Fathoms – Hill Nadell Literary Agency

(Hardcover) (Paperback)

Rebecca Giggs
Fathoms: The World in the Whale
(Simon & Schuster, Hardcover July 2020, Paperback July 2021)

Winner of the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
Finalist for the 2021 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
Longlisted for the 2021 Wainwright Prize in writing on Global Conservation
2020 Kirkus Prize Finalist
2020 Winner of the Royal Zoological Society’s Whitley Award for Popular Zoology
2020 Winner of the Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award
Shortlisted for The Stella Prize 2021

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
Number 3 on BookPage‘s list of Best Books of Nonfiction 2020
A Kirkus Best Book of 2020: Nonfiction
A Slate Best Book of 2020
Named by The Guardian as one of “The 20 Best Australian Books of 2020”
Audible Editor’s Pick for July
Bookpage Editor’s Pick for August
One of Kill Your Darlings‘s April Culture Picks
Recommend by Literary Hub on their list of “Climate Crisis Reading”
One of Literary Hub‘s Most Anticipated Books of 2020
One of Readings‘ “100 great reads from Australian women in 2020”
Included in Belletrist’s 2020 Gift Guide

Fathoms is a gorgeous meditation on the awe-inspiring lives of whales, revealing what they can teach us about ourselves, our planet, and our relationship to other species.

What can whales reveal about our world today? When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales shed light on the condition of our seas. Fathoms: The World in the Whale blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? Will our connection to these storied animals be transformed by technology? What can observing whales teach us about the complexity, splendor, and fragility of life? In Fathoms, we learn about whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and whales that have modified the chemical composition of our planet’s atmosphere. We travel to Japan to board the ships that hunt whales and delve into the deepest seas to discover the plastic pollution now pervading the whale’s undersea environment.

In the spirit of Rachel Carson and Rebecca Solnit, Giggs gives us a vivid exploration of the natural world even as she addresses what it means to write about nature at a time of environmental crisis. With depth and clarity, Giggs outlines the challenges we face as we attempt to understand the perspectives of other living beings, and our own place on an evolving planet. Evocative and inspiring, Fathoms marks the arrival of an essential new voice.

Praise for Fathoms

“[A] delving, haunted and poetic debut.”
—New York Times Book Review

“[Giggs’s] narrative widens the aperture of our attention with a literary style so stunning that the reader may forget to blink…In a story that extends across several continents, Ms. Giggs marshals lapidary language to give the crisis a compelling voice. Her prose, like the oceans in which her subjects roam, is immersive; her sentences submerge us in a sea of sensations. A reader fond of dog-earing choice turns of phrase in Fathoms might find, at evening’s end, a book pleated like an accordion with an abundance of keepsakes.”
—Wall Street Journal

“With a conservationist mindset, Giggs reiterates that the whale and its life, legacy, and precarious environmental state are reflective of the greater issues the Earth faces, from ecological upheaval to overconsumption. Whether describing the majesty of the blue whale or the human assault on sea ecology due to paper and plastic pollution, the author’s prose is poetic, beautifully smooth, urgently readable, and eloquently informative.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“There is much to marvel at here…Deeply researched and deeply felt, Giggs’ intricate investigation, beautifully revelatory and haunting, urges us to save the whales once again, and the oceans, and ourselves.”
—Booklist, starred review

“It is Giggs’ poetic and insightful analysis that elevates this book into something unforgettable… Her prose…is luminous.”
—Bookpage, starred review

“With sparking prose and a visceral sense of urgency, the science writer delves deep into the vasty deep, shedding light on the lives of whales—some so rare that scientists have yet to name them—and what the mammals might tell us about how our oceans are changing.”
—Literary Hub

“Haunting.”
—New York Post

“As we grapple with our Anthropocene anguish, some of the most alive, inventive writing on the planet is nature writing, and Giggs’ Fathoms is glorious proof. Ostentatious, mythic and strange, this is the kind of book that swallows you whole. Entirely fitting for its subject.”
—Beejay Silcox, The Guardian

“Fathoms took my breath away. Every page is suffused with magic and meaning.”
—Ed Yong, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes

“Rebecca Giggs’ Fathoms is a triumph, a deliciously rich work of art that, as if by magic, combines exquisite prose that floats off the page and into your heart with scientific accuracy and epic scope. This is by far the best book about whales I have ever read. What an achievement!”
—Wendy Williams, author of The Language of Butterflies and New York Times bestseller The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion

“A work of bright and careful genius. Equal parts Rebecca Solnit and Annie Dillard, Giggs masterfully combines lush prose with conscientious history and boots-on-the-beach reporting. With Giggs leading us gently by the hand we dive down, and down, and down, into the dark core of the whale, which, she convincingly reveals, is also the guts of the world.”
–Robert Moor, New York Times Bestselling author of On Trails

“In Fathoms, Rebecca Giggs rips the metaphors off whales and brings us closer than we can usually get to the creatures themselves. Along the way, she shows us how intimately whales are shaping our lives, how they change air quality, and crime, and even our conception of time. I can’t stop thinking about the connections she has unearthed, how a whale is connected to a meteor, a mother’s breast, a landfill. Under the spell of her deliciously evocative prose, you get the sense that you are truly, finally, glimpsing a whale in full glory. Like the busks she writes about—tiny missives carved into whalebone corsets by sailors—this book leaves an imprint.”
—Lulu Miller, author of Why Fish Don’t Exist and cofounder of NPR’s Invisibilia

“Fathoms reads like a poem. Its virtuoso thinking is a revelation. I can’t think of many books in which love for the world and uncompromising, ever-deepening rigour come together in this way. Time slows down. This book makes a permanent dent in the reader.”
—Maria Tumarkin, author of Axiomatic

“One of the most beautifully written nonfiction books I have read in a long time. It’s so hard to do justice to the immense importance of whales and the lessons they have for us all. Rebecca Giggs does an extraordinary job of bringing together the science, the history, and the brilliance and fragility of whales.”
—Christine Kenneally, author of The Invisible History of the Human Race

“[Fathoms] is a striking piece of narrative nonfiction, philosophical and personal at once wrestling with liminal vulnerabilities, fantasies, conceits and projections, and it deserves global attention.”
—ArtsHub

“Giggs blends natural history, philosophy and science to explore what our enduring fascination with whales can tell us about them—and us. It’s a fascinating and compelling look at the world’s biggest mammals, the consequences of environmental change and humanity’s relationship with nature.”
—Alice Cottrell, Kill Your Darlings

“Fathoms is horrific, poetic and profound; a morbid dirge shot through with celestial light.”
—The Saturday Paper

“[Fathoms is] full of weird lights and unexpected textures… A remarkable literary event… A new and hugely ambitious kind of nature writing.”
—The Monthly

“[Fathoms is] one of the most achingly beautiful pieces of nature writing I’ve encountered. Giggs is an absolute master, and I cannot speak highly enough of her work.”
—Ed Yong in The Atlantic‘s Behind the Byline

“Poetry and nature writing seem to complement each other perfectly. Maybe we see ourselves more purely in reflections of the natural world, or there is some sort of inherent musicality to how we perceive our environments. Award-winning science writer Rebecca Giggs is also a poet, and she brings her astute prose and contemplative voice to Fathoms. It’s a meditative title that covers vast expanses of thought. Centered and focused on whales, Giggs draws deep insights from these large animals on a variety of topics with the detail and accuracy you’d expect from a science writer, but the grace, philosophy, and aesthetic of a refined novelist. Fathoms is something you have to hear to truly appreciate Giggs’s deft perspective, and to live the life of such a mystical animal.”
—Michael D., Audible Editor

“This incredibly beautiful work of narrative non-fiction will teach you everything you’ve ever wanted to know about whales.”
—Readings

“Fathoms offers a richly sourced, complex evaluation of the modern state of whales in the hopes that we might again be inspired to save them… Giggs is a luminous nature writer…”
—The Nation

“With the immediacy of Rachel Carson and the lush prose of Annie Dillard, Giggs gives readers a masterly… With depth and clarity, she outlines the challenges we face as we attempt to understand the perspectives of other living beings, and our own place on an evolving planet.”
—Belletrist

“Wonder pours out of every page of this gorgeously written and daringly imagined book.”
—Slate

Rebecca Giggs is an award-winning writer from Perth, Australia. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Science Writing, and other publications. Fathoms is her first book.