Years of teaching Verbal First Aid™, hypnotic language for healing, only whet my curiosity for Non-Verbal First Aid. I love mysticism and magic, and I love science and evidence. When the two work together to illuminate profound understandings, I am such a fan. Just imagine this if you can: Dolphins’ visual and aural nerves connect so that when they send out sound beams of echolocation, it comes back as an ultra-sound-looking picture, which they can send to other dolphins! Magic and science are used by them for healing, as well. How could one NOT investigate further and be passionate about this subject?
It is a fiction based on facts about whales and about what Four Arrows believes they are trying to tell us regarding the pollution of the Oceans that threatens us all. A whale captures a marine biologist and his encounter, feeling almost biblical but very current, reveals their important message to humanity. In this very dramatic story, you’ll also find an ecological treatise, and a call to action so needed at this time.
A humpback whale mysteriously takes a mixed-blood American Indian professor to sea. While struggling to survive, the man begins to reclaim his indigenous roots, and in the process discovers thousands of whales on a suicide mission in the North Pacific. When he theorizes the dire effects the whale's action could have for all of life on earth, he and a sympathetic woman marine biologist, influenced by a Hawaiian shaman's dream, against all odds, try to warn the world in time.
Similar to many other men and women, when I was younger and more naïve, I had the romantic dream of sailing around the world, exploring and experiencing new times in exotic places. Like many others who turned that dream into reality, I quickly learned the new and exotic moments were far out-shadowed by the life-threatening, dream-ending, nightmare realities of ocean sailing. Fortunately, I ended the voyage before I killed myself. I wanted to share my dream and nightmare experiences with those who dream.
Dr. Harland was a close friend of mine who spent years researching, writing, and editing this book. It is the most comprehensive and detailed book I have ever read on the subject of seamanship in the days of sail.
The book's bibliography includes goals written in several languages and interviews with some of the most famous names in contemporary naval history.
Numerous successful reprints of contemporary works on rigging and seamanship indicate the breadth of interest in the lost art of handling square-rigged ships. Modelmakers, marine painters and enthusiasts need to know not only how the ships were rigged but how much sail was set in each condition of wind and sea, how the various manoeuvres were carried out, and the intricacies of operations like reefing sails or 'catting' an anchor. Contemporary treatises such as Brady's Kedge Anchor in the USA or Darcy Lever's Sheet Anchor in Britain tell only half the story, for they were training manuals intended to be…
I'm a man of the sea. From my early days as a boy growing up on the coast of southern California, I became a fisherman at age 5, when my dad took me fishing at the pier in Redondo Beach. In my teens, I bought my first boat that I used in and around King Harbor for fishing. After owning other small boats, I moved to Catalina Island where I worked for 32 years as Harbormaster, earning my 100-ton Masters License and broadening my ocean experiences. Eventually I wanted to share my stories and experiences through writing. My first book, Between Two Harbors, Reflections of a Catalina Island Harbormaster, tells my Catalina story.
Stepping away from his ‘normal’ genre of historical fiction, Wilbur Smith has created an ocean adventure novel that anyone with seafaring urges or experience would love to read. As a longtime seaman, with my own vast experience on the ocean, this book will take you to places and adventures far beyond any that most seamen have ever experienced. Based on the unique life of a marine engineer/adventurer, Hungry as the Sea takes the reader on an epic adventure into the treacherous realm of the Antarctic, aboard an ocean-going tugboat intent on trying to save a floundering cruise ship. I could feel nature’s elements and life’s dangers on every page.
As a 100-ton licensed United States Coast Guard Captain, I have seen and experienced many frightening and challenging moments at sea. This book, Hungry as the Sea, shares and captures the essence of what makes the oceans so frightful, and…
An action-packed, race-against-time thriller from global bestselling author, Wilbur Smith.
'A master storyteller' - Sunday Times
'Wilbur Smith is one of those benchmarks against whom others are compared' - The Times
'No one does adventure quite like Smith' - Daily Mirror
His toughest challenge. His final hope.
Once the envied and admired chairman of one of the world's most successful shipping consortiums, Nick Berg now finds himself completely alone. His long-time nemesis, Duncan Alexander, has schemed to take his job, alienated him from his wife and son, and stolen his fortune.
Nick's only hope now is the Warlock, a top-of-the-range…
I am a children’s book author who is awed by the ocean and the creatures that dwell in its depths. I love writing for kids because they’re unabashedly eager, enthusiastic, and curious! To write this book, I dove deep into researching information about the ocean. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. I kept thinking, kids will love these fascinating facts and they’ll want to learn more. The wonderful books on this list tell amazing tales, take kids on adventures, and turn dry facts into a deluge of fun. These nonfiction stories offer kids opportunities to become immersed in our awesome ocean!
I highly recommend this true tale of deep-sea exploration!
The suspense is intense, compelling readers to keep turning pages. In 1930, two intrepid explorers climbed into a 5,000-pound hollow metal sphere and descended 800 feet into the ocean—farther than any human had ever dared to venture. They were amazed to find animals aglow in the ocean’s cold, dark depths.
Young readers (and older readers, too!) will be inspired by Otis and Will’s desire to know more, their persistent problem solving, and this remarkable feat of science and engineering. Over 90% of the ocean is still unexplored! Well-researched pencil, ink, and watercolor illustrations suit the story perfectly.
The suspenseful, little-known true story of two determined pioneers who made the first dive into the deep ocean.
On June 6, 1930, engineer Otis Barton and explorer Will Beebe dove into the ocean inside a hollow metal ball of their own invention called the Bathysphere.
They knew dozens of things might go wrong. A tiny leak could shoot pressurized water straight through the men like bullets! A single spark could cause their oxygen tanks to explode! No one had ever dived lower than a few hundred feet...and come back. But Otis and Will were determined to become the first people…
Peter Sale has managed to spend an entire career exploring coral reefs, perhaps the most fascinating ecosystem on this planet. From 1964 when he commenced a Ph.D. at the University of Hawaii, through faculty positions in Australia, the USA, and Canada, and with a final stint with the United Nations University, he has been able to explore the wonders of coral reef systems in many places around the world. His life has been rewarding, because of the new science he did, the students and colleagues he worked with, and the sheer joy he experienced diving on reefs. His many technical writings include the 1991 book, The Ecology of Fishes on Coral Reefs, which became a classic among reef researchers, students, and some sport divers.
Dr. John E.N. Veron, called Charlie by everyone who knows him, is an Australian coral reef scientist. He is also the person who single-handedly sorted out the names of the corals in the 1980s by emphasizing the study of corals in their natural habitats on reefs. Prior taxonomy, based on dried, cleaned bits of skeletons, had resulted in much confusion given the considerable plasticity of the form of corals growing in different reef habitats. This book is Charlie’s account of his life as a marine scientist, from his earliest exploring of rocky shores near Sydney to his numerous expeditions to reefs around the world over the course of his career.
His love of the natural world, his curiosity and willingness to take risks, and his dogged determination in solving scientific puzzles stand out. So too do his humor, his down-to-earth Australian-ness, and his loving respect for corals, for reefs, and…
Hailed by David Attenborough, proclaimed a second Charles Darwin, John 'Charlie' Veron almost didn't become a scientist. Disheartened at school, by chance he won a scholarship to a university where he could indulge his passion for the natural world. It was scuba diving that returned him to his childhood love of marine life, and led to a career as a self-taught coral specialist, a field he revolutionised. His discoveries include an original concept of what a species is, and the mechanism that dives their evolution - matters that lie at the heart of conservation. He has named more coral species…
I'm a passionate scientist, conservationist, and published author. I'm the President of the nonprofit Ocean Conservation Society and I hold a Ph.D. in Biology and a Post-Doc from UCLA. My research on dolphins off California represents one of the longest studies worldwide. I'm the co-author of Beautiful Minds: The Parallel Lives of Great Apes and Dolphins and author of Dolphin Confidential: Confessions of a Field Biologist. As a photo-journalist, I've written for many national and international media, including National Geographic; I currently write essays for Medium and other publications. I live in Los Angeles with my husband. When I’m not writing, I can be found with dolphins out on the ocean, traveling, or walking my mutt.
“Her Deepness” Sylvia Earle is an authority on ocean explorations, so this is another must-read for all ocean lovers. Sea Change recounts Earle’s decades dedicated to the discovery of the sea. With contagious enthusiasm and vivid prose, this internationally renowned author and scientist narrates her many underwater adventures while urging readers to respect the oceans and their creatures.
In 1952, at age sixteen, Sylvia Earle - then a budding marine biologist - borrowed a friend's copper diving helmet, compressor, and pump and slipped below the waters of a Florida river. It was her first underwater dive. Since then, Earle has descended to more than 3,000 feet in a submersible and, despite beginning at a time when few women were taken seriously as marine scientists, has led or participated in expeditions totaling more than 7,000 hours underwater, and counting.
Equal parts memoir, adventure tale, and call to action, Sea Change: A Message of the Oceans has become a classic…
I began as a journalist and turned into a novelist who uses extensive research to build my imagined stories. So, I tend to end up writing novels about whatever is fascinating enough to send me down research rabbit holes. I’m finishing a novel now about the wonders and mysteries of whales and the researchers who commit their lives to try to understand them. During the last three years, I have interviewed whale researchers, gone on expeditions with them, and have read countless scientific papers and quite a few books on whales. These books I’m recommending here were some of my favorites.
Leviathan is an incredibly well written book about Hoare’s own fascination with whales and Moby Dick, Herman Melville’s intense whale-driven masterpiece. Hoare captures whales in words as well as anybody. “The whale is a miracle of marine engineering,” he writes, and then explains both their biological wonders as well as their psychological impact on us. “There is a supernatural physicality to them… They look like we feel as we float in our dreams.”
The story of a man's obsession with whales, which takes him on a personal, historical and biographical journey - from his childhood to his fascination with Moby-Dick and his excursions whale-watching.
All his life, Philip Hoare has been obsessed by whales, from the gigantic skeletons in London's Natural History Museum to adult encounters with the wild animals themselves. Whales have a mythical quality - they seem to elide with dark fantasies of sea-serpents and antediluvian monsters that swim in our collective unconscious.
In 'Leviathan', Philip Hoare seeks to locate and identify this obsession. What impelled Melville to write 'Moby-Dick'? After…
I’ve been a non-fiction writer my entire career and I love learning new things and then sharing them with readers in an approachable and engaging way, as these books do. These books encourage curiosity and that kind of “Oh! I didn’t know that!” response, which can spark a young reader to dig deeper and even share their new knowledge with others.
I loved Anglerfish because you really feel like you are traveling with this particular creature on her journey to the deepest reaches of the ocean. She starts out this really cute, vulnerable baby and ends up pretty darn ferocious looking (here I should add that I think the illustrations are just outstanding!!)
We see her morph from a regular looking baby fish to one that has ferocious teeth, and more unusually, a lantern sticking out of her forehead! This has GOT to be one of the weirdest creatures on the planet! Plus to see the size difference between the female (big) and the male (teeny tiny) was amazing. I turned back to those pages several times.
Dive thirteen thousand feet below the ocean's surface into the midnight zone, home to the anglerfish - a cunning hunter known as the Seadevil of the Deep.
Deep in the darkest part of the ocean where no ray of sunlight can reach, Anglerfish makes her home. Resources are scarce, and fellow inhabitants scarcer. Still largely a mystery to scientists, the deep-sea anglerfish is a true source of fascination and awe. This mesmerizing picture book shines a light on the fascinating fish, pairing a captivating text with stunning artwork.
Dr. Helen Scales a marine biologist, broadcaster and bestselling writer whose books include Spirals in Time and Eye of the Shoal. Her stories about the ocean appear in National Geographic Magazine, The Guardian, New Scientist, and others. Helen co-hosts the Catch Our Drift podcast, teaches at Cambridge University and is a scientific advisor to the marine conservation charity Sea Changers. She divides her time between Cambridge, England, and the wild French coast of Finistère.
Eugenie Clark wrote this book about the early days of her amazing career as a marine biologist and shark specialist (she was later nicknamed the ‘Shark Lady’). In the 1940s, not only was she unusual for being a female scientist, but she set off on intrepid journeys around the world, studying fish around tiny islands across the Pacific and in the Red Sea, long before it was developed as a tourist destination. This book gives a glorious view of a pioneering scientist and what ocean science used to be like. I was lucky enough to meet her a few years before she died in her nineties. She was incredibly warm and generous, and was clearly still driven by the same boundless curiosity and adventurous spirit that you will see written across the pages of her book.
Eugenie Clark, who received her Ph.D. in 1951, was one of the first women to do independent field work in ichthyology. In this youthful memoir, she describes her childhood excursions to Manhattan's old Aquarium, and the development of her education and her career specialty - plectognaths, the family that includes the blowfish, puffer, triggerfish, and other (sometimes poisonous) varieties. "Delightful autobiography." - Christian Science Monitor.
I am a marine biologist who studies salt marshes, fishes, crabs, and marine pollution. I fell in love with the ocean as a child and am interested in sharing my love and knowledge with other people. So, in addition to my scientific research, I write books for the general public. This was the first one, and I wanted a second author to help me write in a "user-friendly" way, different from technical writing.
Jacques Cousteau, an engineer and the inventor of scuba, chronicled his early days of underwater adventure in this book. It is a real-life adventure story by a person who first made us realize what a fascinating world exists under the sea.
Cousteau and his friend Fredric Dumas take us into the world under the sea. (We now know with new technology that it’s pretty noisy down there). They are developing new technologies to bear the enormous pressure in the depths. They go to depths that no one has ever gone to before, discover the effects of gases, and get drunk on nitrogen in their air supply. They also tackle large squids and octopuses and escape shark attacks.
The book has old black-and-white photos of underwater dives and of sharks and squids.
Before becoming the man who introduced us to the wonders of the sea through his beloved television series, Jacques Cousteau was better known as an engineer and the inventor of scuba. He chronicled his early days of underwater adventure in The Silent World?a memoir that was an instant, international bestseller upon its publication in 1954. Now, National Geographic presents a 50th anniversary edition of this remarkable book, allowing readers to once again travel under the sea with Cousteau during the turbulent days of World War II.
