Explore how underwater animals tap into sound to survive with award-winning science journalist Amorina Kingdon when she visits the Hudson Library & Historical Society on Wednesday, August 28 at 6:30 p.m. to discuss her book, Sing Like Fish. The book tells a uniquely complete story of ocean animals’ submerged sounds, envisions a quieter future, and offers a profound new understanding of the world below the surface. Publisher’s Weekly opines in a starred review, “[Sing Like Fish] will open readers’ eyes, and ears, to a heretofore hidden world.”

For centuries, humans ignored sound in the “silent world” of the ocean, assuming that what we couldn’t perceive didn’t exist. But we couldn’t have been more wrong. In Sing Like Fish, author Amorina Kingdon synthesizes historical discoveries with the latest scientific research in a clear and compelling portrait of this sonic undersea world. From plainfin midshipman fish, whose swim-bladder drumming is loud enough to keep houseboat-dwellers awake, to the syntax of whalesong; from the deafening crackle of snapping shrimp, to the seismic resonance of underwater earthquakes and volcanoes; sound plays a vital role in feeding, mating, parenting, navigating, and warning—even in animals that we never suspected of acoustic ability. Meanwhile, we jump in our motorboats and cruise ships, oblivious to the impact below us. Our seas echo with human-made sound, but we are just learning of the repercussions of anthropogenic noise on the marine world’s delicate acoustic ecosystems—masking mating calls, chasing animals from their food, and even wounding creatures, from plankton to lobsters.

Amorina Kingdon is a science writer whose work has been anthologized in Best Canadian Essays and received honors including a Digital Publishing Award, a Jack Webster Award, and a Best New Magazine Writer from the National Magazine Awards. Previously, she was a staff writer for Hakai Magazine, and a science writer for the University of Victoria and the Science Media Center of Canada.

Registration for this program is required. Copies of Sing Like Fish will be available for purchase and signing courtesy of the Learned Owl Book Shop.

For more information, email [email protected] or call (330) 653-6658 x1010.