Review by New York Times Review
If a global coalition of fish decides it needs the services of a publicist, it may want to look into hiring Scales. A marine biologist and avid surfer and diver, Scales has an encyclopedic knowledge of fish; she can move from discussing a species that went extinct 66 million years ago to describing a new sunfish discovered last year - and she wants readers to share her zeal. Plus, it might be hard to resist the entreaties of a fish flack named Scales. She would probably be quite effective. In "Eye of the Shoal," though, she's somewhat less so. The book unfolds into a sprawling, ambitious underwater journey, exploring everything from poisonous fish to shoal formation to fish coloration. The scientific explanations are shot through with descriptions of her own diving experiences: "Stripes of inky blue and ripe banana-yellow run across the fish in front of me; its eyes are hidden beneath a black mask, like a gem thief," she writes of encountering an emperor angelfish. Though the book is studded with fascinating tidbits - like how a sardine decides to join its school and determine its position there - it's crammed with so much information that it can be curiously dense and plodding. Some of Scales's most gripping material comes in the later pages as she explores the sonic side of things (far from silent, fish can kick up quite a racket), fish cognition and the debate over their ability to feel pain.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
Fish watching is not as easy, or as popular, as bird-watching. To identify fish in the wild, enthusiasts must be able to see into or through given water habitats, and even then, finding the fish can be difficult. Despite the challenges, people travel the world to visit coral reefs, lagoons, and other fish hot spots, often donning snorkeling or scuba gear to join the fishes. According to marine-biologist Scales, the effort is well rewarded, for there are many beautiful fish to see. In her new book, she recounts some of her own experiences and introduces readers to many families of fish, from tiny guppies to large sharks. Readers learn about fish anatomy, coloration, diet, breeding, and communication, and Scales presents evidence that fish feel pain and fear, solve problems, and even use tools. As an advocate for conservation and ethical treatment of fish, she reminds us that we all descend from fish and that our planet needs them. Recommended for public library zoological collections.--Rick Roche Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Popular science books don't get much better than this accessible and eye-opening look at fish by marine biologist Scales (Spirals in Time). She peppers her prose with amusing asides, in keeping with the book's Douglas Adamsesque subtitle, and snapshots of unusual behavior and characteristics (such as the Amazon's Splash Tetra, whose eggs are laid on a leaf overhanging the river, requiring the father to splash them once every minute for two days to keep them moist). But this is much more than just an aquatic safari to peek at oddities; Scales provides the history of relevant zoological classifications, which initially grouped marine mammals along with fish, and the fascinating history of the scientists who studied fish, such as the 17th century English naturalist whose De Historia Piscium took away funding from Isaac Newton's work. The most fascinating sections provide insights into the complex ways fish use color, including communicating with each other using "secret graffiti," and into the dynamics of fish schools. Her vivid descriptions of the animals described-"a Moorish Idol hunches in a small cave, indistinct and grey, like a poorly developed image of itself"-skillfully supplement the illustrations. Fans of David Attenborough's nature documentaries will find this a worthy prose equivalent. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
"The world's watersfresh and salty, shallow and deepare teeming with remarkable species" of fish. Marine biologist Scales (Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells, 2015, etc.) introduces readers to a remarkable array.The author has a canny approach to bringing fish to life on the page: Start with something a little fantasticbioluminescence, for instance, or toxic fishand then use that as a jumping-off point to build familiarity with other, less dramatic denizens of the deep. Scales opens and closes with chapters on the history of contemporary fish and ancient fish, but the meat of the book are the chapters in the middle, in which the author provides unhurried, lucid tours through fish colors, luminescence, shoaling, foods, and poisonous fish, among other topics. Some of the information reads like an episode of Ripley's Believe It or Not"the most dangerous venomous fish are probably the stonefish, a family that disguise themselves as weedy rocks. One in particular, the Rough Stonefish, also known as the Warty Ghoul, has a row of 13 spines along its back"but the author consistently situates the odd specimens comfortably with more familiar fish. She explains how their color is a sign of mating attraction, warning, or camouflage; the mechanics involved with bioluminescence (often triggered by agitation); the many sounds they make, including the bass-note singing of the goliath grouper and the higher-pitched tweets of the tetra, which are products of their air bladder and may well be used for communication; how shoaling clearly helps "avoid predators" and "save energy." Fish are impressively abundant and diverseat 30,000 species, they make up one-half of all vertebratesso Scales has a point in getting to know them better.Entertaining reading for anyone interested in the captivating underworld realm of fish. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
