The Blue Machine
Book description
All of Earth's oceans, from the equator to the poles, are a single engine powered by sunlight, driving huge flows of energy, water, life, and raw materials. In The Blue Machine, physicist and oceanographer Helen Czerski illustrates the mechanisms behind this defining feature of our planet, voyaging from the depths…
Why read it?
1 author picked The Blue Machine as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
How can you not love a book that argues that, despite being mostly microbial, “the plankton form the bulk of the living fabric of the ocean, the web of life that is an integral part of the blue machine.”
Czerski’s prose is as vivid as describing other, larger parts of the blue machine, such as Greenland sharks, which live for hundreds of years, and whales whose earwax records the stress caused by global warming. Equally entertaining and captivating are her accounts of canoeing off Maui, fieldwork in the Arctic, and everyday life on an oceanographic ship.
Although the writing is…
From David's list on microbes and the environment.
If you love The Blue Machine...
Tap Dancing on Everest
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
The team attempts a new route up…
Want books like The Blue Machine?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 60 books like The Blue Machine.
Share your top 3 reads of 2024!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,887
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like The Blue Machine, you might also like...
The Coaching Habit
The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.
It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. Brené Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".
It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,…
In This Together
In This Together explores how we can harness our social networks to make a real impact fighting the climate crisis. Against notions of the lone environmental crusader, Marianne E. Krasny shows us the power of "network climate action"—the idea that our own ordinary acts can influence and inspire those close…
