is my favorite thing for a book to be about.
that mostly made up for the fish stuff.
bottom line: a pleasant surprise in so many ways!
i picked this up for a substack post in which i let you guys choose my reads, having absolutely never heard of it.
i would know if i had, because this is not the kind of title you forget.
i had, therefore, 0 expectations, beyond the fact that once i started and found this to appear to be a book about a fish science guy from the olden days, i knew it had to be more than it appeared. you guys know me better than that.
i was right on that front.
this is at times definitely a book about an old man, but mostly it is about the world we live in, in all its cruelties and hopes. which is my favorite thing for a book to be about.
that mostly made up for the fish stuff.
bottom line: a pleasant surprise in so many ways!
April 22, 2020
I cannot fully express how perfect this book was for reading during COVID-19 crisis. It's perfect. It's Chaos, it's order, it's loss, it's love.
January 22, 2021
lulu miller is more writer than historian. this book - and history - suffers for it.
this book is structured in a strange way. each chapter peels back a different facet of jordan's life analogized to her own, though neither are told chronologically. the first half of the book paints jordan as a quirky but sympathetic character, until a sudden descent into covering up jane stanford's murder and advocating for forced sterilization.
here's the problem: jordan was a eugenicist and white supremacist the whole time. from his first academic job at IU to his presidency at stanford, jordan railed against "unfit genes" polluting "the Anglo-Saxon race." even seemingly redeeming or innocuous aspects, like his religion or his pacificism, ultimately served his white supremacy: jordan disliked war because it decimated the "fittest" of the white male genes.
miller's storytelling requires her to first humanize jordan to the reader, aside from his obsession with categorizing fish, then show how this desire for Order caused his eugenicist views. even in the later part, she describes his distaste for the "unfit," but conveniently skips over his stance that the white race was the fittest. but this is ahistorical: centuries before jordan was born, the taxonomies and methods of western science were invented to justify europeans' mental and physical superiority over those they colonized. jordan's racism doesn't prove the flaws with this scientific approach; rather, both phenomena stemmed from the same root cause (centuries of white supremacy). thus, she sacrifices historical accuracy for the sake of a character arc.
this book was also incredibly whitewashed. the chapter on his eugenicist views somehow barely mentioned race, and when it did, just suggested that discrimination against the "unfit" just happened to have racially disproportionate effects. yet eugenics was always a movement about race. racism was the motivation, not the consequence, of these beliefs. and the framing of "how could a little boy become so evil?" - plus the way miller compared jordan's childhood quirks to her own depression - reminded me of how mental health is always used to solicit empathy for white mass shooters. by framing his life this way, she turns systemic problems - the collusion of western racists and scientists - into psychological ones - jordan's refusal to accept that "we don't matter."
i was looking forward to this book a lot as a story of someone whose sins have disappeared into the shadows - his name was emblazoned across the stanford psych building until 2020. instead, i'm disappointed that this book is how he'll live in the popular consciousness.
this book is structured in a strange way. each chapter peels back a different facet of jordan's life analogized to her own, though neither are told chronologically. the first half of the book paints jordan as a quirky but sympathetic character, until a sudden descent into covering up jane stanford's murder and advocating for forced sterilization.
here's the problem: jordan was a eugenicist and white supremacist the whole time. from his first academic job at IU to his presidency at stanford, jordan railed against "unfit genes" polluting "the Anglo-Saxon race." even seemingly redeeming or innocuous aspects, like his religion or his pacificism, ultimately served his white supremacy: jordan disliked war because it decimated the "fittest" of the white male genes.
miller's storytelling requires her to first humanize jordan to the reader, aside from his obsession with categorizing fish, then show how this desire for Order caused his eugenicist views. even in the later part, she describes his distaste for the "unfit," but conveniently skips over his stance that the white race was the fittest. but this is ahistorical: centuries before jordan was born, the taxonomies and methods of western science were invented to justify europeans' mental and physical superiority over those they colonized. jordan's racism doesn't prove the flaws with this scientific approach; rather, both phenomena stemmed from the same root cause (centuries of white supremacy). thus, she sacrifices historical accuracy for the sake of a character arc.
this book was also incredibly whitewashed. the chapter on his eugenicist views somehow barely mentioned race, and when it did, just suggested that discrimination against the "unfit" just happened to have racially disproportionate effects. yet eugenics was always a movement about race. racism was the motivation, not the consequence, of these beliefs. and the framing of "how could a little boy become so evil?" - plus the way miller compared jordan's childhood quirks to her own depression - reminded me of how mental health is always used to solicit empathy for white mass shooters. by framing his life this way, she turns systemic problems - the collusion of western racists and scientists - into psychological ones - jordan's refusal to accept that "we don't matter."
i was looking forward to this book a lot as a story of someone whose sins have disappeared into the shadows - his name was emblazoned across the stanford psych building until 2020. instead, i'm disappointed that this book is how he'll live in the popular consciousness.
January 8, 2021
hmmm...this whole book....is about a eugenicist and it tries to bury the lede and shock you that he is one of the most prominent American eugenicists of all time??? seems like something you would find out, say, googling him and not after mapping some weird life plan over this template set by this man who you can tell sucks before the big *reveal".... but regardless of any of that (🤨) it's full of forced themes, overwrought metaphors, and I cannot believe it is book length given this story probably could have been told in 10 pages. reminded me of Devil in the White City because I fucking hate hearing about somebody's eye color or some shit over and over in what is in some sense supposed to be historical and also journalism?
in sum: hate hate loathe entirely
in sum: hate hate loathe entirely
May 22, 2020
Audiobook read by the author, Lulu Miller
This was a book that I appreciated more than really enjoyed.
.... My mind drifted off to much...
.... it took me forever to understand what the author was trying to say. She was trying to figure out chaos from Jordon, ( he had plenty in his life), and how it affected her life.
....it’s still a little puzzling why Lulu picked David Starr Jordon to study in relationship to her needs.
....Lulu thought Jordon had a handle on life - and she might learn how to do the same if she studied him.
....And what did the title mean? Symbolically it represents loss I suppose.
The sad truth: my favorite part of the book was the epilogue. It was the most personal- about ‘Lulu’.
as....
...many parts of this book went right over my head.
....I’m sure I didn’t understand half of it ( my problem; no fault of the author)
....I did learn a ‘little’ .... simply by sticking to it.
Things I learned:
....Lulu likes fish.
....David Starr Jordon ( 1851-1931), was the founding president of Stanford University. I had no idea about this, prior to this book. He was an educator, scientist, biology teacher, peace activist, explorer, a taxonomist, and was especially known for being an ichthyologist...(a branch of zoology studying fish)
..... many schools around the country were named after David Starr Jordon.
....Lulu was interested in Jordan as a way of discovering what kept him motivated during a time when she was dealing with depression. And remember..: she liked fish -as much as Jordon liked fish.
....Jordon discovered about 20% of fish - their names and fish-characteristics.
....Jordon was an advocate for eugenics ( legal sterilization for the ‘feeble minded).... YUCKY!
Like I said, much of this book went over my head… I didn’t understand the the overall purpose... not ‘gut level experientially’, anyway.
It’s part biography, part philosophy, psychology, relationship driven, murder mystery, love story, mental health, fish details, memoir, and part coming of age.
Basically... I tried ( gave it my campers Girl Scout attention)
But....
... this book is simply a little weird and quirky. I wasn’t passionately connected.
I liked Lulu’s - audio-speaking voice ...but shame on me... I just wasn’t interested enough in Jordon.
His connection with the SF 1906 earthquake was a little thought-provoking...( his fish specimens came crashing down), but I’m still not sure what insights I was to have taken in.
I ‘was’ interested in Lulu’s personal life,
and loved her ‘love-story’ ending - where her happy self shines!
Overall....
I appreciated the few things I learned - and the author’s work, but it didn’t ‘wow’ me.
This was a book that I appreciated more than really enjoyed.
.... My mind drifted off to much...
.... it took me forever to understand what the author was trying to say. She was trying to figure out chaos from Jordon, ( he had plenty in his life), and how it affected her life.
....it’s still a little puzzling why Lulu picked David Starr Jordon to study in relationship to her needs.
....Lulu thought Jordon had a handle on life - and she might learn how to do the same if she studied him.
....And what did the title mean? Symbolically it represents loss I suppose.
The sad truth: my favorite part of the book was the epilogue. It was the most personal- about ‘Lulu’.
as....
...many parts of this book went right over my head.
....I’m sure I didn’t understand half of it ( my problem; no fault of the author)
....I did learn a ‘little’ .... simply by sticking to it.
Things I learned:
....Lulu likes fish.
....David Starr Jordon ( 1851-1931), was the founding president of Stanford University. I had no idea about this, prior to this book. He was an educator, scientist, biology teacher, peace activist, explorer, a taxonomist, and was especially known for being an ichthyologist...(a branch of zoology studying fish)
..... many schools around the country were named after David Starr Jordon.
....Lulu was interested in Jordan as a way of discovering what kept him motivated during a time when she was dealing with depression. And remember..: she liked fish -as much as Jordon liked fish.
....Jordon discovered about 20% of fish - their names and fish-characteristics.
....Jordon was an advocate for eugenics ( legal sterilization for the ‘feeble minded).... YUCKY!
Like I said, much of this book went over my head… I didn’t understand the the overall purpose... not ‘gut level experientially’, anyway.
It’s part biography, part philosophy, psychology, relationship driven, murder mystery, love story, mental health, fish details, memoir, and part coming of age.
Basically... I tried ( gave it my campers Girl Scout attention)
But....
... this book is simply a little weird and quirky. I wasn’t passionately connected.
I liked Lulu’s - audio-speaking voice ...but shame on me... I just wasn’t interested enough in Jordon.
His connection with the SF 1906 earthquake was a little thought-provoking...( his fish specimens came crashing down), but I’m still not sure what insights I was to have taken in.
I ‘was’ interested in Lulu’s personal life,
and loved her ‘love-story’ ending - where her happy self shines!
Overall....
I appreciated the few things I learned - and the author’s work, but it didn’t ‘wow’ me.
August 7, 2023
Trigger Warnings : Rape, Eugenics, Nazism, Forced Sterilization, Racism, Ableism, Childhood Incarceration. I probably missed some of them in my list but just know this covers a lot of hard to read topics.
I annotated and highlighted .... that's how much I loved this book.
I was tentative at times; I was only reading this in preparation for a convocation coming's up this fall for uni. However, this won me over in a somewhat disjointed but ultimately elegant blending of nonfiction (which I tend to hate)... a biography of David Starr Jordan and a memoir of the author herself.
Initially, as an aspiring anthropologist and a uni student, I kept thinking about all the contemporaries or predecessors of Jordan that would have been more interesting for me to read about like the more obvious taxonomist - Linnaeus. I didn't really care about the life story of someone who studied fish, however, Jordan's profession and focus didn't stop this narrative from exploring deep important philosophical and political beliefs that ran head long into ethical issues. In many ways, Jordan's inability to only focus on his fish pushed him headlong into one of America's most shameful "scientific" developments... eugenics.
My junior year of high school, I took AP Gov and we discussed required court cases that overturned or upheld prior precedent. The case from this book (Buck v. Bell) came up in our discussion of Roe v. Wade as a case that was somewhat overturned by Roe, which has been dealt a fatal blow this week (I tend to avoid politics on here because we're all here to read books, however, this framed my context by which I read this book). But to focus specifically,
To be honest, I thought this review would go in a different direction but I got to writing and this is what stuck with me. However, I will not leave this review having failed to discuss the interwoven memoir found here. At first, I was confused why the hell Miller found her muse/role model in an old white former President of Stanford who was obsessed with fish. But in truth, this wasn't a matter of having a role model but being able to find the positives of someone (the fish) and the failings (eugenics, etc.) that permeate everyone. Miller attempts to reconcile the nihilistic philosophy of her father and her own hope and depression for the future. In the process, she wrote a book that touched my soul and made me cry because it gave me hope... in the similarities of our siblings and our mutual identity as a bisexual woman. At 20 years old, this book reminds us to have a drive for the future but also to be realistic about the fact that life will be hard.
An unexpected 5 stars for the "fish" and the bis.
I annotated and highlighted .... that's how much I loved this book.
I was tentative at times; I was only reading this in preparation for a convocation coming's up this fall for uni. However, this won me over in a somewhat disjointed but ultimately elegant blending of nonfiction (which I tend to hate)... a biography of David Starr Jordan and a memoir of the author herself.
Initially, as an aspiring anthropologist and a uni student, I kept thinking about all the contemporaries or predecessors of Jordan that would have been more interesting for me to read about like the more obvious taxonomist - Linnaeus. I didn't really care about the life story of someone who studied fish, however, Jordan's profession and focus didn't stop this narrative from exploring deep important philosophical and political beliefs that ran head long into ethical issues. In many ways, Jordan's inability to only focus on his fish pushed him headlong into one of America's most shameful "scientific" developments... eugenics.
My junior year of high school, I took AP Gov and we discussed required court cases that overturned or upheld prior precedent. The case from this book (Buck v. Bell) came up in our discussion of Roe v. Wade as a case that was somewhat overturned by Roe, which has been dealt a fatal blow this week (I tend to avoid politics on here because we're all here to read books, however, this framed my context by which I read this book). But to focus specifically,
To be honest, I thought this review would go in a different direction but I got to writing and this is what stuck with me. However, I will not leave this review having failed to discuss the interwoven memoir found here. At first, I was confused why the hell Miller found her muse/role model in an old white former President of Stanford who was obsessed with fish. But in truth, this wasn't a matter of having a role model but being able to find the positives of someone (the fish) and the failings (eugenics, etc.) that permeate everyone. Miller attempts to reconcile the nihilistic philosophy of her father and her own hope and depression for the future. In the process, she wrote a book that touched my soul and made me cry because it gave me hope... in the similarities of our siblings and our mutual identity as a bisexual woman. At 20 years old, this book reminds us to have a drive for the future but also to be realistic about the fact that life will be hard.
An unexpected 5 stars for the "fish" and the bis.
May 3, 2023
This book gave hot mess without the hot part, saying that as kindly as I can! In Why Fish Don’t Exist, Lulu Miller writes about the life of David Starr Jordan, a taxonomist who she developed an obsessive interest with after a difficult time in her personal life. Unfortunately I found it difficult to immerse myself in this book because I found Miller’s writing style vague and melodramatic. To me, it gave the vibe of “this writing is intended to elicit big emotions from you” instead of letting the quality or concision of her writing do that for her. I also didn’t find her writing about David Starr Jordan fascinating at all. All the facts about him felt heavy-handed and uninteresting to me, and the message she intended to communicate through sharing about his life came across as too simplistic. I wish Miller had included more in-depth self-reflection in this book; for example, she writes early on about cheating on her romantic partner, yet I didn’t get a solid sense of why that happened, her internal landscape surrounding that choice aside from emotions of guilt, or what drew her to David Starr Jordan in the first place, aside from that he also experienced what could be called a tragedy.
Anyway, to avoid being too much of a Negative Nigel I also wanted to share some memoirs I loved and would recommend instead of this one in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Month! Though of course we should read books by people of color during all months. Here are some titles: Stay True by Hua Hsu, The Body Papers by Grace Talusan, Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran, Tastes Like War by Grace Cho, and House of Sticks by Ly Tran.
Anyway, to avoid being too much of a Negative Nigel I also wanted to share some memoirs I loved and would recommend instead of this one in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Month! Though of course we should read books by people of color during all months. Here are some titles: Stay True by Hua Hsu, The Body Papers by Grace Talusan, Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran, Tastes Like War by Grace Cho, and House of Sticks by Ly Tran.
January 15, 2026
This book made me feel everything. 🐠 Loved it!
👉 Click here to watch my Best Books of 2025 video. 📚🐛
“Maybe plunging along in complete denial of your doomed chances was not the mark of a fool but—it felt sinful to think it—a victor?”
Why Fish Don’t Exist is one of the most beautiful stories of perseverance I have ever read. It blends biography with memoir in the story of Lulu Miller navigating a rough time in her life via an obsession with a nineteenth century taxonomist. His name was David Starr Jordan and he’s remembered for having identified and catalogued approximately one fifth of the fish species known to humankind in his day.
But Jordan’s massive feat of cataloguing thousands of fish isn’t what drew Miller to him. It was the fact that during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, many of his bottle fish that had yet to be catalogued shattered. Within moments, his life’s work was destroyed.
While searching for meaning in her own life, Miller began researching Jordan, striving to better understand a man who could carry on even after the worse thing imaginable happened. She reveals her findings in this book, and conveys all of this information in the most compelling way possible.
The more she revealed about Jordan, the less I liked him. In fact, I was appalled to think that Miller would dedicate an entire book to this atrocious man. I was perturbed by the fact that she wasn’t openly condemning him. But then I realized: she was laying out all the facts and letting me decide for myself what to think.
By the end, Miller does weigh in with her thoughts. But in the interim, she explores what it’s like to have your hero become a villain. And she does this against the backdrop of a beautiful story about her falling for her partner.
I love how this book provoked so many questions while reading and made me feel every emotion possible. By its final pages, I was in tears.
I cannot recommend this exquisite book highly enough. Go read it!
ORIGINAL POST 👇
This strikes me as the outlier on the 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction longlist, and I'm 100% going to read it. 👀
👉 Click here to watch my Best Books of 2025 video. 📚🐛
“Maybe plunging along in complete denial of your doomed chances was not the mark of a fool but—it felt sinful to think it—a victor?”
Why Fish Don’t Exist is one of the most beautiful stories of perseverance I have ever read. It blends biography with memoir in the story of Lulu Miller navigating a rough time in her life via an obsession with a nineteenth century taxonomist. His name was David Starr Jordan and he’s remembered for having identified and catalogued approximately one fifth of the fish species known to humankind in his day.
But Jordan’s massive feat of cataloguing thousands of fish isn’t what drew Miller to him. It was the fact that during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, many of his bottle fish that had yet to be catalogued shattered. Within moments, his life’s work was destroyed.
While searching for meaning in her own life, Miller began researching Jordan, striving to better understand a man who could carry on even after the worse thing imaginable happened. She reveals her findings in this book, and conveys all of this information in the most compelling way possible.
The more she revealed about Jordan, the less I liked him. In fact, I was appalled to think that Miller would dedicate an entire book to this atrocious man. I was perturbed by the fact that she wasn’t openly condemning him. But then I realized: she was laying out all the facts and letting me decide for myself what to think.
By the end, Miller does weigh in with her thoughts. But in the interim, she explores what it’s like to have your hero become a villain. And she does this against the backdrop of a beautiful story about her falling for her partner.
I love how this book provoked so many questions while reading and made me feel every emotion possible. By its final pages, I was in tears.
I cannot recommend this exquisite book highly enough. Go read it!
ORIGINAL POST 👇
This strikes me as the outlier on the 2025 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction longlist, and I'm 100% going to read it. 👀
July 14, 2021
Absolutely wondrous.
June 25, 2020
Her life unraveling, a failed suicide attempt, and NPR reporter Lulu Miller finds herself searching for a way out of the chaos of her life. She becomes fascinated with David Starr Jordan, a taxidermist, who spent his life up to then, collecting and labeling fish. He traveled the world to find as many different examples, it was his life's work. A collection he would lose most of in the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. What fascinated Miller was that he didn't give up, he saved what he could, found a new, secure way of labeling and went on. How could a person be that optimistic?
She started researching his life and found more than she bargained for, Jordan was not quite the upstanding person she originally thought. Successful yes, he became the first President of Standford University. He suffered personal losses and continued on. He was though, a believer of eugenics, the pilot program for Hitler's final solution. Some startling information on this program and how long it lasted. He would also become embroiled in a murder mystery.
Part memoir, part biography, part a look at our past history, this was a well written and unusual story.
As far as why fish don't exist, you'll have to read and find the answer yourself.
ARC from Edelweiss.
She started researching his life and found more than she bargained for, Jordan was not quite the upstanding person she originally thought. Successful yes, he became the first President of Standford University. He suffered personal losses and continued on. He was though, a believer of eugenics, the pilot program for Hitler's final solution. Some startling information on this program and how long it lasted. He would also become embroiled in a murder mystery.
Part memoir, part biography, part a look at our past history, this was a well written and unusual story.
As far as why fish don't exist, you'll have to read and find the answer yourself.
ARC from Edelweiss.
May 17, 2021
When I give up the fish, I get, at long last, that thing I had been searching for: a mantra, a trick, a prescription for hope. I get the promise that there are good things in store. Not because I deserve them. Not because I worked for them. But because they are as much a part of Chaos as destruction and loss. Life, the flip side of death. Growth, of rot.Why Fish Don’t Exist is one part memoir, one part discussion of science and its history, and one part biography of David Starr Jordan. Jordan lived a rather remarkable life as a scientist and taxonomist who later became the first President of Stanford University. Yet during his life, he relentlessly overcame the personal losses of his brother, a wife, a daughter, and professional losses as his original records and sample collections were destroyed by a fire in the 1890s, and then destroyed again by the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.
After her personal life fell apart, the author Lulu Miller begins to research Mr. Jordan to try to understand how he persevered when all seemed lost. As you’d suspect, she finds her answer to how Jordan thrived. What was unexpected was that—at the end of this long search—she largely rejects his answer. While she agrees that his sense of grit and a little bit of positive illusions, i.e. self delusion, were beneficial, she concludes that Jordan’s answer involved a failure to appreciate that his acceptance of Darwinism required giving up his belief that humanity was at the top of a hierarchical ladder and, even worse, a belief in eugenics. Yikes.
Instead, she concludes that people should go on living no matter what because the history of science has shown again and again how little we understand about the world around us. Jordan spent his life cataloguing fish by evolutionary closeness, unwittingly setting in motion the realization among scientists that “fish” isn’t a legitimate category of creature at all.
Why Fish Don’t Exist is a quick read, enhanced by Ms. Miller’s light conversational writing style. Although occasionally treading on heavier subjects (Ms. Miller’s attempted suicide, and I didn’t even mention that Jordan may have gotten away with murder!), it is an optimistic book ultimately about finding hope in the darkness. Recommended, especially to people with an interest in science, but really to anyone going through a difficult time and looking for something hopeful.
April 19, 2020
For me, this book reads like a generous account of a problematic man, someone who doesn't seem to deserve the generosity bestowed on it by the ‘smitten biographer.’ Admittedly, the author does remark on the fraught legacy of her subject matter towards the end of her story in phrases like:
“That’s how his story ends. David Starr Jordan was allowed to emerge unscathed, unpunished for his sins, because this is the world in which we live. An uncaring world with no sense of cosmic justice encoded anywhere in its itchy, meaningless fabric.”
“The category “fish” doesn’t exist. That category of creature so precious to David, the one that he turned to in times of trouble, that he dedicated his life to seeing clearly, was never there at all” (wherein she highlights the cosmic justice of such an incident).
But these acknowledgements comes too late and are too little. I do understand that this book is part memoir and thus, the narrative unfolds as a personal struggle wherein the author tries to overcome her idealization of David Starr Jordan. But in my opinion, that ends up doing an injustice to the story, especially in the following areas: -
*Role in covering up a sex scandal*
When remarking about Jordan’s involvement in covering up a case of, at best, a sex scandal and, at worst, a possible sexual assault, we are given this glorious paragraph, “It had been Charley Gilbert’s fault. Good old Charley Gilbert. His student turned traveling companion turned chair of Stanford’s zoology department. Charley, long-healed from his hiking accident, long-married, had begun an affair with a young Stanford woman. He and the woman were discovered one day by a librarian, who came to David demanding that Charley be fired for such impropriety. But David did not want to lose Charley from his ranks—that “brilliant” taxonomic mind!—so David, thinking on his feet, threatened the librarian with “ incarceration in the insane asylum for sexual perversity” (often code for homosexuality) if he breathed a word of it to anyone else. That succeeded in shutting the librarian up—he quit Stanford, left town.”
The sheer number of problems with this paragraph! Firstly, absolving Jordan of any guilt by use of the phrase ‘It had been Charley Gilbert’s fault,’ and secondly, completely glossing over his misuse of power in this incident.
And this could possibly be justified if the book read as a dispassionate biography but it is NOT a dispassionate biography.
*Commenting on Jordan’s involvement in the Eugenics movements*
When the author first hint at Jordan’s underlying belief in Eugenic ideology it is through this paragraph- “Louis Agassiz, of course. The statue had actually been the Stanfords’ idea—they had long admired Agassiz’s teaching philosophies—but David was overjoyed. It didn’t seem to bother him that by the time the statue was commissioned, Agassiz’s image was anything but pure. Not only had Agassiz failed to accept the theory of evolution (the mark of a scientific fool by that point), but his faith in a natural hierarchy had empowered him to advance one of the most hateful and destructive fallacies in scientific history. Till his dying day, Agassiz was one of the country’s loudest proponents of the idea of polygenism—the belief that races are different species, and that black people, in particular, were subhuman. He lectured widely and forcefully on the topic. When consulted by the Lincoln administration during the Civil War, for example, he had given his opinion that blacks, if freed, should be segregated from whites, because they would never be able to live peacefully among them. Citing bunk measures and imaginary ranks, Agassiz asserted that black people were biologically “unfit” for civilization. It wasn’t their fault, he said, it was simply a matter of science: they were too “childlike” and “sensuous” and “playful” by nature. Too low on that immutable ladder of life.”
And then when Agassiz’s statue is tossed head first into the ground due to an earthquake, the author doesn’t remark on the poetic justice of the situation but instead remarks with lines like- “To me, there is no clearer message: Chaos reigns,” and “It is now that I would have given up. My prophet desecrated, my dream shattered, decades of persistence proved futile, I would have headed for the basement to give in, at long last, to the great temptation.”
When latter after 3/4th of the book is over and the author finally dedicates a chapter telling us that this belief in eugenics is wrong, personally, it rings hallow to me. Especially when in the very next chapter, we are offered these glorious paragraphs-
“Looking at the full spread of David’s emotional anatomy, the most obvious culprit seems to be that thick “shield of optimism” he was so proud to possess. He had “ a terrifying capacity for convincing himself that what he wanted was right,” writes scholar Luther Spoehr, who was struck by how David’s certainty in himself, his self-delusion and hardheadedness, only seemed to intensify over the years.”
AND
“Perhaps that group of psychologists had been right, the ones who warned that positive illusions can ferment into a vicious thing if left unchecked, capable of striking out against anything that stands in our way. But could that have explained all of it? How hard David was able to push his eugenics agenda, how far? Overconfidence, grit, and pride make a dangerous cocktail, surely, but they didn’t seem to fully account for how rabidly he devoted himself to the cause of genetic cleansing.”
As if all of this was not a result of prejudices marrying power and could be simply played off as justification of dangers of positive illusion. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT!?
“That’s how his story ends. David Starr Jordan was allowed to emerge unscathed, unpunished for his sins, because this is the world in which we live. An uncaring world with no sense of cosmic justice encoded anywhere in its itchy, meaningless fabric.”
“The category “fish” doesn’t exist. That category of creature so precious to David, the one that he turned to in times of trouble, that he dedicated his life to seeing clearly, was never there at all” (wherein she highlights the cosmic justice of such an incident).
But these acknowledgements comes too late and are too little. I do understand that this book is part memoir and thus, the narrative unfolds as a personal struggle wherein the author tries to overcome her idealization of David Starr Jordan. But in my opinion, that ends up doing an injustice to the story, especially in the following areas: -
*Role in covering up a sex scandal*
When remarking about Jordan’s involvement in covering up a case of, at best, a sex scandal and, at worst, a possible sexual assault, we are given this glorious paragraph, “It had been Charley Gilbert’s fault. Good old Charley Gilbert. His student turned traveling companion turned chair of Stanford’s zoology department. Charley, long-healed from his hiking accident, long-married, had begun an affair with a young Stanford woman. He and the woman were discovered one day by a librarian, who came to David demanding that Charley be fired for such impropriety. But David did not want to lose Charley from his ranks—that “brilliant” taxonomic mind!—so David, thinking on his feet, threatened the librarian with “ incarceration in the insane asylum for sexual perversity” (often code for homosexuality) if he breathed a word of it to anyone else. That succeeded in shutting the librarian up—he quit Stanford, left town.”
The sheer number of problems with this paragraph! Firstly, absolving Jordan of any guilt by use of the phrase ‘It had been Charley Gilbert’s fault,’ and secondly, completely glossing over his misuse of power in this incident.
And this could possibly be justified if the book read as a dispassionate biography but it is NOT a dispassionate biography.
*Commenting on Jordan’s involvement in the Eugenics movements*
When the author first hint at Jordan’s underlying belief in Eugenic ideology it is through this paragraph- “Louis Agassiz, of course. The statue had actually been the Stanfords’ idea—they had long admired Agassiz’s teaching philosophies—but David was overjoyed. It didn’t seem to bother him that by the time the statue was commissioned, Agassiz’s image was anything but pure. Not only had Agassiz failed to accept the theory of evolution (the mark of a scientific fool by that point), but his faith in a natural hierarchy had empowered him to advance one of the most hateful and destructive fallacies in scientific history. Till his dying day, Agassiz was one of the country’s loudest proponents of the idea of polygenism—the belief that races are different species, and that black people, in particular, were subhuman. He lectured widely and forcefully on the topic. When consulted by the Lincoln administration during the Civil War, for example, he had given his opinion that blacks, if freed, should be segregated from whites, because they would never be able to live peacefully among them. Citing bunk measures and imaginary ranks, Agassiz asserted that black people were biologically “unfit” for civilization. It wasn’t their fault, he said, it was simply a matter of science: they were too “childlike” and “sensuous” and “playful” by nature. Too low on that immutable ladder of life.”
And then when Agassiz’s statue is tossed head first into the ground due to an earthquake, the author doesn’t remark on the poetic justice of the situation but instead remarks with lines like- “To me, there is no clearer message: Chaos reigns,” and “It is now that I would have given up. My prophet desecrated, my dream shattered, decades of persistence proved futile, I would have headed for the basement to give in, at long last, to the great temptation.”
When latter after 3/4th of the book is over and the author finally dedicates a chapter telling us that this belief in eugenics is wrong, personally, it rings hallow to me. Especially when in the very next chapter, we are offered these glorious paragraphs-
“Looking at the full spread of David’s emotional anatomy, the most obvious culprit seems to be that thick “shield of optimism” he was so proud to possess. He had “ a terrifying capacity for convincing himself that what he wanted was right,” writes scholar Luther Spoehr, who was struck by how David’s certainty in himself, his self-delusion and hardheadedness, only seemed to intensify over the years.”
AND
“Perhaps that group of psychologists had been right, the ones who warned that positive illusions can ferment into a vicious thing if left unchecked, capable of striking out against anything that stands in our way. But could that have explained all of it? How hard David was able to push his eugenics agenda, how far? Overconfidence, grit, and pride make a dangerous cocktail, surely, but they didn’t seem to fully account for how rabidly he devoted himself to the cause of genetic cleansing.”
As if all of this was not a result of prejudices marrying power and could be simply played off as justification of dangers of positive illusion. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT!?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 1, 2021
"Chaos is the only sure thing in this world."
I am thankful I learned what this book is about before opening it, rather than just reading it based on the cover. I'd have been disappointed if I'd thought I was going to read a scientific book about fish - er.... non-fish? - and encountered details about the author's personal life and that of taxonomist David Starr Jordan. When I read a science book, I want scientific facts and scientific facts alone.
Why Fish Don't Exist isn't that. Instead, it is a brilliant medley of biography, memoir, science, history of eugenics, and philosophy of life.
Author Lulu Miller writes beautifully and passionately. She is at times witty, at others philosophical. This is her search for meaning in a universe without meaning, in a universe ruled by chaos.
She explores the life of David Starr Jordan, a taxonomist who is credited with discovering over 2,500 species of fish (though we also learn that he himself did not do much of the work, or even discovered them himself. Rather, he accepted credit that should have gone to people, mostly minorities, he had working for him).
As she learns more about this man whom she almost seems obsessed with, Ms Miller realizes he is not the perfect scientist and man she thought him to be. Instead, he was a top leader of the eugenics movement in the US and possibly a murderer.
Ms Miller discusses how what we think is true isn't always so. For instance, we humans have categorized most of the creatures living in the sea as fish and we now know that, scientifically, fish don't exist!
I won't tell you why. If you're curious, you should pick this book up for yourself. It is fascinating and fun to read.
I am thankful I learned what this book is about before opening it, rather than just reading it based on the cover. I'd have been disappointed if I'd thought I was going to read a scientific book about fish - er.... non-fish? - and encountered details about the author's personal life and that of taxonomist David Starr Jordan. When I read a science book, I want scientific facts and scientific facts alone.
Why Fish Don't Exist isn't that. Instead, it is a brilliant medley of biography, memoir, science, history of eugenics, and philosophy of life.
Author Lulu Miller writes beautifully and passionately. She is at times witty, at others philosophical. This is her search for meaning in a universe without meaning, in a universe ruled by chaos.
She explores the life of David Starr Jordan, a taxonomist who is credited with discovering over 2,500 species of fish (though we also learn that he himself did not do much of the work, or even discovered them himself. Rather, he accepted credit that should have gone to people, mostly minorities, he had working for him).
As she learns more about this man whom she almost seems obsessed with, Ms Miller realizes he is not the perfect scientist and man she thought him to be. Instead, he was a top leader of the eugenics movement in the US and possibly a murderer.
Ms Miller discusses how what we think is true isn't always so. For instance, we humans have categorized most of the creatures living in the sea as fish and we now know that, scientifically, fish don't exist!
I won't tell you why. If you're curious, you should pick this book up for yourself. It is fascinating and fun to read.
November 22, 2020
This is a self-indulgent, overly sentimental exploration of the life of an extremely distasteful man through the lens of a very boring memoir.
Despite the fact that the author is a science journalist, this writing reminds of me of the melodramatic, self-indulgent writing one encounters in a first-year college writing workshop.
The premise of the book is that the author got dumped when she cheated on her partner so she became obsessed with her hero, a narcissistic eugenicist who very likely murdered someone. I think the point of the book was supposed to be that you can’t idolize someone because they’ll let you down? Or maybe that you need to let go of society’s categories and expectations? It’s unclear.
Nevertheless, it’s obvious early on that her hero is terrible despite the excuses she makes until two thirds through when she reveals he’s the father of American eugenics and she finally accepts he’s not so great. And then resultingly comes to accept her sexual orientation and marries a woman? The parallels she draws to her own life throughout are bizarre.
The last chapter was interesting, the only real science in the entire book and the source of the title, but felt tacked on and would have been better if not attached to the rest of the narrative.
I rolled my eyes heavily through this book. Two thumbs down.
Despite the fact that the author is a science journalist, this writing reminds of me of the melodramatic, self-indulgent writing one encounters in a first-year college writing workshop.
The premise of the book is that the author got dumped when she cheated on her partner so she became obsessed with her hero, a narcissistic eugenicist who very likely murdered someone. I think the point of the book was supposed to be that you can’t idolize someone because they’ll let you down? Or maybe that you need to let go of society’s categories and expectations? It’s unclear.
Nevertheless, it’s obvious early on that her hero is terrible despite the excuses she makes until two thirds through when she reveals he’s the father of American eugenics and she finally accepts he’s not so great. And then resultingly comes to accept her sexual orientation and marries a woman? The parallels she draws to her own life throughout are bizarre.
The last chapter was interesting, the only real science in the entire book and the source of the title, but felt tacked on and would have been better if not attached to the rest of the narrative.
I rolled my eyes heavily through this book. Two thumbs down.
April 9, 2020
On the surface, Why Fish Don’t Exist is a biography of David Starr Jordan, a taxonomist who discovered and named about 20% of the fish known to man. Miller highlights his entire life: from naming stars to naming fish. Jordan was a revolutionary. That’s not to say he did not have his flaws—he had MANY. He was an early proponent of eugenics and encouraged the government to enact legislation that would allow for the legal sterilization of individuals deemed “unfit.” I’m not sure about you, but I didn’t know the US practiced eugenics before Hitler got the idea. He also may have murdered the founding mother of Stanford University, so you know, there’s that.
Remember when I said this book was a biography of David Starr Jordan? Yeah, that’s not all. It’s Miller’s memoir. It’s a reckoning with chaos. It’s a pondering of the meaning of life. David Starr Jordan’s entire life was dedicated to bringing order to the chaos of the world. Miller explains that she found Jordan during a particularly tough time in her life. She was drawn to this man who made sense of the chaos. She needed to know her chaos could be sorted. We’ve all been there; it feels like everything is falling around you and you’re forced to just sit and watch the destruction and all you want is to know you’ll make it out the other side. Eventually, Miller finds that organizing the world feels productive, but small boxes hide beauty. Taming the chaos leads to hidden complexity, dangerous practices (like eugenics), and missed opportunities. Why Fish Don’t Exist is a biography, a memoir, and a coming of age story. It is a beautiful treatise to letting go of our boxes and embracing the chaos.
Remember when I said this book was a biography of David Starr Jordan? Yeah, that’s not all. It’s Miller’s memoir. It’s a reckoning with chaos. It’s a pondering of the meaning of life. David Starr Jordan’s entire life was dedicated to bringing order to the chaos of the world. Miller explains that she found Jordan during a particularly tough time in her life. She was drawn to this man who made sense of the chaos. She needed to know her chaos could be sorted. We’ve all been there; it feels like everything is falling around you and you’re forced to just sit and watch the destruction and all you want is to know you’ll make it out the other side. Eventually, Miller finds that organizing the world feels productive, but small boxes hide beauty. Taming the chaos leads to hidden complexity, dangerous practices (like eugenics), and missed opportunities. Why Fish Don’t Exist is a biography, a memoir, and a coming of age story. It is a beautiful treatise to letting go of our boxes and embracing the chaos.
September 24, 2022
Genuinely one of the best books I ever read. It’s about the power of words, and the danger that power has to minimize and limit our view of the world. It’s about science, and how we can only move forward if we keep doubting everything we think we know. It’s about humans, and how we will miss so many great things around us as long as we will keep viewing ourselves as a superior species. Most of all, it’s about love and the beauty we can find in the Chaos this world has to offer us.
March 25, 2020
When I first opened this book, I was expecting more of a biography on the life and studies of taxonomist and former Stanford University President David Starr Jordan. His work in classifying fish was groundbreaking in his day, marred by the destruction of many of his exhibits in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Once I began reading, I discovered much more. There were many details about David Starr Jordan and his work, at times perhaps more than I would have liked. However, the details were given in the context of the author’s own unraveling world. Indeed, she says she started the book seeking answers to her own bouts of depression. She had heard the story of Jordan and wondered what kept him motivated, what caused him to start again in the face of scientific devastation? She outlines some of the situations which created her own emotional turmoil and her hopes for what she would find by studying Jordan’s efforts.
In the middle of the book, the book becomes more of a memoir. Her own experiences of love, loss, and eventually, love again. Her bouts with depression, questions of what contributed to it, and how she might overcome it. In the process of examining her own life and it’s turn around, the book morphs again into a possible self-help type guide where someone inclined might find inspiration to move forward in their own life.
This was an interesting book, and one I would recommend to any reader looking for something complex or a little different. The research Miller conducted in order to write details of Jordan’s life was extensive and there are pages upon pages of references for anyone who is interested in using it or others she details to write a research based paper. There is also some intrigue offered, particularly into the death of Stanford’s co-founder Jane Stanford, in case the reader is looking for a little mystery. While at times I wanted to put the book down for a while, becoming overwhelmed with data, it wasn’t long before I found myself picking it back up again, wondering where it was going to go next.
My thanks to Simon and Schuster Publishers and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an objective review.
Once I began reading, I discovered much more. There were many details about David Starr Jordan and his work, at times perhaps more than I would have liked. However, the details were given in the context of the author’s own unraveling world. Indeed, she says she started the book seeking answers to her own bouts of depression. She had heard the story of Jordan and wondered what kept him motivated, what caused him to start again in the face of scientific devastation? She outlines some of the situations which created her own emotional turmoil and her hopes for what she would find by studying Jordan’s efforts.
In the middle of the book, the book becomes more of a memoir. Her own experiences of love, loss, and eventually, love again. Her bouts with depression, questions of what contributed to it, and how she might overcome it. In the process of examining her own life and it’s turn around, the book morphs again into a possible self-help type guide where someone inclined might find inspiration to move forward in their own life.
This was an interesting book, and one I would recommend to any reader looking for something complex or a little different. The research Miller conducted in order to write details of Jordan’s life was extensive and there are pages upon pages of references for anyone who is interested in using it or others she details to write a research based paper. There is also some intrigue offered, particularly into the death of Stanford’s co-founder Jane Stanford, in case the reader is looking for a little mystery. While at times I wanted to put the book down for a while, becoming overwhelmed with data, it wasn’t long before I found myself picking it back up again, wondering where it was going to go next.
My thanks to Simon and Schuster Publishers and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an objective review.
June 24, 2020
Words cannot express how much I hated this book. The author seems tone deaf to every marginalized community that exists, and it's infuriating. Her personal story line made me empathetic at first, and then it just pissed me off. I've never thrown a book out as soon as I finished it, but here we are. That being said, if you're white and able-bodied, you might enjoy it. My one star is for my new knowledge of "fish" not existing. I did like that part.
January 7, 2022
This book is a memoir. As an inspiration, the author focuses on naturalist David Starr Jordan, who was a world expert on fish. She admired his grit and determination and the success in his field. He was also the President of Stanford and a suspect in the murder, by poison, of Jane Stanford, wife of Leland. He did have a grudge against Jane, given that she threatened to fire him. Her death was timely in that regard. But the author only discovered belatedly that David Starr Jordan was the founder of the American eugenics society, something I've been aware for a long time.
Someone who knew Jordan well said: "he had a terrifying capacity for convincing himself that what he wanted was right." This became a problem when he misinterpreted Darwin. He believed in something he called "degeneration"
"He believed immobile creatures like sea squirts and barnacles had once been higher forms of fish and crabs but had “degenerated” back into lazier, weaker, less complex, less intelligent forms of life, as a result of acquiring resources parasitically. More broadly, he believed that any kind of long-term aid to a creature would result in its eventual physical and cognitive decline. He called this misunderstanding of how nature works “animal pauperism.” So he would alert the public to the dangers of charity, causing, as he believed it did, “the survival of the unfittest.” And recommend the extermination of these “crétins” as the only way to prevent against a worldwide “decay” of the human race."
One Albert Priddy took Jordan at his word.
"Priddy was the slick-haired doctor in charge of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, in Lynchburg, Virginia. He was a zealous eugenicist, known for having sterilized women for being “man-crazy,” having “wanderlust,” telling “coarse stories,” and even passing notes in class. In 1917, he had been sued by a man named George Mallory for sterilizing his wife and daughter while Mallory had been traveling for work. Dr. Priddy’s justification? That a house full of women with no man in charge must have been a brothel."
In 2007, a historian from the University of Michigan, Alexandra Minna Stern, discovered a set of microfilm reels in an old file cabinet in a government office in Sacramento. On them was a sort of eugenics registry— the names and demographic information of every person sterilized in David Starr Jordan’s adopted home of California from 1919 to 1952. The list was nearly 20,000 people long.
Stern spent years analyzing the records with a team, and together they’ve been able to fill in the picture of what “unfit” really meant, what kinds of people lived inside that category. As Stern writes, those deemed unfit were “often were young women pronounced promiscuous; the sons and daughters of Mexican, Italian, and Japanese immigrants… and men and women who transgressed sexual norms.” Other studies have shown how women of color were disproportionately targeted for sterilization. The US government has admitted to forcefully sterilizing over 2,500 Native American women in the early 1970s. The Eugenics Board of North Carolina sought out and sterilized hundreds of black women during the 1960s and 1970s. And approximately a third of all Puerto Rican women were sterilized by the US government between 1933 and 1968.
The reality is that nearly half of the states still allow for involuntary sterilization of people deemed unfit, only now they use words like “mentally incompetent” or “mentally deficient.” Meanwhile, forced sterilization continues to be performed in the “quiet way” all over the country. Much of it remains undocumented and hard to catch— coercive sterilizations in low-income hospitals, meth clinics, prisons, institutions for people with disabilities, and beyond— but big cases come to light every few years. Over the period of 2006 to 2010, for example, nearly 150 women were illegally sterilized in California prisons, without the women’s consent and occasionally without their knowledge.
Jordan's Eugenics program had a direct effect on the Nazis, who executed on his ideas. This aspect is covered much better in this article than in the book...
https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/articl...
============
How the program continued in California prisons....
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...
========
Information on a documentary about....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbbFo...
======
A companion volume of sorts. The author does not say so in the book, but he did say publicly he thought Jordan was guilty.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Someone who knew Jordan well said: "he had a terrifying capacity for convincing himself that what he wanted was right." This became a problem when he misinterpreted Darwin. He believed in something he called "degeneration"
"He believed immobile creatures like sea squirts and barnacles had once been higher forms of fish and crabs but had “degenerated” back into lazier, weaker, less complex, less intelligent forms of life, as a result of acquiring resources parasitically. More broadly, he believed that any kind of long-term aid to a creature would result in its eventual physical and cognitive decline. He called this misunderstanding of how nature works “animal pauperism.” So he would alert the public to the dangers of charity, causing, as he believed it did, “the survival of the unfittest.” And recommend the extermination of these “crétins” as the only way to prevent against a worldwide “decay” of the human race."
One Albert Priddy took Jordan at his word.
"Priddy was the slick-haired doctor in charge of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, in Lynchburg, Virginia. He was a zealous eugenicist, known for having sterilized women for being “man-crazy,” having “wanderlust,” telling “coarse stories,” and even passing notes in class. In 1917, he had been sued by a man named George Mallory for sterilizing his wife and daughter while Mallory had been traveling for work. Dr. Priddy’s justification? That a house full of women with no man in charge must have been a brothel."
In 2007, a historian from the University of Michigan, Alexandra Minna Stern, discovered a set of microfilm reels in an old file cabinet in a government office in Sacramento. On them was a sort of eugenics registry— the names and demographic information of every person sterilized in David Starr Jordan’s adopted home of California from 1919 to 1952. The list was nearly 20,000 people long.
Stern spent years analyzing the records with a team, and together they’ve been able to fill in the picture of what “unfit” really meant, what kinds of people lived inside that category. As Stern writes, those deemed unfit were “often were young women pronounced promiscuous; the sons and daughters of Mexican, Italian, and Japanese immigrants… and men and women who transgressed sexual norms.” Other studies have shown how women of color were disproportionately targeted for sterilization. The US government has admitted to forcefully sterilizing over 2,500 Native American women in the early 1970s. The Eugenics Board of North Carolina sought out and sterilized hundreds of black women during the 1960s and 1970s. And approximately a third of all Puerto Rican women were sterilized by the US government between 1933 and 1968.
The reality is that nearly half of the states still allow for involuntary sterilization of people deemed unfit, only now they use words like “mentally incompetent” or “mentally deficient.” Meanwhile, forced sterilization continues to be performed in the “quiet way” all over the country. Much of it remains undocumented and hard to catch— coercive sterilizations in low-income hospitals, meth clinics, prisons, institutions for people with disabilities, and beyond— but big cases come to light every few years. Over the period of 2006 to 2010, for example, nearly 150 women were illegally sterilized in California prisons, without the women’s consent and occasionally without their knowledge.
Jordan's Eugenics program had a direct effect on the Nazis, who executed on his ideas. This aspect is covered much better in this article than in the book...
https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/articl...
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How the program continued in California prisons....
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...
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Information on a documentary about....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbbFo...
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A companion volume of sorts. The author does not say so in the book, but he did say publicly he thought Jordan was guilty.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
May 21, 2020
just read it bro
January 10, 2023
It's weird to read memoirs by people who aren't famous or at least well known to me. So why did I pick this one up? It was a recommendation from one of the librarians at a local branch whom I'd gotten to know a little over the past couple of months. We've been trading recommendations back and forth, and so far, it's been an interesting reading experiment. Not all were hits, but they got me out of many slumps when I couldn't read. Anything. At all.
What made me give this memoir a try, out of several on the librarian's list, was how she said it helped her deal with the aftermath of 2020 and then it helped her through the rest of 2021.
Memoirs don't have quite the same effect on me as fiction, or more specifically genre fiction, but I wanted to give this memoir a try because of what the librarian said--that it helped her.
* * * * *
Unfortunate update re: David Starr Jordan
This is one of those books that, in my humble opinion, should come with a content warning because one of the main subjects of the book (Jordan, not the author Lulu Miller) is a eugenicist who proudly supported segregation and racial purity. He was fairly well known back in his day too, for that and for being the founding president of Stanford University. Not sure if these two things are mutually exclusive though.
Anyway. I'm on the fence when it comes to trigger and content warnings, and I see the value of all sides of this ongoing discussion. But. Where I stand now, right at this moment, is all memoirs featuring a known eugenicist in this capacity should be upfront about said eugenicist on the cover or title or intro or notes or whatever. Put it right where people can see at a glance and let them decide if they want to read further. Don't hide it deep in the text and spring it on me when I'm just reading along and minding my own business.
I don't hold it against the librarian who recommended this memoir to me because the memoir itself is not about who David Starr Jordan was. It's about losing one's life's work, not once but twice, and having to rebuild from the ground up with your bare hands which was what happened to Jordan. His extensive collection of fish specimens and documents were destroyed in two separate fires, and he had had to rebuild it each time. The point of this memoir, I think, is where do you find the strength and energy to do that, instead of giving up and abandoning it all to the fires.
But knowing who Jordan was and what his life's other works were about... really does color one's opinion of him and this memoir. I can't separate him from that... other thing.
It's ironic to me that a fish biologist is a eugenicist because... OK, fine... it's fucking hilarious, but only in relation to this memoir and why Miller was drawn to him and his work with fish.
* * * * *
I have not finished this book, and unlike the other book I'm still hanging onto, I don't know if I'll ever finish reading this book. Stalled really hard, like full stop almost pitched forward in my seat stalled, when the eugenicist thing was revealed.
I do like Lulu Miller's writing though, and the memoir itself, minus the parts featuring the eugenicist, is good. A really engaging read with major caveats. However, I don't think it's good enough to recommend to anyone I know even if I think they might like it for the fish stuff or the research stuff or the mending your life after big upheavals stuff. Too bad, really.
* * * * *
I'm finding it increasingly difficult to finish this book, especially in light of everything going on right now. The last thing I want to do right now at the end of the day is return to a book (or anything, really) that features a eugenicist so prominently and written in such a trite, callous manner.
This is the last time I try a memoir by someone I'm not familiar with. Lesson learned.
What made me give this memoir a try, out of several on the librarian's list, was how she said it helped her deal with the aftermath of 2020 and then it helped her through the rest of 2021.
Memoirs don't have quite the same effect on me as fiction, or more specifically genre fiction, but I wanted to give this memoir a try because of what the librarian said--that it helped her.
* * * * *
Unfortunate update re: David Starr Jordan
This is one of those books that, in my humble opinion, should come with a content warning because one of the main subjects of the book (Jordan, not the author Lulu Miller) is a eugenicist who proudly supported segregation and racial purity. He was fairly well known back in his day too, for that and for being the founding president of Stanford University. Not sure if these two things are mutually exclusive though.
Anyway. I'm on the fence when it comes to trigger and content warnings, and I see the value of all sides of this ongoing discussion. But. Where I stand now, right at this moment, is all memoirs featuring a known eugenicist in this capacity should be upfront about said eugenicist on the cover or title or intro or notes or whatever. Put it right where people can see at a glance and let them decide if they want to read further. Don't hide it deep in the text and spring it on me when I'm just reading along and minding my own business.
I don't hold it against the librarian who recommended this memoir to me because the memoir itself is not about who David Starr Jordan was. It's about losing one's life's work, not once but twice, and having to rebuild from the ground up with your bare hands which was what happened to Jordan. His extensive collection of fish specimens and documents were destroyed in two separate fires, and he had had to rebuild it each time. The point of this memoir, I think, is where do you find the strength and energy to do that, instead of giving up and abandoning it all to the fires.
But knowing who Jordan was and what his life's other works were about... really does color one's opinion of him and this memoir. I can't separate him from that... other thing.
It's ironic to me that a fish biologist is a eugenicist because... OK, fine... it's fucking hilarious, but only in relation to this memoir and why Miller was drawn to him and his work with fish.
* * * * *
I have not finished this book, and unlike the other book I'm still hanging onto, I don't know if I'll ever finish reading this book. Stalled really hard, like full stop almost pitched forward in my seat stalled, when the eugenicist thing was revealed.
I do like Lulu Miller's writing though, and the memoir itself, minus the parts featuring the eugenicist, is good. A really engaging read with major caveats. However, I don't think it's good enough to recommend to anyone I know even if I think they might like it for the fish stuff or the research stuff or the mending your life after big upheavals stuff. Too bad, really.
* * * * *
I'm finding it increasingly difficult to finish this book, especially in light of everything going on right now. The last thing I want to do right now at the end of the day is return to a book (or anything, really) that features a eugenicist so prominently and written in such a trite, callous manner.
This is the last time I try a memoir by someone I'm not familiar with. Lesson learned.
April 18, 2020
“When I give up the fish, I get, at long last, that thing I had been searching for: a mantra, a trick, a prescription for hope. I get the promise that there are good things in store. Not because I deserve them. Not because I worked for them. But because they are as much a part of Chaos as destruction and loss. Life, the flip side of death. Growth, of rot.”
Incandescent! I read ravenously; Lulu Miller’s winsome prose is addictive. The complicated story of scientist David Starr Jordan merges with Miller’s own life and years of grappling with Chaos. As anyone who has listened to her radio work knows, she is a reporter and writer with seemingly infinite stores of empathy and creativity, and all of her gifts are on display in this remarkable book. Highly recommended.
March 3, 2026
This book opens by asking you to picture the person you love most relaxing on the couch, rambling about their day, and then hits you with: “Chaos will get them. With a falling branch, a speeding car, a bullet.”
Okay. 👀 You've got my attention.
Then it follows up with telling you chaos will “rot your plants and kill your dog and rust your bike” because chaos is the only sure thing we have.
Alright, we're going dark. Love it.
From there we switch to a story about David Starr Jordan, a dude obsessed with cataloguing all the fish. Love that for him. It sounds niche, but it’s weirdly gripping. I’m sucked in, scrolling through species in my brain like it’s a never-ending Instagram feed of fish.
Then the book pivots again. It morphs into something much more personal and philosophical. The author weaves in her own struggles with depression and her search for meaning, and suddenly the fish aren’t just fish, they’re our desperate attempts to impose order on a universe that laughs in our faces. How we try to control chaos and make sense of the nonsense.
Just when I’d settle into one thread, we're back to the fish cataloguing like we're in Animal Crossing aggressively trying to fill the museum for Blathers, and I'm not mad about it. It works.
Then another twist. The ending reframes everything that came before it, forcing you to reconsider Jordan, the man, the myth, the ichthyologist. He's a resilient, brilliant scientist, sure, but also a deeply flawed figure whose involvement in eugenics complicates any admiration.
The structure's nonlinear and sometimes messy. Occasionally, the prose borders on melodramatic, and it can be a little heavy-handed. It's not a straightforward scientific history; it’s part memoir, part biography, part philosophical meditation, and it refuses to sit neatly in any one category, which is the point.
Okay. 👀 You've got my attention.
Then it follows up with telling you chaos will “rot your plants and kill your dog and rust your bike” because chaos is the only sure thing we have.
Alright, we're going dark. Love it.
From there we switch to a story about David Starr Jordan, a dude obsessed with cataloguing all the fish. Love that for him. It sounds niche, but it’s weirdly gripping. I’m sucked in, scrolling through species in my brain like it’s a never-ending Instagram feed of fish.
Then the book pivots again. It morphs into something much more personal and philosophical. The author weaves in her own struggles with depression and her search for meaning, and suddenly the fish aren’t just fish, they’re our desperate attempts to impose order on a universe that laughs in our faces. How we try to control chaos and make sense of the nonsense.
Just when I’d settle into one thread, we're back to the fish cataloguing like we're in Animal Crossing aggressively trying to fill the museum for Blathers, and I'm not mad about it. It works.
Then another twist. The ending reframes everything that came before it, forcing you to reconsider Jordan, the man, the myth, the ichthyologist. He's a resilient, brilliant scientist, sure, but also a deeply flawed figure whose involvement in eugenics complicates any admiration.
The structure's nonlinear and sometimes messy. Occasionally, the prose borders on melodramatic, and it can be a little heavy-handed. It's not a straightforward scientific history; it’s part memoir, part biography, part philosophical meditation, and it refuses to sit neatly in any one category, which is the point.
February 14, 2026
despite the title, there are a lot of fish in this book
on a more serious note, this book actually made me cry. it tore me apart to think that such an endearing, talented person could go to such cruelty as to decide who is "fit" enough to deserve to live. lulu took me on a journey from the story of one complicated person to the horror of eugenics
this book will make u smile, will make u audibly gasp, will make u cry, will make u want to throw up, will make u want to scream
pls read this!!! it is not for the faint-hearted, but it will change your life perspective
on a more serious note, this book actually made me cry. it tore me apart to think that such an endearing, talented person could go to such cruelty as to decide who is "fit" enough to deserve to live. lulu took me on a journey from the story of one complicated person to the horror of eugenics
this book will make u smile, will make u audibly gasp, will make u cry, will make u want to throw up, will make u want to scream
pls read this!!! it is not for the faint-hearted, but it will change your life perspective
August 8, 2020
Gave up halfway. This might have worked as an hourlong episode of Radiolab, packed with forced scientific wonder and self-indulgent millennial quirkiness, but falls utterly flat on the printed page. Desperately needed surgical editing. Especially for sentence fragments.
November 5, 2022
A wonderful blend of science, history and memoir. The audiobook was incredible (and only 5 hours!). Cannot recommend this one enough, to pretty much any and all readers!
August 29, 2022
5 stars, I'd give it 10 stars. A book even as I finish it I know I will never forget. One I just want to inhale and have much of what I read become part of my own DNA. Had to buy the book so I can look back at it at my leisure whenever I feel my own self taking the natural world around me for granted. This is a book about: a woman looking for life's meaning, as scientist in the early 20th century looking to name and order the natural world, a world renown university, its beginnings and its unsolved mystery, a book about finding unexpected love and so much more. In its 195 pages it is so much more than all those things. I've often wondered how man thought about the world in the time before language, how they wondered at all around them without having names to apply to everything. We who are so full of words and names that it is hard, impossible in this day and age to even try in our futile way to have a grasp of the constant information given to us in words. Now when we hear continuously to follow the science. This was a breath of fresh air
"The work of science is to peer beyond the "convenient" lines we draw over nature. To peer beyond intuition, where something wilder lives. To know that in every organism at which you gaze, is a complexity you will never comprehend."
This is true for the labels we give to others as well as the forms of nature all around us.
"...the idea that once you name something, you tend to stop looking at it."
This is such a good book, one I hope many will read. I know without a doubt that it will hold up as a favorite of mine.
Thanks to my BookTube friends for this recommendation.
"The work of science is to peer beyond the "convenient" lines we draw over nature. To peer beyond intuition, where something wilder lives. To know that in every organism at which you gaze, is a complexity you will never comprehend."
This is true for the labels we give to others as well as the forms of nature all around us.
"...the idea that once you name something, you tend to stop looking at it."
This is such a good book, one I hope many will read. I know without a doubt that it will hold up as a favorite of mine.
Thanks to my BookTube friends for this recommendation.
April 22, 2021
this is exactly the kind of narcissistic drivel someone who cheats on their boyfriend and blames it on chaos would write. read this book if finding out your personal hero was a hugely influential racist eugenicist who is still widely revered today and then making it all about your personal struggles and 'oh lol life is a learning journey #chaotic' sounds like your kinda thing.
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