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Bitter Ocean
by David Fairbank White
Bitter Ocean is a masterful, authoritative account of perhaps the least-known major battle of World War II, the Battle of the Atlantic.
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The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World's Oceans
by Laura Trethewey
The dramatic and action-packed story of the last mysterious place on earth--the world's seafloor--and the deep-sea divers, ocean mappers, marine biologists, entrepreneurs, and adventurers involved in the historic push to chart it, as well as the opportunities, challenges, and perils this exploration holds now and for the future.
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Escape from the Deep: The Epic Story of a Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew
by Alex Kershaw
By October, 1944, the U.S. Navy submarine Tang was legendary-she had sunk more enemy ships, rescued more downed airmen, and pulled off more daring surface attacks than any other Allied submarine in the Pacific. And then, on her fifth patrol, tragedy struck-the Tang was hit by one of her own faulty torpedoes. The survivors of the explosion struggled to stay alive in their submerged iron coffin one hundred-eighty feet beneath the surface. While the Japanese dropped deadly depth charges, just nine of the original eighty-man crew survived a harrowing ascent through the escape hatch. But a far greater ordeal was coming. After being picked up by a Japanese patrol vessel, they were sent to a secret Japanese interrogation camp known as the Torture Farm. They were close to death when finally liberated in August, 1945, but they had revealed nothing to the Japanese-not even the greatest secret of World War II.
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The Hungry Ocean: A Swordboat Captain's Journey
by Linda Greenlaw
The term fisherwoman does not exactly roll trippingly off the tongue, and Linda Greenlaw, the world's only female swordfish boat captain, isn't flattered when people insist on calling her one. I am a woman. I am a fisherman. . . I am not a fisherwoman, fisherlady, or fishergirl. If anything else, I am a thirty-seven-year-old tomboy. It's a word I have never outgrown. Greenlaw also happens to be one of the most successful fishermen in the Grand Banks commercial fleet, though until the publication of Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm, nobody cared. Greenlaw's boat, the Hannah Boden, was the sister ship to the doomed Andrea Gail, which disappeared in the mother of all storms in 1991 and became the focus of Junger's book.The Hungry Ocean, Greenlaw's account of a monthlong swordfishing trip over 1,000 nautical miles out to sea, tells the story of what happens when things go right -- proving, in the process, that every successful voyage is a study in narrowly averted disaster. There is the weather, the constant danger of mechanical failure, the perils of controlling five sleep-, women-, and booze-deprived young fishermen in close quarters, not to mention the threat of a bad fishing run: If we don't catch fish, we don't get paid, period. In short, there is no labor union. Greenlaw's straightforward, uncluttered prose underscores the qualities that make her a good captain, regardless of gender: fairness, physical and mental endurance, obsessive attention to detail. But, ultimately, Greenlaw proves that the love of fishing -- in all of its grueling, isolating, suspenseful glory -- is a matter of the heart and blood, not the mind. I knew that the ocean had stories to tell me, all I needed to do was listen. -- Svenja Soldovieri
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Into the Bermuda Triangle: Pursuing the Truth Behind the World's Greatest Mystery
by Gian J. Quasar
This volume is the summation of 12 years of research into the Bermuda Triangle. It first covers the mysteries of the lost ships and airplanes in chronological sequence, presenting the relevant details from the NTSB and other official reports. Eyewitness and survivor testimonies are also included. The second half of the book presents the fascinating discoveries and far-reaching theories the author encountered in his 12-year pursuit of causes and explanations.
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Last Man Off: A True Story of Disaster and Survival on the Antarctic Seas
by Matt Lewis
On June 6, 1998, twenty-three-year-old Matt Lewis had just started his dream job as a scientific observer aboard a deep-sea fishing boat in the waters off Antarctica. As the crew haul in the line for the day, a storm begins to brew. When the captain vanishes and they are forced to abandon ship, Lewis leads the escape onto three life rafts, where the battle for survival begins".
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Life on the Rocks: Building a Future for Coral Reefs
by Juli Berwald
Coral reefs are a microcosm of our planet: wondrously diverse, deeply interconnected, and critically imperiled. They sustain entire ecosystems and protect vulnerable coasts. But corals across the planet are in the middle of an unprecedented die-off, beset by warming oceans, pollution, human damage, and their own devastating pandemic. Even under stress, they are out-of-this world gorgeous, sending out warning flares in fluorescent bursts of yellow, pink, and indigo. Juli Berwald fell in love with coral reefs as a marine biology student, entranced by their beauty and complexity. While she was concerned by bleaching events and coral disease, she didn't fully understand what a dead reef meant until she experienced one on a dive: barren, decaying, and coated in slime. Deeply alarmed, she traveled the world desperate to discover how to prevent their loss. Life on the Rocks is a meditative ode to the reefs and the undaunted scientists working to save them against almost impossible odds. Berwald explores what it means to keep fighting a battle that can't be won, contemplating the inevitable grief of climate change and the beauty of small victories.
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Maiden Voyages: Magnificent Ocean Liners and the Women Who Traveled and Worked Aboard Them
by Siân Evans
In an engaging and anecdotal social history, Maiden Voyages explores how women's lives were transformed by the Golden Age of ocean liner travel between Europe and North America. During the early twentieth century, transatlantic travel was the province of the great ocean liners. It was an extraordinary undertaking made by many women, whose lives were transformed by their journeys between the Old World and the New. Some travelled for leisure, some for work; others to reinvent themselves or find new opportunities. They were celebrities, migrants and millionaires, refugees, aristocrats and crew members whose stories have mostly remained untold-until now. Maiden Voyages is a fascinating portrait of these women as they crossed the Atlantic.
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Ocean: A History of the Atlantic Before Columbus
by John Haywood
This work is a comprehensive cultural history of the Atlantic Ocean before Columbus, tracing its development from geological formation and the rise of early humans to the advancements in shipbuilding, navigation, and maritime exploration. It delves into the origins of the transatlantic slave trade and the early stages of European imperialism, offering a broad overview of the forces shaping this crucial body of water and its global significance.
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Ocean: Earth's Last Wilderness
by David Attenborough
Award-winning broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough and longtime collaborator Colin Butfield present a ... call to action focused on our planet's oceans, exploring how critical this habitat is for the survival of humanity and the earth's future--Provided by publisher.
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Octopus!: The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea
by Katherine Harmon Courage
Veteran journalist and contributing editor for 'Scientific American,' Katherine Harmon Courage dives into the mystifying underwater world of the octopus, sharing new scientific discoveries and demonstrating deep cultural ties that connect us all to this alien-like creatur
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The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier
by Ian Urbina
An adrenaline-fueled tour of a vast, lawless and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the high seas. There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to rampant criminality and exploitation. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways -- drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely. Both a gripping adventure story and a stunning exposé, this unique work of reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching.
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The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans
by Cynthia Barnett
A Science Friday Best Science Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year A Library Journal Best Science and Technology Book of the Year A Tampa Bay Times Best Book of the Year A compelling history of seashells and the animals that make them, revealing what they have to tell us about nature, our changing oceans, and ourselves.
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Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor
by Hali Felt
Her maps of the ocean floor have been called one of the most remarkable achievements in modern cartography, yet no one knows her name. Soundings is the story of the enigmatic, unknown woman behind one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century. Before Marie Tharp, geologist and gifted draftsperson, the whole world, including most of the scientific community, thought the ocean floor was a vast expanse of nothingness. In 1948, at age 28, Marie walked into the newly formed geophysical lab at Columbia University and practically demanded a job. The scientists at the lab were all male; the women who worked there were relegated to secretary or assistant. Through sheer willpower and obstinacy, Marie was given the job of interpreting the soundings (records of sonar pings measuring the ocean's depths) brought back from the ocean-going expeditions of her male colleagues. The marriage of artistry and science behind her analysis of this dry data gave birth to a major work: the first comprehensive map of the ocean floor, which laid the groundwork for proving the then-controversial theory of continental drift. When combined, Marie's scientific knowledge, her eye for detail and her skill as an artist revealed not a vast empty plane, but an entire world of mountains and volcanoes, ridges and rifts, and a gateway to the past that allowed scientists the means to imagine how the continents and the oceans had been created over time. Just as Marie dedicated more than twenty years of her professional life to what became the Lamont Geological Observatory, engaged in the task of mapping every ocean on Earth, she dedicated her personal life to her great friendship with her co-worker, Bruce Heezen. Partners in work and in many ways, partners in life, Marie and Bruce were devoted to one another as they rose to greater and greater prominence in the scientific community, only to be envied and finally dismissed by their beloved institute. They went on together, refining and perfecting their work and contributing not only to humanity's vision of the ocean floor, but to the way subsequent generations would view the Earth as a whole. With an imagination as intuitive as Marie's, brilliant young writer Hali Felt brings to vivid life the story of the pioneering scientist whose work became the basis for the work of others scientists for generations to come.
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Wavewalker: A Memoir of Breaking Free
by Suzanne Heywood
Aged just seven, Suzanne Heywood set sail with her parents and brother on a three-year voyage around the world. What followed turned instead into a decade-long way of life, through storms, shipwrecks, reefs and isolation, with little formal schooling. No one else knew where they were most of the time and no state showed any interest in what was happening to the children. Suzanne fought her parents, longing to return to England and to education and stability. This memoir covers her astonishing upbringing, a survival story of a child deprived of safety, friendships, schooling and occasionally drinking water... At seventeen Suzanne earned an interview at Oxford University and returned to the UK. From the bestselling author of What Does Jeremy Think?, Wavewalker is the incredible true story of how the adventure of a lifetime became one child's worst nightmare - and how her determination to educate herself enabled her to escape"--Publisher's description.
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The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea
by Philip Hoare
The whale is the largest, loudest, oldest animal ever to have existed. It is improbable, amazing, and--as anyone who has seen an underwater documentary or visited the display at the American Museum of Natural History can attest--a powerful source of wonder and delight to millions. The Whale is an extraordinary journey into the world of this fascinating and mysterious animal. Acclaimed writer Philip Hoare visits the historic whale-hunting towns of New Bedford and Nantucket, wanders the streets of London and Liverpool in search of Melville's whaling inspiration, and swims with sperm whales in the middle of the Atlantic. Through the course of his journey he explores the troubled history of man and whale; traces the whale's cultural history from Jonah to Moby-Dick, Pinocchio to Free Willy; and seeks to discover why these strange and beautiful animals continue to exert such a powerful grip on our imagination. A blend of the travel and nature writing in the tradition of Jonathan Raban and John McPhee, The Whale is a gripping voyage into the heart of Hoare's obsession--and ours.
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A Year with the Seals: Unlocking the Secrets of the Sea's Most Charismatic and Controversial Creatures
by Alix Morris
It might be their large, strangely human eyes or their dog-like playfulness, but seals have long captured people's interest and affection, making them the perfect candidate for an environmental cause, as well as the subject of decades of study. Alix Morris spends a year with these magnetic creatures and brings them to life on the page, season by season, as she learns about their intelligence, their relationships with each other, their ecosystems, and the changing climate. Morris also gets to know all of the competing interests in the intense debate about the newly recovered seal populations in our coastal waters, from local fishermen whose catch is often diminished by savvy seals, to tribes who once relied on seal-hunting for food, clothing, and medicine, to seal rescue workers and biologists, to surfers and swimmers now encountering seal-hunting sharks in coastal waters. A Year with the Seals is a rare look at what happens when conservation efforts actually work, and how human tampering with ecosystems continues to have unexpected consequences.
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