Author: Richard Adams Carey
Publisher: RUNNING PRESS, Mar 2006
Binding: Softcover
ISBN: 1-58243-352-6
Synopsis
From the acclaimed eco-journalist Rick Carey, a fascinating chronicle of a fast-disappearing fish - & of the people whose lives & livelihoods depend on it. 5.5x9 inches, 352 pgs.
More Information
Armed with a novelist's eye for human eccentricity & an investigator's nose for trouble, Carey takes us on an illuminating journey across the globe to uncover the secrets of the sturgeon. On that trek we meet the fascinating real-life characters both profiting from its scarcity & fighting to save it.
Since the days of the Persian Empire, caviar has trumpeted status, wealth, prestige, and sex appeal. Today it goes for up to one hundred dollars an ounce, and aficionados will go to extraordinary lengths to get their fill of it. According to acclaimed writer Richard Adams Carey, that's just the problem. In this spectacular jaunt, Carey immerses himself in the world of sturgeon, the fish that lays these golden eggs. What he finds is disturbing: Sturgeon populations worldwide have declined 70 percent in the last twenty years, most drastically in the Caspian Sea. The beluga sturgeon, producer of the most coveted caviar, has climbed to number four on the World Wildlife Fund's most-endangered species list.
A high-stakes cocktail of business, diplomacy, technology, and espionage, The Philosopher Fish is, at its heart, the epic story of a 250-million-year-old fish struggling to survive.
WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING:
"A wild upstream adventure." - New York Post
"Hard to imagine that a story about fish eggs could be 'fast paced', not to mention prophetic. But this piece of environmental journalism is both...It's a book about America in microcosm... Caviar, it turns out, is not just tasty. In Carey's hands, it's luminous." - Kirkus Reviews
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Richard Adams Carey was born in Connecticut & educated at Harvard College. After his graduation he went to work in a northwestern sawmill, and he has since divided his time betwseen Alaska & New England. Carey lives with his family in North Sandwich, New Hampshire, and works at the Holderness School.
