Told by Zeb Hogan, written by Stefan Lovgren, this is a fantastic book. While it took me a bit to get to it, I'm kind of glad since I'm ending the year on a high note. Hogan is engaging, committed and intelligent. Lovgren does a great job bringing that all across. Even though Hogan's tales of big fish disappearing is a bit disheartening, he keeps positive about it, which I agree is needed when it comes to the possibility of a turnaround for any of these species. Hogan's efforts over the decades to save these "monster fish" from extinction is commendable and I hope this book reaches a wide audience. The message is important and the book manages to be really entertaining while getting that message across. ( )

I was expecting a book about fishing for large freshwater fish, found it scattered, and more time trying to convince me about evolution. More science than actual fishing, plus it was hard to keep track what he was writing about, bouncing from one area to another. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. There is a ton of information and knowledge in it. Anyone with an interest of outdoors, nature, etc would be thrilled with this. ( )

The whale shark is the largest marine fish but what is the largest freshwater fish? Zeb Hogan, the host of National Geographic’s Monster Fish, sets out to discover the answer. His search takes him around the world as he studies various fishes and their environments.

We are introduced to fish with odd names such as goonch, Dolly Varden, flannelmouth sucker, alewife and the alligator gar which has lots of teeth and eggs that are poisonous to humans. There is also the fossilized Leedsichthys problematicus which may have been the largest fish that ever lived.

The narrative skips about in time and place which disrupts the flow. Hogan travels from the Mekong to the Amazon, to the Colorado River, the Yangtze and the Danube, the Eg and Ur Rivers in Mongolia, hoping to capture, measure, tag and release the world’s largest freshwater fish.

He recounts watching, in Albi, France, as wels catfish attack pigeons that venture into the water to drink. The catfish hurl themselves at the birds, there is a flurry of feathers, and somehow the bird evades capture. The pigeons didn’t seem to learn and soon return, even the one that narrowly survived the encounter. This continues for hours although the catfish don’t catch any birds. It almost seems as if they were playing a game rather than trying to get a meal. A hundred pages later Hogan mentions the pigeon-feasting fish again. So, were they successful hunters, were they failures, or were they just having a day of fun?

Later chapters are mostly about the effects of damming rivers which prevents fish from reaching their spawning grounds. Climate-induced droughts and pollution also take their toll. In the last pages Hogan’s team captures, weighs and releases a record-breaking freshwater fish but Hogan is not there to witness the event. At least Guinness World Records documented it. The book includes twenty photographs and an index. ( )

Chasing Giants by Zeb Hogan and Stefan Lovgren was a frustrating disappointment. I won a copy through LibraryThing and was looking forward to reading it. It sounded like it would be an exciting adventure nonfiction book but from the beginning, it was hard to follow. The scientific sections are annoyingly complicated and confusing. He throws glib statements around about evolutionary eras and kinds of fish as if everyone would know what he’s talking about. He jumps from place to place with no seeming reason. He obviously believes in evolution but isn’t willing to let fish evolve - humans should be saving big fish. What happened to ‘survival of the fittest?’ Hogan has an axe to grind but it isn’t particularly compelling or well written. I wasn’t able to go beyond the first 100 pages. ( )