Ames Free Library

"Where the Community Connects"

Ames Free Library Nonfiction Book Club - The Outlaw Ocean by Ian Urbina

Read the true side of the story with some truly great people - new members are always welcome! Copies of each selection are available at the Circulation Desk approximately one month before the meeting.

The Nonfiction Book Club meets every month on the 2nd Thursday at 6:00 p.m.

This month’s selection is: The Outlaw Ocean by Ian Urbina

“There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation.

Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways--drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil, and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely.

Both a gripping adventure story and a stunning exposé, this unique work of reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching.”

Event Location: 
Queset House, 1st Floor Information Cafe