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FINALIST FOR THE 2023 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTION o WINNER OF THE 2023 BMO WINTERSET AWARD o From the heart of the Labrador Current to the furthest reaches of our global oceans, Message in a Bottle conjures an exquisite diversity of marine life and warns of a central threat to its survival: ocean plastic.
The dovekie is a stocky seabird the size of a child's heart that spends its winters on the coast of Newfoundland, thriving in one of the toughest climates on Earth. The polar bear is an apex predator, designed to persevere in the Arctic's extreme conditions. The North Atlantic right whale outweighs the humpback by more than twenty tons and feeds on enormous quantities of tiny plankton in northeastern waters before migrating south for the winter.
In Message in a Bottle, wildlife biologist and writer Holly Hogan brings to life the wonder of these creatures and many other birds, fish and marine mammals she has encountered in her thirty years of ocean travel. On these voyages, Hogan has noticed a troubling pattern: the constant presence of plastic, in the form of adrift fishing gear ("ghost gear"), garbage and micro-plastics that create an invisible but pervasive smog in our oceans and threaten even the most seemingly resilient forms of sea life.
Bringing together nature, science and adventure writing, Hogan shines a light on our plastic-addicted lifestyle, offering an eyewitness account of its devastating effects on the marine environment--and highlighting international efforts to combat it. With lyrical prose and a reverential eye for the majesty and fragility of our natural world, Message in a Bottle is a clarion call to protect global oceans and the life they sustain, including our own.
About this Author
HOLLY HOGAN is a writer and wildlife biologist with a focus on seabirds. During her more than thirty years as a scientist, she has spent about a thousand days at sea conducting avian and marine mammal surverys and providing educational programming with expedition teams. Her work has taken her to the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans, and every latitude in between. She has been interviewed for CBC Radio, appears in a National Film Board series called Ocean School and provided expertise on seabirds and the impact of marine plastic for the award-winning documentary Hell or Clean Water (2021). Holly is a mother of three and lives in St. John's, Newfoundland, with her husband, Michael, and an assortment of cats and dogs, depending on the day.
Reviews
WINNER OF THE 2023 BMO WINTERSET AWARD
FINALIST FOR THE 2023 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NONFICTION
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 SCIENCE WRITERS AND COMMUNICATORS BOOK AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 LANE ANDERSON AWARD
ONE OF THE CBC'S BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2023
ONE OF THE GLOBE AND MAIL'S BEST BOOKS OF 2023
"A moving account of the work and travels of a Newfoundland and Labrador seabird biologist. . . . Hogan's writing flows with the urgency, draw and pull of the North Atlantic current." --SaltWire
"Plastic never dies, and most of the damage it does occurs out of sight, in animals and ecosystems humans rarely see. Hogan, a professional guide, takes us into these hidden realms with the eyes of a scientist in love with her subject, and in prose that skirts the edge of poetry." --John Vaillant
"Holly Hogan's Message in A Bottle is deeply intelligent, rich with scientific detail, and informed by a lifetime spent witnessing the vast and staggering beauty of nature and the devastation caused by plastic. In prose as transparent and polished as sea glass, Hogan shows how we humans have left an indelible scar on the marine world, and the loss of biodiversity that accrues in our wake. And she shows us a better way to live. If you are going to read one book about the climate crisis, read this one. It is tremendously beautiful and sad and hopeful." --Lisa Moore
"This book is essential reading. Not only does Holly Hogan brilliantly detail our current ecological crisis from a seabird's eye view, she also eloquently implores us to set our hearts and minds to finding innovative solutions to preserve our beautiful planet. Read this book and then tell everyone you know to do the same." --Ami McKay
"Message in a Bottle: Up close + gorgeous wonderful marine life, up close + ugly plastics choking it. Kill the oceans + we die! But there's hope. . ." --Margaret Atwood on Twitter
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