Fathoms

This “delving, haunted, and poetic debut” blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore what whales can tell us about ourselves and our world (The New York Times Book Review)

When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales reflect the condition of our oceans. In Fathoms, she examines how whales experience ecological change; how whale culture has been changed by human technology; and what observing whales can teach us about the complexity, splendor, and fragility of life on earth.

Giggs considers whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and whales that have modified the chemical composition of our planet’s atmosphere. She boards Japanese whale hunting ships and delves into the deepest seas to discover how plastic pollution pervades our earth’s undersea environment. Evocative and inspiring, Fathoms “immediately earns its place in the pantheon of classics of the new golden age of environmental writing” (Literary Hub).

Winner of the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award