When: Tuesday, August 31st at 4:30PM
Where: On Zoom. Click here to register.
Lulu Miller’s first book follows previously written biographies of David Starr Jordan (1851-1931), ichthyologist and educator. Piqued by the story of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake that shattered the glass jars containing Jordan’s meticulously curated fish collection and his perseverance in re-creating the collection, Miller focuses on the many tragedies that befell Jordan during his life, as well as his tenacious spirit in handling ongoing hardship. Her subject’s persistence led Miller to ruminate on what makes someone resilient, while simultaneously relating findings to her own life. Part biography, part natural history, and part memoir with the intrigue of a murder mystery, this slim work is also a philosophical exposition on the human inclination to make order out of chaos as seen through Jordan’s life work, whose mission was to document and discover every freshwater fish in North America and beyond.
Lulu Miller is the co-host of Radiolab, a science series on public radio. She is also the co-founder of NPR’s Invisibilia, a radio show about hidden forces that shape human behavior. Her radio work has won honors from the Peabody Awards, the Associated Press, and more. Her written work has been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, VQR, Geurnica, and beyond. She thinks Wellfleet is the most beautiful place on Earth and she has been coming to the library since she was a little girl. Now she lives in Chicago with her wife and two sons.