The Gospel of the Eels

For weeks after reading I found myself cornering people at parties to obliterate them with a machine-gun spray of eel facts . . . It is a charming and itch-scratching contribution to the eel canon - less an analysis of eels than a meditation on their glories. If you don't think of yourself as someone who might enjoy meditating on eel glory, well, I didn't either, and here I am transcribing my encounter for publication. * New York magazine * Svensson's book, like its subject, is a strange beast: a creature of metamorphosis, a shape-shifter that moves among realms. It is a book of natural history, and a memoir about a son and his father. It is also an exploration of literature and religion and custom, and what it means to live in a world full of questions we can't always answer. * New Yorker * Drawing from literature, science and his own studies, Svensson inspires readers to see eels in a whole new way. * Los Angeles Times * Captivating . . . The Gospel of the Eels is, in the end, not really about eels but about life itself . . . Mr. Svensson mixes chapters about the eel's natural history - or, rather, the history of clumsy human attempts to understand it - with finely observed autobiographical vignettes devoted to his own childhood memories of eel-fishing with his father. * Wall Street Journal * This is one of those special books . . . Even if it were only a book about eels, it would be wonderful . . . Svensson is such a good writer . . . I am not sure I like eels, but I loved this book. * Sunday Times * Svensson's prose surges, eel-like, from languid to wriggling up your arm . . . There is a stillness to Svensson's writing that perfectly suits [both] the eel and his enigmatic father . . . This is a book about tenderness, slime and savagery . . . The power of the [father-son] relationships is in the unsaid. * Daily Telegraph *