Why Fish Don't Exist

The quirky and profound international bestseller - a darkly astonishing scientific biography and a guide on how to live well in a world where chaos come for us all

This genre-defying journey into the science of classification weaves memoir and history in shimmering prose

I want to live at this book's address: the intersection of history and biology and wonder and failure and sheer human stubbornness. What a sumptuous, surprising, dark delight

Here is a book that hops nimbly between biography and autobiography, gritty science and lovelorn self-help. And its final, happy leap into the unknown is just astonishing

Her book took me to strange depths I never imagined, and I was smitten

A story told with an open heart, every page of it animated by verve, nuance, and full-throated curiosity

This book will capture your heart, seize your imagination, smash your preconceptions, and rock your world

I didn't want to read another biography of a dead, white man - fortunately, that's not what this is. Instead, Miller asks an age-old question: how do you go on? She finds an answer both original and prescient

Strangely compelling

Moves gracefully between reporting and meditation, big questions and small moments. A magical hybrid of science, portraiture, and memoir-and a delight to read

This book is perfect, just perfect. It's both lyrical and learned, personal and political, small and huge, quirky and profound

A tale so seductive that I read her book in one sitting

Stunning and brilliant and completely un-sum-up-able... I love this book so much!

Wholly unique and a true delight

A wild ride... that upends our idea of what fish (and we) are in the grand scheme of things

A touching blend of biography, science, philosophy and self-reflection. Like its provocative title, it's full of surprises

Remarkable... Lulu Miller draws a heartening lesson-that chaos, which comes for us all, can be defeated by sheer human stubbornness

Engrossing... thought-provoking... Lulu Miller does the job with style and intelligence

Ingenious... A quirky wonder of a book

Quirky, fascinating

The excitement and curiosity in which she sees and investigates the world is contagious

Lulu Miller's Why Fish Don't Exist takes someone even less redeemable-the early 20th-century scientist and eugenicist David Starr Jordan-and carries us into the outer reaches of knowledge itself

A bold and original blend of memoir and science, it combines the exhilaration of discovery with the unexpected and revelatory

Lulu Miller is the cohost of Radiolab, host of the kids podcast Terrestrials, and author of the bestselling book Why Fish Don't Exist.