Rose George

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEKCold-blooded, slippery, wet and strange: fish can be hard to think of as fellow animals and easier to consider as food. But what do we know of these creatures on our plates, and what do we know of how they got there? In Every Last Fish, Rose George takes us inside the vast legal industries that support our appetite for fish fingers and salmon sandwiches, and the equally colossal illegal fishing trade whose practices and standards are unmonitored and often dangerous. It introduces us to the men (and it is mostly men) who fish, the women (and it is mostly women) who process the flesh and strive to keep fishing communities afloat. It takes us from Alaska to Senegal, via Scotland, Norway, and Massachusetts, and from the nets on the surface to the murky depths of the sea bed. It will transform the way you look at fish and change your understanding of what lies behind the inscrutable eye that looks back at you.

Most humans contain between nine and twelve pints of blood. Here Rose George, who probably contains nine pints, tells nine different stories about the liquid that sustains us, discovering what it reveals about who we are. In Nepal, she meets girls challenging the taboos surrounding menstruation; in the Canadian prairies, she visits a controversial plasma clinic; in Wales she gets a tour of the UK's only leech farm to learn about the vital role the creatures still play in modern surgery; and in a London hospital she accompanies a medical team revolutionising the way we treat trauma. Nine Pints reveals the richness and wonder of the potent red fluid that courses around our bodies, unseen but miraculous.