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    Unavailable
    The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean
    Unavailable
    The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean
    Unavailable
    The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean
    Ebook346 pages6 hours

    The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean

    By Trevor Corson

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In this intimate portrait of an island lobstering community and an eccentric band of renegade biologists, journalist Trevor Corson escorts the reader onto the slippery decks of fishing boats, through danger-filled scuba dives, and deep into the churning currents of the Gulf of Maine to learn about the secret undersea lives of lobsters.

    This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

    Editor's Note

    A marine exposé…

    Dive deep into the waters off coastal Maine to discover a sea bug’s life cycle, from birth to captivity, in this often funny, highly informative exposé.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 13, 2009
    ISBN9780061873973
    Unavailable
    The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean
    Author

    Trevor Corson

    The author of The Secret Life of Lobsters, Trevor Corson has studied philosophy in China, resided in Buddhist temples in Japan, and worked on commercial fishing boats off the Maine coast. He has written for the Atlantic Monthly and the New York Times and is the only "sushi concierge" in the United States. He lives in New York City.

    Read more from Trevor Corson

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    Reviews for The Secret Life of Lobsters

    4/5

    24 ratings14 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Good, interesting and engaging. A great diversion from the bad news of the day. Definitely worth reading. Thanks
    • 4/5
      Good lobster facts. Would recommend to other crustacean lovers like myself.
    • 5/5
      Lobsters have the most amazing sex lives, very brutal, the biggest who can beat all the other males up gets sex - the females admire muscles. However, there's always the sly, sleek, attractive one, jack-the-lad who never fights and who gets it on with the ladies when the big one is recovering from his latest fight. Who knew?

      The book is written from three perspectives: the fishing business, marine scientists and the lobsters' own extremely complicated and interesting lives. Its as entertaining as it is interesting and if I did eat lobster (I don't, they taste like briny pencil erasers to me) I never would again.
    • 3/5
      Tells about how lobsters make incredibly long journeys up and down steep underwater cliffs, braving hurricane force currents, to make cozy homes in the sand with their significant others. A compelling study of the state of the Maine lobster fisheries. Strikes a great balance between science and anecdote.
    • 4/5
      The Secret Life of Lobsters is a fascinating layperson's look at lobster biology and ecology from the perspectives of both the scientific community and the lobstermen. Corson chronicles the discoveries about lobster behavior that have been made over the past thirty or so years as biologists, oceanographers, ecologists, conservationists, and lobstering communities have worked, both together and against each other, to make sure that the lobster fisheries on the New England coast don't go the way of other similar fisheries - cod, for example - that were overfished to the brink of extinction during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Corson is as in love with the subject of lobsters as the people he talks to and works alongside throughout the book, and they are fascinating creatures in ways the ordinary lobster-savorer can't imagine. The book is also a great look at the way science progresses from hypothesis through testing and data accumulation to new understanding and new hypotheses, making mistakes and course corrections along the way as better techniques and more and better data become available.Corson's book is much more focused on the lobster itself than Woodard's The Lobster Coast, which is really a socio-political and economic history of much of the same parts of Maine. Corson is much less concerned with the characterization of Mainers and the degree to which they hate you, though the lobster and its history are inevitably tied to summer people and the socio-economic tensions that have always existed between them and the generally less-well-off year-round residents. It's a much more engaging read in many ways, and a much clearer picture of the conservation efforts that have kept the lobster fishery in Maine sustainable for over a hundred and fifty years.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book. It was interesting, informative, funny, and warm. The book is about Maine Lobsters, but it also gives information and insight into the fishermen and lobster scientists. The writing was very good, with the information presented as stories. The behavior of the lobsters is presented from what they have learned in the labs. Priceless stuff, they pee in each other's faces to communicate. Who knew! It covers their lives, mating and social behavior and the life cycle from egg to armored bug.The book looks at a small group of fisher families on Little Cranberry Island in Maine. It also gives the history of several lobster scientist and researchers. It shows how they came to be dedicated to the Lobster, and how they conduct experiments.It looks at the controversy between fishers and scientists about the use of the Lobster as a resource. It makes a good case for the responsible self-stewardship by the fishermen in Maine, and for the limiting factor of Lobsters on the sea floor: sea temperature and current.I also love to eat Lobsters, and the next time I get a whole one with the shell on, I am going to check out all the bells and whistles, now that I know what they do.
    • 3/5
      This book was a book club choice. Most of us found this an intruiging choice. Alot of interesting information about the Maine Lobster Industry. You can compare the families of Lobster Men with the families of coal miners or farmers. The local folklore tales were the most interesting parts of the books as some of the more scientific information could really bog you down. The book really does get some good discussions going as many take the side of the Lobstermen and others take the side of the government scientists.
    • 4/5
      Corson writes an engaging story about lobsters, the scientists who study them, and the folks who catch and sell them for a living. It's a very human-centric natural history, even though the author is strangely absent. Corson has a palpable respect for fishermen and women, and for scientific researchers, and a feel for the personal detail that makes a story (even a story about lobster research) compelling — even when he's writing about international lobster regulation negotiations, he puts in an anecdote about G. H. W. Bush not being able to order lobster for dinner because he's sick of the whole subject.
    • 5/5
      A couple of years ago my husband was browsing a “buy 2 get 1 free” table at our local B&N and could only find two books he wanted so he asked me to find a third one. I also couldn’t find one I really wanted but this book caught my eye and the rave reviews on the back made me think I might as well take it since it would be free. It has languished on a shelf in my guest room (my husband is a scientist and maybe it would appeal to one of the visiting scientists we periodically host) until a couple of weeks ago when librarything.com added the feature of putting on our profile page the names of librarything authors we have in our library. Trevor Corson was the only author I had represented so I decided to finally read the book for myself. What a revelation! Not only is the book well written but it is a page turner—you can hardly wait to find out what happens next. For nonfiction that can be a real treat. The day I started reading it my husband invited some visiting scientists to go out to lunch. He asked me to go to the restaurant to get a table for all of us and I took my book to read while I waited for them to arrive. When they came one of them asked me what the book was about and I said, “Science, sex, and politics. What more could you want?” Of course, I explained that the sex was among lobsters. One of the delights in the book is how Corson alternates the stories of the fisherman with the information about the lobsters and the stories of the scientists. In “Scent of a Woman” he alternates the sexual practices of the lobsters with the story of how one of the fishermen wooed his wife. Corson does a magnificent job giving us glimpses into the lives of the fishermen and their families as well as a wonderful over-view of much of the science that has been conducted researching lobsters and the politics involved in trying to keep lobster fishing a viable business. He reveals so much about lobsters, how they live, reproduce, and behave that the reader is amazed at how intricate the lives of these creatures are. Also fascinating is the number of scientific experiments that have been going on for years and the variety of intricate apparati that have been developed to aid this research. But all this explanation of what the book covers doesn’t begin to describe the joy and satisfaction the reader feels as he reads this story. This book deserves to become a classic and I will be encouraging everyone I know to read it. It is an absolute pleasure and a literary treasure. I hope to read more books by Trevor Corson.
    • 4/5
      What a completely random and thoroughly enjoyable book this is. I have no particular interest in lobsters--other than finding them a tasty dinner option occasionally. I've never been to the Cranberry Islands in Maine and I'd be surprised if to learn that I've met any lobster fishermen. Nonetheless, I was completely absorbed by both the details of lobsters and the efforts by scientists to learn more about their lives and the lives of the fishers and fishing village itself. I'd definitely recommend this book as an interesting book nearly guaranteed to be different from whatever you read just before it.
    • 5/5
      I learned so much in this book. Highly recommended! I've heard critisism that it meanders about too much, but for me, it was fantastic.
    • 4/5
      The Secret Life of Lobster didn’t quite turn out to be the book I expected it to be. Being a lobster lover myself, I was intrigued by the title. Also, being a fan of the fantasy genre, I believed this book to be a story of a secret lobster civilization, told from the lobster’s point of view. But no; it turn out to be much, much different.In short, this was an extremely informative book about the history and modern practices that go along with our favorite crustacean. The Secret Life of Lobsters jumps back and forth between two distinct story lines, which, from my view, was done with great execution. There is, first and foremost, the story of an aquatic researcher who has taken the opportunity to study the patterns and behavior of the migratory lobster from the vessel Double Trouble. What makes this story so special about this man is that he had grown up surrounded by this unique industry. It is interesting to see how large a role lobster fishing played in his life. From the time he was a boy, he hoped that one day he would be a lobster fisherman like his father and have his very own boat. However, this isn’t just a no-frills tale.Lobster fishing is an extremely competitive job; everyone’s looking for the biggest slice of the pie. Out in those waters, there was no shortage of competition or rivalry. The intensity this book shows about lobster fishing and even studying lobsters is respectable. All the events in this book are true, which does make reading The Secret Life of Lobsters all the more intriguing. Plus, the story has a great ending, but of course, that is for you to find out silly. Seriously, this is a great to story that educates you on a subject you normally wouldn’t believe you would need to be educated about. But trust me; you need to learn about lobster to better enjoy the delicious taste of such a creature that takes the hard work of so many people to capture. I recommend this book to anyone of any age. So please, pick up a copy today.
    • 3/5
      found this when I got to the cottage this summer, a few minor scenes set on the Island (not mentioned by name, they place Lowell's Cove on Orr's Island but mention Cook's Lobster House)I found it fascinating because of the local ties, your mileage may differ.
    • 5/5
      All you've ever wanted to know about lobsters, and so much more. We're talking how to fish for them, how to cook them, how to eat them, how to study them in the ocean, how to study them in a lab, how to learn about their behaviors, how they mate, how they build homes, and so on and so on. All wrapped up in the format of a story about fisherman and scientists. Does a pretty good job of straddling the line between the fisherman and the scientists, two groups typically at odds in the oceans of the world.