“An electric foray into the eel. Combining legal intrigue, a vision of untapped riches, and still-unsolved scientific mysteries, the author fashions a curious history that brims with wonderment.”

Kirkus Reviews

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About Ellen

Ellen spent years as a contributing editor and correspondent for The Atlantic, where she wrote on various issues of the day that intrigued, mattered or simply caught her fancy.  Her reporting, essays and reviews have also appeared in The Smithsonian, Scientific American, the New York Times Magazine, Science Magazine, Audubon, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The L.A. Times, the Boston Globe, among other outlets.  A Professor Emerita of Science Journalism at Boston University, her research focuses on the intersection of science, culture and society.

About Slippery Beast

What is it about eels? Depending on who you ask, they are a pest, a fascination, a threat, a pot of gold. What they are not is predictable. Eels emerged some 200 million years ago, weathered mass extinctions and continental shifts, and were once among the world’s most abundant freshwater fish. But since the 1970s, their numbers have plummeted. Because eels—as unagi—are another thing: delicious.

Praise for Ellen's Work

Ellen Ruppel Shell will astound you, delight you, distress you, and make you fall in love with these mysterious, shape-shifting creatures...

—Sy Montgomery, New York Times bestselling author of The Soul of An Octopus on Slippery Beast

Ellen Ruppel Shell’s Slippery Beast is witty, smart, extremely well reported, and full of good storytelling.

—Alan Lightman, bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams, and host of Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science

A masterful group portrait of obsession

—Charles C. Mann, New York Times bestselling author of 1491 and 1493 on Slippery Beast

Shell has gathered the kindling of true systemic change—social trust, collective ownership, experiments with universal basic income, the concern over alienation—and writes with compassion, heart, and verve.

Harper’s Magazine
on The Job

"Beguiling... Shell balances her meticulous reporting with a sly appreciation for the absurdity of her subject and a novelist’s gift for characterization. Fans of Susan Orlean will love this."

—Publishers Weekly
on Slippery Beast

...a first-rate job of reporting and analysis. Pay full
price for this book, if you can stand to. It’s worth it.

—The New York Times Book Review
on Cheap

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The Surprising Eel

Eels are nature’s Rorschach test; what we think of them reveals not much about them and a lot about us. Mystery? Nuisance? Jackpot? Dinner? Threat? Depending on who you are or who you ask, eels can be all or none of those things. But no matter your feelings about the eel, there’s one thing of which I hope to convince you: no living creature is more remarkable.

Featured Interview

Ellen Shell, Author Interview with Kara Swisher

Also by Ellen Ruppel Shell