THE NEW YORK TIMES   BESTSELLER  A brilliant, soulful, and timely portrait of a two-hundred-year-old crabbing community in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay as it faces extinction. A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Washington Post, NPR, Outside, Smithsonian, Bloomberg,   Science Friday,   Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Review of Books,  and Kirkus   "BEAUTIFUL, HAUNTING AND TRUE." — Hampton Sides •  “GORGEOUS. A TRULY REMARKABLE BOOK.” — Beth Macy • "GRIPPING. FANTASTIC." —  Outside • "CAPTIVATING." — Washington Post • "POWERFUL." — Bill McKibben • "VIVID. HARROWING AND MOVING." —  Science  • "A MASTERFUL NARRATIVE." — Christian Science Monitor •   "THE BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR."  —   Stephen L. Carter/ Bloomberg Tangier Island, Virginia, is a community unique on the American landscape. Mapped by John Smith in 1608, settled during the American Revolution, the tiny sliver of mud is home to 470 hardy people who live an isolated and challenging existence, with one foot in the 21 st century and another in times long passed. They are separated from their countrymen by the nation’s largest estuary, and a twelve-mile boat trip across often tempestuous water—the same water that for generations has made Tangier’s fleet of small fishing boats a chief source for the rightly prized Chesapeake Bay blue crab, and has lent the island its claim to fame as the softshell crab capital of the world. Yet for all of its long history, and despite its tenacity, Tangier is disappearing. The very water that has long sustained it is erasing the island day by day, wave by wave. It has lost two-thirds of its land since 1850, and still its shoreline retreats by fifteen feet a year—meaning this storied place will likely succumb first among U.S. towns to the effects of climate change. Experts reckon that, barring heroic intervention by the federal government, islanders could be forced to abandon their home within twenty-five years. Meanwhile, the graves of their forebears are being sprung open by encroaching tides, and the conservative and deeply religious Tangiermen ponder the end times.    Chesapeake Requiem is an intimate look at the island’s past, present and tenuous future, by an acclaimed journalist who spent much of the past two years living among Tangier’s people, crabbing and oystering with its watermen, and observing its long traditions and odd ways. What emerges is the poignant tale of a world that has, quite nearly, gone by—and a leading-edge report on the coming fate of countless coastal communities. “This is a powerful book. Fascinating people, clinging loyally to a fascinating and lovely place, even as the waters rise—Earl Swift’s Chesapeake Requiem  is a tale of our time, movingly told. Perhaps it will inspire some of us living safe on higher ground to more action on behalf of those at risk.” - BILL MCKIBBEN, author of The End of Nature “Earl Swift is as much a master of crafting words on the page as capturing the instructive voices on this shrinking Chesapeake island. He has written not a farewell but a commencement, not an insular but a universal story, one we all should know, of challenge, forbearance, and possibilities.” - JACK E. DAVIS, author of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in History “One of the most powerful ways to tell the story of global climate change is to tell it local. And this meticulous, compassionate look at the fishermen and their families, who have for generations made a home on a tiny island in Chesapeake Bay, is a vivid portrait of what we are losing—and why we may fail to stop that loss.“ - Deborah Blum, NPR's Science Friday “The best nonfiction book of 2018. … I can’t remember a book in recent years that taught me quite so much. Every page is vivid and rich. … A model for what serious reportage should be.” - Stephen L. Carter, Bloomberg “In a gripping, 400-page tome, Swift gracefully outlines the harsh inevitability of global warming and how the people on its front lines try to keep living their lives in its face. ... Fantastic.” - Outside (A Best Book of the Year) “A provocative and respectful study of a culture that may soon be lost.” - Esquire, "The Best Nonfiction Books of 2018 (So Far)" “Swift does such a good, interesting job of telling the stories of the people who live on this island. … He really gets [the] hard questions about the reality of climate change and … how we make decisions as a country and as a community about what we value.” - Heather Hansman, NPR's All Things Considered “A detailed portrait of this distinctive community. …. The dire fate of [Tangier] island runs through Swift’s narrative. At its core, though, it’s a look at its people.” - John Yang, PBS NewsHour “An empathetic portrait of a small and unique community and its plight under environmental duress.” - Booklist “A superb piece of reporting.” - Telegraph (UK) “A graceful melding of history, nature writing, and perceptive cultural com