Two friends, a writer and an artist, try to catch a Greenland Shark from a small boat in northern Norway. (Yes, the name of the shark is a bit misleading; in Norway and Sweden it's known as bitch shark.) While they wait (and wait, and wait, and wait, and the damn shark proves ever so elusive) the writer lets his mind wander; how did they get here, how did the shark get here, what do they do here, etc. The book covers everything from the history of life on the planet to the minutiae of life in a northern fishing village, from ecology to mythology... By the time he namechecks Schalansky's Atlas of Remote Islands I've already slotted this book right along side it in my mental vault. Meditative, intelligent, funny, occasionally a bit maudlin but I'm glad this was my last read of 2017.