It was a bold move for a publisher to commission a book on the murky and tortuous subject of the global fishing industry from an author who refuses to eat fish and develops seasickness every time she boards a boat. But Granta picked a winner in Rose George. She may know nothing about the glorious pleasure of chewing slowly on a scallop or biting through crisp batter into the firm, flaky flesh of a perfectly fried fillet of haddock but her appetite for unearthing startling and often shocking information about how these delicacies arrive on our plates is insatiable. She presents her material with as much aplomb as a top chef presenting a grilled Dover sole.

When I first looked at Every Last Fish, I feared I was in for another harrowing and dispiriting account of the plunder of our oceans in the mould of Michael Wigan’s The Last of the Hunter Gatherers (1998), Charles Clover’s The End of the Line (2004) and more recent cries of despair about the future of fishing. Although there is plenty in George’s narrative to make anyone who cares about such matters bury their heads in their hands at the folly of nations, she has cast her net wider than just the slaughter wrought by the vast trawls and hundred-mile lines of hooks deployed by the factory ships.

She signs up for a course to learn how to fry fish and chips – even though, as a vegetarian, she won’t eat the fish, or even the chips if they are cooked in beef fat (as they should be). At the chippie run by her instructor near York, she