Book Review: The End of the Line

The End of The Line - How Overfishing Is Changing The World And What We Eat
Charles Clover
ISBN 009189781-5

I read this book on the recommendation of a friend, and in turn would recommend it to anyone. This book describes some of the current fishing practices and economic effects causing them and argues that the resulting overfishing we are nearing the end of the line for fish stocks and dramatically altering the ocean ecosystems.

The book is gripping reading. It does not read like typical environmental literature. Charles Clover is a journalist for the Daily Telegraph, an English broadsheet (ie quality) newspaper, which I think it is fair to say most people would regard as rightwing. Probably as a result of this it reads more like an article from the Economist magazine, giving plenty of facts and an informed, well-written argument, rather than a rant.

It ends with a brief guide to buying fish in a sustainable way, though this he admits is not the purpose to the book. If you read this you may never order fish and chips at a fish shop again. But if enough people read it, we might have fish and chip shops in the future.