Whales, Words, and the Web of Life

We discuss the award winning book, Fathoms: the world in the whale by Rebecca Giggs. Our conversation covers seeing the history of humanity through the lens of the whale, activism movements, and the poetic in writing.  

Whales as an extractive industry and why the book is not prescriptive in what we might do.  We play overrated/underrated. Rebecca rates: cicadas, snails, worms and plankton.  We end with the process of writing. Why mechanical keyboards might help, and writing in bursts.  

Rebecca's essays and writing have been in The Atlantic, Granta, The New York Times Magazine. Her recent work has featured our relationship with animals in a time of both technological change and ecological crisis.  www.rebeccagiggs.com and twitter @rebeccagiggs  

Ben Yeoh is a playwright and investor. He keeps a personal blog at thendobetter.com and twitter @benyeohben  

A transcript is available at here.

Link to Book (Amazon)