Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Mysterious Fish Book

Raised in Ontario, Canada as a kid I hated swimming. Mom never learned, she preferred to stay safely on shore and shout out dire warnings about snapping turtles & eels. At least the snappers swam on the surface, I'd see them coming but the eels? Horrible, slimy creatures of the night that slithered unseen in the dark murky water. I still shudder! It opens with "The eel is not an easy fish to like"
No kidding… Read it hoping I'd get over my fear, finished it creeped out as ever - and utterly fascinated.

• Monstrous: The Europeon conger up to 10 ft long weighing in at 240 lb.
• Ancient: Some have a lifespan of over a hundred years and don't produce offspring till they're over 60.
• Deadly: A tiny amount of eel blood is enough to kill you, pass on the eel sushi...
• Mysterious: They migrate en masse, in the Catskills "The run corresponds with the new moon and floods brought on by the hurricane season, when the sky is at its darkest and the river at its highest" Yearly millions of eels around the world migrate from rivers to oceans, among the "greatest unseen migrations of any creature on the planet"
Just picture this! "On wet nights, eels are known to cross over land from a pond to a river by the thousands, using each other's moist bodies as a bridge, to climb moss-covered vertical walls forming a braid with their bodies."
• Illusive: We've yet to find a spawning adult or witnessed a freshwater eel spawning in the wild. For eel scientists, solving the mystery of eel reproduction remains a kind of holy grail. All they know is they spawn somewhere in the Sargasso Sea in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle - yeh, the infamous Bermuda Triangle, how spooky is that?
• Mystical: Why this book sang for me - his passionate quest to understand the mystical role, the spiritual importance that Eels play in so many native cultures.
• Most Frightening: That they're gone and I had no idea "The St. Lawrence River feeding into Lake Ontario once comprised the single largest nursery in North America. Now almost no eels are returning at all." Damn those dams. My poor planet - death by a thousand paper cuts.

10 years in the writing Prosek outgrows some of his arrogance. Liked that this Yale grad formed a lasting and respectful friendship with "old river rat" Ray who works an eel weir in the Catskill Mountains. Ray chose a life most would write off as too hard, too lonely. "I told Ray I admired the way he lived. "Don't look up to me, kid," he said "look with me." and Prosek did.
4 ½ slimy stars and a big thanks to Will for the review that led me to it.

CONS: Think Carlos Castaneda obsessed with fish. His writing is kinda all over the place, shifts without warning between fact and folklore. Fine, I enjoyed it - just wish he'd been a little clearer. FYI: Eels don't bark like dogs, nor do they cry like babies…trust me, I googled it:)