A wondrous nonfiction debut from the cofounder of NPR’s Invisibilia, Why Fish Don’t Exist tells the story of a 19th-century scientist possessed with bringing order to the natural world—a dark and astonishing tale that becomes an investigation into some of the biggest questions of our lives.

When Lulu Miller was starting out as a science reporter, she encountered a story that would stick with her for a decade. It was the strange tale of a scientist named David Starr Jordan, who set out to discover as many of the world’s fish as he could. Decade by decade, he built one of the most important specimen collections ever seen. Until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake hit—sending over a thousand of his fish, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life’s work was shattered.

Miller knew what she would do if she were in Jordan’s shoes. She would give up, give in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish he recognized, and painstakingly began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that, he believed, would protect it against the chaos of the world.

In Why Fish Don’t Exist, Miller digs into the passing anecdote she once heard about David Starr Jordan to tell his whole story. What was it that kept him going that day in 1906? What became of him? And who does he prove to be, in the end: a role model for how to thrive in a chaotic world, or a cautionary tale? Filled with suspense, surprise, and even a questionable death, this enchanting book interweaves science, biography, and a dash of memoir to investigate the age-old question of how to go on when everything seems lost.


Louisa Elizabeth Miller, better known as Lulu Miller, is an American writer, artist, and science reporter for National Public Radio. Miller's career in radio started as a producer for the WNYC program Radiolab. She now co-hosts the NPR show Invisibilia with Alix Spiegel.