100 books like The Deep Range

The title Neptune’s Laboratory invokes knowledge of the oceans through science alongside the equally central role imagination has played in the human relationship with the sea. Antony Adler astutely observes how its mirror-like qualities encouraged scientists, politicians, and the public since the early 19th century to use the ocean to spin utopian fantasies and explore dystopian fears. Most importantly, he reminds readers that our propensity to fathom oceans to project the fate of the human species and our planet offers an important key: imagination could chart a course toward a better future.

This important and revealing book conveys the untold history of West Africans and their relationship with the ocean, including the underwater realm, from before New World slavery and extending around the Atlantic as enslaved African swimmers and divers carried their skills and the culture associated with them in the African diaspora. Kevin Dawson’s story is not only fascinating but also firmly discredits the false and insidious belief that Blacks are naturally poor swimmers and demonstrates instead the long and proud traditions of West African knowledge and use of the undersea.

This fantasy by the prolific and well-known American novelist Theodore Pratt follows the adventures of a bespectacled bookkeeper who becomes a fish, serves the American navy during the Second World War, and swims off to evolve a better species of humanity, free of those qualities that provoked global conflict. Reflecting scientific and popular embrace of the idea that life, including the human species, evolved from the sea, Mr. Limpet combines pointed commentary and humor with the growing cultural fascination of the undersea prompted by submarine warfare. Rare today because of its publication shortly after American entry into the war, the novel inspired the more well-known 1963 film The Incredible Mr. Limpet.

Ann Elias demonstrates how visual media – photography, film, art, and museum displays – re-cast coral reefs in the early 20th century from dangers to navigation into fantastical but familiar and inviting spectacles. Coral Empire reveals photographers, artists, and scientific explorers as they rendered the undersea modern yet colonial. Using technology, indigenous knowledge, and their own visions, they presented the oceans as wild, untouched spaces full of resources that invited exploitation, conquest, and tourism. Desire-fueled uses of the undersea obscured the destructive nature of human activities on coral reefs, now abundantly apparent, while the power of the visual for imagining and knowing the undersea remains.

You’re probably wondering, if we can’t do what Buck and MacKay point us to in time to avoid the world that Lynas paints, what then?

I have good news: we’re still not (quite) out of options. It looks possible to cool the Earth a degree or two within a few years by spraying a mist of reflective aerosols – sort of like your plant sprayer – in the upper atmosphere to scatter a percent or so of incoming sunlight. This approach, solar geoengineering, is a band-aid, not a cure for climate change. It doesn’t avoid the need to slash emissions, and it brings a bunch of new uncertainties and potential problems. But it can buy time and might be the only way to avoid Lynas’s world quickly.

Morton digs into these technologies, what we know and don’t know about them, and the controversies, with erudition and wit. I love his… show more.

This is the story that first got me interested in science fiction. Of course, we now recognise some of the flaws in the science, but consider that at the time of its writing steam propulsion was still in its infancy, most ships were still built of timber, and Verne envisaged a ship capable of indefinite travel beneath the ocean surface – something not even possible until the advent of nuclear power almost a century later. Even today Verne’s vision and the story he wove around it can inspire.

Garcia the bunny craves to shoot up to space while Colette the fox dreams of exploring the deep seas. Garcia builds a rocket and Colette, a submarine. Off they go on their separate adventures with their peanut butter sandwiches, of course! In this cleverly worded book, the author compares the two journeys – their similarities and differences, and how the two friends miss each other’s company. Garcia and Colette finally find a way to enjoy their interests together. The illustrations complement the words perfectly. A great read for little humans.

Stories with unusual, original animal perspectives fascinate me, so I was hooked when Emma Geen’s character, Katherine, projects into endangered species as a way of researching various creatures.

She becomes a fox, bat, octopus, snake, and perhaps most weirdly, a spider. Each leap had unique joys and challenges. As a reader, I learnt to master tentacles, sonar, and web-spinning. The rich sensory details of each animal jump were extraordinary, and the research involved in making these imaginative leaps believable was impressive. I loved it.

Malta operated a small fleet of submarines from Manoel Island in Valletta’s north harbour. Painted cobalt for camouflage, they were kept submerged at their moorings to avoid enemy attention. Padfield’s book is a huge tour de force that details all aspects of the Mediterranean campaign together with all the other major submarine campaigns during the second world war. We learn about the submarine arms of Britain, America, Japan, and Italy, as well as the anti-submarine measures deployed by all sides. First-hand accounts, from submariners at the sharp end to the decision-makers in dusty ministry offices, are used to embellish this technically definitive account of the cloak and dagger world of underwater warfare.

The remarkable story of the Royal Navy Submarine Service in the First World War deserves greater recognition. This book takes you inside their world.

It tells the story of an action-packed patrol by submarine E.11 into the dangerous Turkish waters of the Sea of Marmora during the Dardanelles Campaign in 1915. E.11’s captain, Martin Nasmith VC, pushed the limits of what was possible to attack enemy warships and supplies, even swimming out to disarm a torpedo that failed to explode in order to use it again!

The book resembles a novel, but the events are entirely factual to the historical record. Nasmith and his crew collaborated closely in the drafting. It is this that gives the book the feel of experiencing the events with them as they unfold.