The Book of Eels: Our Enduring Fascination with the Most Mysterious Creature in the Natural World

Comparatively little is known about Anguilla anguilla, the European eel. In fact, it's so small that philosophers and scientists have been fixated on the "eel question"—where do eels originate—for centuries. What do they consist of? Are they fish, or are they some other kind of animal? Even in this day of extensive scientific knowledge, no one has ever witnessed an eel mate or give birth, and we still don't know why, at the end of their life, they choose to swim vast distances back to the ocean after spending decades in freshwater. They're still a mystery.

Patrik Svensson writes a book about eels based on a wide range of literature, history, and contemporary marine biology studies, as well as his personal experiences of eel fishing with his father.

Renowned historical intellectuals like Aristotle, Sigmund Freud, and Rachel Carson—all of whom had a particular preoccupation with the eel—are introduced to us in The Book of Eels. We also get to know the scientists who led the hunt for the eel's birthplace, such as Danish marine biologist Johannes Schmidt, who oversaw research operations in the early 1900s and captured tens of thousands of eels in an attempt to establish the Sargasso Sea as the eel's birthplace.

Svensson's effort to comprehend the eel becomes an investigation of the human condition that explores broad questions about our origins and fate, both as people and as animals, and, in the end, how to deal with the most important subject of all: death. The narrative skillfully combines memoir with nature writing.