4.0

3.75 stars for this one!

It's a bit too long and wordy (75 pages less would be about right). But meandering as it does through culture, toymaking, weather-vs-climate, polar ice, environmentalism, ocean currents, transoceanic shipping and childrens toys, this is a fascinating look at one of those great universal stories: 28800 plastic bath toys are lost at sea during shipping between China and Seattle, and then wash up on beaches for the next couple of decades.

It's a nicely explored book, well researched and well told. I learned a lot more than I thought I would, though there were also sections when I could loosely skim 15 or 20 pages and not care about what I missed.

Hohn is at his best when describing people and objects; he's really witty and fun. This makes the meandering worthwhile.