Barnett, Cynthia

Cynthia Barnett, environmental journalist in residence at the University of Florida, is the author of four books, including Rain, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and named a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing. In her latest work, The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans (W. W. Norton & Company), she blends cultural history and science to trace our long love affair with seashells and the hidden lives of the mollusks that make them. In the process, she reveals a larger story about nature, our changing oceans, and ourselves. The New York Times noted that The Sound of the Sea “will have you marveling at nature … Barnett’s account remarkably spirals out, to become a much larger story about … environmental crises and preservation.”