Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Like Bill Bryson on hard science, or John McPhee with attitude...This dazzles from start to finish." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"The book [is] by turns light-hearted and serious but always a pleasure to read....Moby-Duck is highly readable and, importantly, alive with a sense of intellectual curiosity. Indeed, what Melville did for whaling, Hohn has done for plastic bath toys lost at sea." The Boston Globe
Review
"Hohn cleverly uses the deceptively whimsical premise of chasing a little plastic duck to provoke a massively complicated and thought-provoking conversation. Who knew spilled bath toys could be so important?" Chicago Sun-Times
Review
"Donovan Hohn ships out with an engaging Moby-Duck....an exploration in every sense [Moby-Duck] will remind readers of the best of John McPhee and Ian Frazier. And maybe, even, of the weird and wonderful Herman Melville himself." The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer
Review
"Adventurous, inquisituve and brightly illuminating....[Moby-Duck] works as a lively travelogue as well as a voyage of discovery and philosophical inquiry." The New York Times
About the Author
Donovan Hohn is the recipient of the Whiting Writers' Award, a 2010 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, Hopwood Awards in essay and poetry, and a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean Science Journalism Fellowship. His work has appeared in Harper's Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, and The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 2. A former English teacher, and a former senior editor of Harper's, he is now the features editor of GQ. He lives in New York with his wife and sons. Moby-Duck is his first book.