today's book of the day is The Run, by john hay. partially because i enjoy the blue-tinted woodcut-style cover featuring alewives making their saltwater-to-freshwater migration. and partially because i ride a train line featuring a stop called alewife.

yes, named after the fish. who was in its turn named after the proverbial buxom barmaid. see, the thing with alewives is that they feed salmon and basically everything else. they might even be a keystone species. who knew that a small, silvery, anadramous fish in the shad family could mean so, so much.

{furrowed brow and emphatic fist of Deep Feeling}