Review of THE SOUND OF THE SEA
Who would have thought seashells were so entwined with human history?
I spent a lot of time in Tampa, Florida growing up. Each summer my parents would send my sister and I to stay with our family where we would spend most days at the pool or beach. We would collect buckets of shells trying to find the perfect, most impressive specimine. Despite years of shelling, I never did find conchs of the splendor my Aunt had showcased around her home. All I have left now are two glass containers full of shells from my last shelling trip a decade ago.
Shells played a supporting role in my childhood though I never would have thought about it in that sense had I not read The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of Our Oceans by Cynthia Barnett. In fact, I never thought much of shells beyond the fact that they simply are there on the beach and fun to collect. Barnett, however, shows how entwined shells are in human history in her brilliant new book.
I’m still in awe of the book. It’s a prime example of how taking a new vantage point can open up a whole new world of stories about humans and culture. I originally caught wind of The Sound of the Sea last year when the book was published (take note of the beautiful cover!), and picked it up earlier this year – though it had been sitting idle on my to-read pile until late April when I dove in. I had expected more of a history of seashells and their evolution, but instead got a delightful journey of the role seashells have played across human cultures.
The Sound of the Sea is set up in three parts, with each chapter focusing on a particular shell and the role that shell plays in various stories. The first part focuses more on the evolution of seashells over 800 million years and where they come from. Part two is the core history section of the book, and part three shares stories of seashells disappearing due to over harvesting and human caused climate change.
I learned so much in this book, like how The Money Cowrie shell was used as currency, and traveled from the Maldives all the way to West Africa. Or how shell enthusiasts will hunt in darkness for the elusive Junonia shell on Sanibel Island in Florida, searching for its perfect mahogany markings. Or how America’s first book on conchology was printed in a failed utopia set up in Indiana in the 19th century. Or that collectors have amassed shell collections valued at over a million dollars! Or that extinct human ancestors made art of shells half a million years ago.
Barnette also shares how humans’ fascination with shells are leading to collapse of the animal populations that make the shells. (It’s important to remember that shells are built by animals - a fact that most people don’t realize). Scallops (which I honestly had no clue that they were part of a shelled animal!) are being harvested to collapse in places where herds of them once clapped through the waters off the New England coast. Queen Conch—the mascot of the Florida Keys—no longer live in those waters, and are shipped in from the Bahamas. And 500-pound Giant Clams, which once littered the sea floors of Palau, are now spread so thin that they cannot reproduce with one another.
The Sound of the Sea is a fantastic book and profoundly interesting. Don’t be surprised to see it later this year on my annual Most Interesting Books I Read list.
Published: July 2021
Format: Hardcover
If you think this sounds interesting, bookmark these other great reads:
Pipe Dreams: The Urgent Global Quest to Transform the Toilet by Chelsea Wald (2021)
Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures by Nick Pyenson (2018)
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