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A review by savaging
Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves by James Nestor
4.0
This isn't a perfect book. The conventions of pop-science writing tend to enrage me, and James Nestor couldn't steer clear of my wrath, poor dear. Gotcha one-liners and scientific observations that can't quite hurdle clear of my skepticism. Horrible, overwrought ending:
Added to it are the conventions of an even worse genre: sports writing. At least Nestor himself grew suspicious of the machismo of freediving competitions, but I was so much less interested in the gruesome tales of death and blackouts and torn lungs than I was of the beings who live down in the ocean.
Because the ocean IS a perfect subject for a book. Dolphins, coral, sharks, sperm whales (incredible communication abilities! Brilliant and emotionally rich!), and all the various lives that live in the deeper deeper dark of the sea. I loved this invitation into that world. Read this book, and even if you never freedive, you'll walk around with a strange buoyancy, a sense of all that life and meaning in other worlds that are, inexplicably, still this world.
Or at least watch the live-stream from NOAA's current deep sea exploration: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/media/exstream/exstream.html
Spoiler
dropping an electronic copy of his book down into a deep ocean trench, proving thereby his own authorial depth.Added to it are the conventions of an even worse genre: sports writing. At least Nestor himself grew suspicious of the machismo of freediving competitions, but I was so much less interested in the gruesome tales of death and blackouts and torn lungs than I was of the beings who live down in the ocean.
Because the ocean IS a perfect subject for a book. Dolphins, coral, sharks, sperm whales (incredible communication abilities! Brilliant and emotionally rich!), and all the various lives that live in the deeper deeper dark of the sea. I loved this invitation into that world. Read this book, and even if you never freedive, you'll walk around with a strange buoyancy, a sense of all that life and meaning in other worlds that are, inexplicably, still this world.
Or at least watch the live-stream from NOAA's current deep sea exploration: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/media/exstream/exstream.html