Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean

The Log from the Sea of Cortez

John Steinbeck · 286 pages

This exciting day-by-day account of Steinbeck's trip to the Gulf of California with biologist Ed Ricketts, drawn from the longer Sea of Cortez, is a wonderful combination of science, philosophy, and high-spirited adventure.

The Sea Inside

Philip Hoare · 374 pages

In this book the author sets out to rediscover the sea and its islands, birds, and beasts. Starting at his home on the shores of Britain's Southampton Water and moving in ever widening circles, like the migration patterns of whales, he explores London, the Isle of Wight, the Azores, Sri Lanka, Tasmania, and New Zealand. As he weaves together literary and natural history, we encounter memorable peo

Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them

Donovan Hohn · 402 pages

When the writer Donovan Hohn heard of the mysterious loss of thousands of bath toys at sea, he figured he would interview a few oceanographers, talk to a few beachcombers, and read up on Arctic science and geography. But questions can be like ocean currents: wade in too far, and they carry you away. Hohn's accidental odyssey pulls him into the secretive world of shipping conglomerates, the daring

Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms & a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories

Simon Winchester · 495 pages

Grayson

Lynne Cox · 153 pages

Arctic Dreams

Barry Lopez · 464 pages

This is an account of the author's exploration of the Western Arctic region, between Bering Strait and Davis Strait. It is an account both of the natural history of the Arctic, and equally of how the Arctic grips the human spirit and imagination.\ The chapters are rich in their descriptions of the Arctic –of the physical land itself, the native peoples that the author met, the Arctic animals and

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean

Susan Casey · 339 pages

Investigates colossal ship-swallowing rogue waves and the surfers who seek them out. For centuries, mariners have spun tales of gargantuan waves, 100 feet high or taller. Until recently scientists dismissed these stories; waves that high would seem to violate the laws of physics. But in the past few decades, as a number of ships have vanished and new evidence has emerged, oceanographers realized s

Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks

Juliet Eilperin · 295 pages

In this globe-spanning adventure, environmental journalist Juliet Eilperin investigates the ways different individuals and cultures relate to the ocean's top predator. Along the way, she reminds us why, after millions of years, sharks remain among nature's most awe-inspiring creatures. From Belize to South Africa, from Shanghai to Bimini, sharks are still the object of an obsession that may eventu

The Silent World

Jacques-Yves Cousteau · 242 pages

The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery & Adventure, by the 1st Men to Swim at Record Depths w/the Freedom of Fish is a '53 book coauthored by Capt Jacques-Yves Cousteau & Frédéric Dumas, edited by James Dugan. Tho French, Cousteau wrote it in English. It's the basis of the '56 Academy Award winning The Silent World. As of its 50th anniversary it has been translated into 22 languages, sold

Kon-Tiki: Across The Pacific In A Raft

Thor Heyerdahl · 239 pages

Presents the Kon-Tiki expedition led by explorer Thor Heyerdahl as he and his crew travel from South America and Polynesia on a raft made from balsa wood.

Journal of Researches Into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle Round the World Under the Command of Capt. Fitz Roy

Charles Darwin · 538 pages

The Curve of Time: The Classic Memoir of a Woman and Her Children Who Explored the Coastal Waters of the Pacific Northwest

M. Wylie Blanchet · 194 pages

A compendium of a young widow's summer travels among the islands and fjords of British Columbia with her five small children. The family lived and travelled on a small motor launch getting to know that remarkable coast and it's cast of characters starting in 1927. Her enchanting account has become a treasured local classic in B.C.

Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Herman Melville · 420 pages

A classic of the sea, telling of the pursuit of Moby Dick, the white whale who defied capture.

The Founding Fish

John McPhee · 368 pages

"The Founding Fish, John McPhee's twenty-sixth book, is a braid of personal history, natural history, and American history, in descending order of volume. McPhee is a shad fisherman. He waits all year for the short spring season when delicious American shad - Alosa sapidissima - leave the ocean in hundreds of thousands and run up rivers heroic distances to spawn. He approaches them with a catch-an

A Whale for the Killing

Farley Mowat · 220 pages

***In the 1960s, Farley Mowat was living in the tiny fishing community of Burgeo on the southwest coast of Newfoundland. When an 80-ton fin whale became trapped in a nearby saltwater lagoon, Mowat rejoiced: here was the first chance to study at close range one of the most magnificent animals in creation.*** Some local villagers thought otherwise, blasting the whale with rifle fire and hacking open

Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings

Jonathan Raban · 435 pages

The Edge of the Sea

Rachel Carson · 276 pages

We see how the tides, waves, and ocean current shape the living creatures that depend on them. Three main types of environment--the rock shore, the rim of sand and the coral coast found on the American Atlantic coast are studied in detail.

In the Land of White Death: An Epic Story of Survival in the Siberian Arctic

Valerian Albanov · 285 pages

The Moon by Whale Light and Other Adventures Among Bats, Penguins, Crocodilians and Whales

Diane Ackerman · 256 pages

Following Fish: Travels Around the Indian Coast

Samanth Subramanian · 167 pages

The Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary

Caspar Henderson · 437 pages

The creatures that abound in Henderson's book—from the axolotl to the zebrafish—are, with one exception, very much with us, albeit sometimes in depleted numbers. *The Book of Barely Imagined Beings* transports readers to a world of real creatures that seem as if they should be made up—that are somehow more astonishing than anything we might have imagined. The yeti crab, for example, uses its furry

Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood

Taras Grescoe · 326 pages

Dividing his sensibilities between Epicureanism and ethics, Taras Grescoe set out on a nine-month, worldwide search for a delicious--and humane--plate of seafood. What he discovered shocked him. From North American Red Lobsters to fish farms and research centers in China, Bottomfeeder takes readers on an illuminating tour through the $55-billion-dollar-a-year seafood industry. Grescoe examines how

The Lightkeepers

Abby Geni · 364 pages

"In The Lightkeepers, we follow Miranda, a nature photographer who travels to the Farallon Islands, an exotic and dangerous archipelago off the coast of California, for a one-year residency capturing the landscape. Her only companions are the scientists studying there, odd and quirky refugees from the mainland living in rustic conditions; they document the fish populations around the island, the b

The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness

Sy Montgomery · 261 pages

This awe striking, almost alien trip, draws us into the otherworldly watery realm of cephalopods --- except they aren't alien. Octopuses (not octopi, as the author informs) may arguably be as intelligent, as highly curious, and absolutely more dexterous than human beings. Sy Montgomery introduces us to these creatures with their fascinating and individual personalities.