{"product_id":"9780316585835","title":"Beasts of the Sea","description":"\u003cb\u003eIn the spirit of Richard Powers and Daniel Mason, a novel spanning three centuries and tied together by the tale of Steller’s sea cow—a long-extinct denizen of the northern oceans—at once intimate and sweeping about the tragic clash between man and nature.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In 1741, thirty-two-year-old naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller joins Captain Bering's Great Northern Expedition to scout out a sea route from Asia to America. Plagued with hardships, captain and crew never reach their goal, but they do make a unique discovery, a gentle giant that will be named for the young explorer who described it: Steller’s sea cow.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e In 1859, the governor of the Russian territory of Alaska sends his men to seek the skeleton of the massive marine mammal rumored to have vanished a hundred years before, while his sister curates the settlement’s peculiar natural science collection. Two years later, a revered Helsinki professor hires a talented illustrator—a woman!—to make precise drawings of a set of bones sent from afar. The ill-fated beast will help introduce to a skeptical public the concept of human-caused extinction.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Finally, in 1952, the Museum of Zoology assigns its most talented restorer the task of refurbishing the antique skeleton, a testimony to the sea cow's fate that will fire the imaginations of future generations. \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eBeasts of the Sea \u003c\/i\u003eis a breathtaking literary achievement and an adventure that crosses continents and centuries. Told through the stories of the men and women touched by the long-ago discovery of a curious and placid creature, it is a tale of grand human ambition, the quest for knowledge, and the urge to resurrect what humankind has, in its ignorance, destroyed.","brand":"Iida Turpeinen","offers":[{"title":"Little, Brown and Company |  Hardback  |  2025-11-18","offer_id":46923087872255,"sku":"9780316585835","price":37.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0329\/9075\/7001\/files\/BNCImageAPI_cd45a68b-bc82-4889-9fad-90ff6a6dae8e.jpg?v=1749220349","url":"https:\/\/riverbookshop.com\/products\/9780316585835","provider":"River Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}