Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World

It opens strong and loses momentum, later chapters settling into a port-by-port beat of another fishery collapsing. A recurring verdict is that it is thorough and researched “if not a riveting one”: “It is not a sexy topic. It is not a sexy book,” and one reader's summary is simply “this book is about fish. Again, this book is about fish.” History-literate readers flag claims that outrun the evidence, the Basque pre-Columbian material especially, saying “some are just downright wrong,” and note the book carries no citations. The recipes enthusiasts love are skimmable dead weight to others. And it stops at 1997.