Every Last Fish
A Deep Dive into Everything They Do for Us and We Do to Them
Published on 4. November 2025
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-393-88147-9 (ISBN)
Description
Slippery, wet, and strange: Fish can be easier to think of as food than as fellow animals. But what do we know about these creatures we meet on our dinner table and how they got there? For the first time in history, humans are eating more farmed fish than wild, and our fish consumption is predicted to increase. But with warming oceans, diminishing fish stocks, and questions about fish farming practices, where will the fish come from?
In Every Last Fish, Rose George dives into these questions by exploring the vast industries that support our appetite for fish sticks and salmon burgers, and the colossal illegal fishing trade whose practices and standards are unmonitored and often dangerous. Journeying to the bottom of the ocean and back, she examines the machinations of this $200 billion food system-one that's growing rapidly even as fish populations disappear.
Along the way, George introduces us to the people on the front lines of fishes and fishing: fishermen, divers, marine biologists, fish fryers, and fishwives. She presents minnows who shout; discovers the underwater soap operas of wolffish; and, despite her constant seasickness, boards trawlers to see firsthand the impact of fishing on our emptying oceans. Her journey ends at the fish counter, with guidance for readers looking to make better choices, both for the ocean's health and their own.
Ranging from Alaska to the United Kingdom to Senegal and beyond, Every Last Fish is an unforgettable trip through the ocean's inhabitants and workers. With irresistible wit and an eye for the unusual, George reveals the unseen and endangered world behind what you buy at the seafood counter, while also bringing to life that dead fish on your plate.
In Every Last Fish, Rose George dives into these questions by exploring the vast industries that support our appetite for fish sticks and salmon burgers, and the colossal illegal fishing trade whose practices and standards are unmonitored and often dangerous. Journeying to the bottom of the ocean and back, she examines the machinations of this $200 billion food system-one that's growing rapidly even as fish populations disappear.
Along the way, George introduces us to the people on the front lines of fishes and fishing: fishermen, divers, marine biologists, fish fryers, and fishwives. She presents minnows who shout; discovers the underwater soap operas of wolffish; and, despite her constant seasickness, boards trawlers to see firsthand the impact of fishing on our emptying oceans. Her journey ends at the fish counter, with guidance for readers looking to make better choices, both for the ocean's health and their own.
Ranging from Alaska to the United Kingdom to Senegal and beyond, Every Last Fish is an unforgettable trip through the ocean's inhabitants and workers. With irresistible wit and an eye for the unusual, George reveals the unseen and endangered world behind what you buy at the seafood counter, while also bringing to life that dead fish on your plate.
Reviews / Votes
"Much of what [George] shares will hit readers like a blast of shoreline wind. . . . humane and impressively researched." -- Kirkus "Highly recommended for those interested in sustainable practices." -- Catherine Lantz - Library Journal "Rose George is a fearless and dogged reporter, one of our best. Every Last Fish presents a shocking catch of fishing industry misdeeds: dredging and overfishing, fish-laundering, shipboard slavery. But to call this book an expose overlooks its word-by-word charms. George writes with heart, heat, and wit. There are heroes here, too, and reasons for hope, and historical characters rendered as vividly as fish tank wrasse (Fishwives! Herring Girls! His Majesty's Trawlers!). I've loved all Rose George's books, but I think I love this one most." -- Mary Roach, author of Replaceable You "From fish and chips to slavery at sea, cod-to-human skin grafts to the deadly toll of distant-water fisheries, Rose George's new book is a penetrating and kaleidoscopic view of the natural world's most exploited but least understood resource." -- Adam Higginbotham, author of Challenger "Once again, Rose George, equipped with wide-ranging curiosity and bracing dashes of coruscating humor, takes us on an astoundingly eye-opening journey through the overlooked and everyday-this time the toll, in terms human and pelagic, of our consumption of fish." -- Tom Vanderbilt, author of Traffic "It's hard to imagine creatures more different from us than fish. Yet as Rose George reminds us in this rollicking, often elegiac, account, our fates are intertwined. Every Last Fish deftly captures our shared story through the humans: eccentric, passionate, and trepidatious." -- Florence Williams, author of The Nature Fix "Every Last Fish . . . is a reminder of how careless we are with our planet's vanishing bounty of underwater life. It's a warning of the consequences of such carelessness. But it's also a story of our beautiful and fascinating underwater worlds and of the sometimes unexpected ways we try not to destroy but to protect them. In other words, as they say, a really good fish story." -- Deborah Blum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Poison SquadMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
16 black-and-white chapter openers
Dimensions
Height: 231 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
408 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-393-88147-9 (9780393881479)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
11/2025
W. W. Norton & Company
€27.99
Available for download
Person
Rose George is the author of four previous books. She holds a BA in modern languages from Oxford and an MA in international politics from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a Thouron Awardee and a Fulbright Fellow. She lives in Yorkshire, UK.