The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean
by Morten Stroksnes
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2017
320 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
A salty story of friendship, adventure, and the explosive life that teems beneath the ocean, for readers of Bill Bryson and such classics as The Snow Leopard.
In the great depths surrounding the Lofoten islands in Norway lives the infamous Greenland shark. At twenty-six feet in length and weighing more than a ton, it is truly a beast to behold. But the shark is not just known for its size alone: its meat contains a toxin that, when consumed, has been known to make people drunk and hallucinatory. Shark Drunk is the true story of two friends, the author and the eccentric artist Hugo Aasjord, as they embark on a wild pursuit of the famed creature - from a tiny rubber boat. Together, the two men tackle existential questions, survive the world's most powerful maelstrom, and, yes, get drunk, as they attempt to understand the ocean from every possible angle, drawing on poetry, science, history, ecology, mythology, and their own, sometimes intoxicated, observations.
Winner of the Norwegian Brage Prize 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Critics' Prize for Literature 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Reine Ord Prize at Lofoten International Literature Festival 2016
"Starred Review. Strøksnes's erudition, salty humor, and unfussy prose yield a fresh, engrossing natural history." - Publishers Weekly
"Accomplished Norwegian historian, journalist, and photographer Strøksnes invites readers into the fantastical ocean environment of his quest to capture a Greenland shark. ... readers will happily devour this smorgasbord of delights." - Kirkus
"Move over, Ishmael. Move over, Jonah. Move over, Izaak Walton and Norman Maclean. Make room for a fish tale, wry and fantastical, weird and melancholy, that must now take its rightful place among our classic existential stories about the denizens of the deep." - Hampton Sides, bestselling author of In the Kingdom of Ice
"Strøksnes weaves his tale from a dense wool of close observation, fishing yarns, erudition lightly worn, and a helpless, consuming love of the ocean." - William Finnegan, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
"Every page of Shark Drunk feels like a cabinet of curiosities, filled with head-scratching surprises, nuggets of wisdom, and wondrous insights. Gorgeously written and thoroughly addictive." - Michael Finkel, author of The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
"Some great quests defy any logical explanation but by virtue of their whimsical turns lead to unexpected wonder and enlightenment. Morton Strøksnes' Shark Drunk is one such quest - the hunt for what might be called the world's largest "trash fish" - that transports us with humor and insight to forbidding coasts and unexplored depths." - Peter Stark, author of Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire
"Morten Strøksnes has enriched the world with a book of highly unusual originality. ... As a reader I take the bait and get firmly stuck to the hook." - Fredrik Sjöberg, author of The Fly Trap
This information about Shark Drunk was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Morten Strøksnes is a Norwegian historian, journalist, photographer, and writer. He has written reportage, essays, portraits, and columns and reviews for most major Norwegian newspapers and magazines. He has published four critically acclaimed books of literary reportage and contributed to several others.
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