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Summary: Here are excerpts of some reviews from around the country:
Review: Carl Safina's new book, Song for the Blue Ocean, is one of those revolutionary works that permanently alter our view of a subject. -Bill McKibben, Interview Magazine Engrossing and illuminating... A passionate and enthralling narrative... A landmark book. -New York Times Book Review Stunning... its poetic and powerful re enchantment of nature makes it great. - Washington Post With Song for the Blue Ocean, a beautifully written personal account of his travels and experiences with people and creatures of the ocean and coast, Carl Safina reinforces his role as perhaps the most charismatic, passionate, authoritative, and mature voice speaking on behalf of the world's oceans... Likely to become a classic. - Michael A. Rivlin, Amicus Journal Environmental writing sometimes shuns the human side of things. Safina's focus on real people-men and women afraid for their livelihood-is one of the unexpected strengths of a book rich in science and natural observation. - Civilization magazine With the kind of clarity and eloquence found only in the very best nature writing, he enlightens us... with insight and wit; and his best, often sensuous phrases last like memories of chocolate after the taste itself is gone. - Elliott Norse, Natural History magazine Nearly every sentence in Safina's state-of-the-oceans report is informed by his deep sense of these waters' beauty--and fragility... He knows much about a wide variety of species and their habitats, and what he doesn't know, we discover with him... Safina's first book is a welcome paean. - Publisher's Weekly Richly descriptive and energetically informative. - Booklist I hereby nominate Carl Safina to be the person in charge of telling us what's really going on in the world... I once thought about writing a book about the depletion and destruction of the oceans. Carl Safina has done what I could only dream about: he has written a plaintive, sensitive, caring, intelligent, indignant paean to his beloved waters and their threatened inhabitants. This book will make you mad as hell; it will make you marvel at the wonders he describes, and it will make you glad to realize that there is someone like Carl Safina who cares enough to devote his life to the preservation of the earth's most fragile and misunderstood ecosystems. - Richard Ellis, Los Angeles Times Book Review Safina's bright new voice now joins that influential chorus, which includes Rachel Carson and Jacques Cousteau, of scientists turned eloquent ocean advocates. - San Francisco Chronicle Safina's findings are recorded in this book--and they will absolutely blow your socks off. This is Pulitzer Prize material; it should rank as one of the most important books of the late 20th century.... because we must know the things Safina is trying to tell us. - Fly Fishing in Salt Waters A haunting melody...Magnificent, profoundly disturbing. - The Seattle Times Language that can carry a reader to a world rarely seen...Written in luscious strokes. - Provincetown Banner If you love the oceans, read this book. If you are concerned about the future of mankind on this water planet, read this book.... I cannot remember a book that has affected me more deeply. - Big Game Fishing Journal A pleasure to read. - Kirkus Reviews Particularly welcome and timely... Song for the Blue Ocean is a frightening and insightful book. - The Oregonian About twenty pages into this book you may discover that you are not so much reading it as savoring it. Safina is that rarest of writers-Ñhe knows how and when to get out of the way of his own story. - Whole Earth In this remarkable book, Carl Safina takes us on an odyssey across our ocean planet... This is a tale told accurately, fairly and with compassion... Song for the Blue Ocean is peopled with ordinary and extraordinary people whose efforts inspire and offer hope... In the end, though, this is a deeply shocking book... read it. - Conservation Biology Passionate, disturbing.... Safina is one of the world's leading voices for protection of the oceans and the creatures within them. From this solid position of authority, he could have written a worthy tome. Thank goodness he didn't. Instead, Safina has written a highly personal account of his experiences as he follows fishermen, biologists and others at the front lines of what will surely be the big conservation battle of the early 21st century.... And, unlike many environmentalists, Safina never comes off as holier than thou... He recognizes that life is complicated, a welcome trait in a conservationists--and in a traveling companion. - Bob Holmes, New Scientist
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Summary: An inspirational and engrossing book
Review: An engrossing and inspirational book cateloguing the devastation we are causing to the Oceans and the environment around us. Carl Safina has written a book that anyone who cares for the Ocean and the life within it must read. The balance of his views is remarkable, showing the struggle between the demands of the people who's lives depend on the fishing industry and the devastation we have wrought in the oceans by overfishing and the damage to the environment. The book is also a travelogue as well and describes the different environments and the people who live in them with a travellers eye as well as telling the story of the fishing industry there. It opens up an acedemic and complex subject and makes it accessible to those of us who love the oceans and the environment. One of the best books I have ever read.
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Summary: Must read for every scuba diver & others who love the ocean
Review: An extraordinary tale, told in a personal, easy to read style that captures the good, the bad and the ugly of what is going on in the world's oceans. There are certain to be some who will try to claim that it overstates the case, but as a long-time scuba diver and head of an association of divers, I have seen first hand that many of the threats to the oceans described in this book are all too real. The book is honest, gives both sides of the story and backs up its assertions with proof. Because it is so honest, it is sure to make some people - who prefer to stick their heads in the sand - uncomfortable. This is not a doom and gloom story. It lovingly describes the wonders of the seas and what needs to be done to keep the oceans full of life so that they can be enjoyed by generations to come. Bravo!
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Summary: Powerful Reading
Review: Carl Safina explores the dimensions and complexities -- both biological and social -- of several key ocean issues. It is thoughtfully done and thought-provoking. I could not put it down and could not stop sharing the latest chapter with friends. It's a fabulous read and it will change the way you look at the world's oceans. This review does not do it justice. This book is fantastic.
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Summary: Intellectually Dishonest and tells a biased story.
Review: Carl Safina has omitted much material that would reveal the half truths in this book. There is no doubt that the oceans are stressed but to hide facts that refute the calamitous state that Safina would have us believe is the only truth is dis-honest.Two years prior to publication of this book the National Academy of Sciences refuted the Biology of the NMFS scientists with regard to the stock assessment of Bluefin Tuna and agreed with the industry that the recovery has proceeded beyond NMFS belief.
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Summary: a fascinating, poetic, informative, gripping book.
Review: Carl Safina's tour of our oceans is one of the best of its genre I've read. His particular skill lies in combining poetic evocations of the beauty of our marine ecosystems with hard-nosed assessments of their status (basically, on life-support, at best). Focusing on the bluefin tuna in the Atlantic, the salmon of the Pacific Northwest, and the coral reefs of Oceania, Safina manages to convey the threats to these treasures without terminally depressing the reader. Indeed, some of the best parts of the book are the inspiring tales of those who, fully cognizant of the enormity of their struggles, are still fighting and winning battles to save their small parts of the world. This book is a rare achievement.
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Summary: I fish and am out there all of the time and Carl tells all.
Review: Carl's book was just great. Anyone reading it and not enjoying both the hands on environment and the reality of international fishery management screw ups just does not understand the real world. I strongly recommend this book and I wish all fish managers the world over had to read this.
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Summary: The best writer about the sea since Rachel Carson
Review: Combine an investigative reporter's sense of what's important, a scientist's scrupulous attention to accuracy, and the sensual, lyrical and compelling writing style of the very best nature writers and you have Carl Safina's Song for the Blue Ocean. Page after page, it tells us about magnificent creatures that most people know only as illustrations or the centerpieces of dinner plates but that Carl knows as living things. I've worked in marine conservation since 1978, but I learned a great deal from his book about the economics that are driving giant bluefin tunas to the abyss of extinction, the exquisite interplay between ancient trees and the salmon they nurture, and the dark truths that lie beneath bright coral seas. Carl not only gets it right; with his astute observations, self-deprecating humor and poetic descriptions, he helps the reader see into the truth in ways that open the minds of all but those who will not see. But don't believe me; I've been waiting for someone with the talent to write such a book about the sea for years. Rather, believe my wife, who gobbles Grishams but doesn't read nonfiction as a rule, yet who absolutely loves Song for the Blue Ocean. Yes, it is that good. Elliott A. Norse, President, Marine Conservation Biology Institute
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Summary: amazing book!
Review: I can not emphasize enough what a wonderful book this is. It is a great, entertaining and educational read!!
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Summary: One of the most important books of the 90s
Review: I cannot, absolutely cannot, stress of how much import this book is. Safina writes of politics, poverty, economics, history, technical minutiae, and biological science with the flair of a poet - combined with passages that will make you weep for their ability to communicate the visceral experience of what it's like beneath the water. It's not just a book about marine biology - it's an extended essay on the forces that have shaped civilization at the end of the millennium and its relation to the world at large. The hardest thing is to get across how compulsively readable it is - digressions into issues involving privitization of land and the beuracratical nightmare of listing a species as endangered are communicated so lucidly, cleverly, and with such humanity that the book never devloves into that category called boring that would cause most people to skip it. Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, I wish everyone in that region would read Safina's exhaustive overview of the destruction of the salmon fisheries. Only now, later in life, do I have a clear picture of what those headlines I saw as a kid even meant. And somewhere within all this, you discover that not only is Safina an objective scientist, an environmentalist who cares for the well being of other humans and is actually concerned for the plight of those who make their living off the seas; he is also a gifted writer. I kid you not. This is a book about marine science. It made me bawl like a baby. It is, despite it's complex issues, so innately human. And that's what makes it essential. Safina is no tree hugging environmentalist - he appraises it with a keen eye for its beauty and its terror but is also a firece guardian - of the system which allows us to live with it. He has extraordinary empathy for those right minded individuals who have lost their jobs due to overfishing and the political nightmare that has followed. What provokes his anger is how that system is abused; and what emerges is that it is never a case of the usual solutions that pit conservationist vs. fisherman - it is a case of the entire economic situation we live in writ large that has led to our abuse of the oceans. And despite the unrelenting nightmare you face during his journey, as it seems the whole ocean is vanishing before your eyes; there is hope, in the unlikeliest of places and his ability to essay that hope is miraculous and affirming. Howard Hall, the legendary underwater photographer, said something like: if you were to start diving today you'd see a world you couldn't imagine... But it's nothing like what you would have seen only thirty years ago. I think any sceptic, or even the most hardened of political conservatives who believe the environment is designed to withstand relentless punishment, cannot disregard the arguements made in the book. I started diving only recently. I'm a young guy. Chances are I won't be able to ever see the great coral reefs of the South Pacific - they won't be there. This book will convince you that our children will not be able to experience the oceans and its life that we have still today; unless we change the essential underpinnings of how we relate to each other as a society we will not be able to restore this. Enough ranting. Just get this book, read it, and try to tell me you weren't fascinated. This single book will change your worldview, and teach you in so many disciplines, that you can't ignore it. And please, some company publish this in the UK for the Brits pronto... Until then, Mr. Safina is my hero and I hope he writes more.
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