10 Best Marine Life Books

Finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction * New York Times Bestseller * Starred Booklist and Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick * A Huffington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of the Year * One of the Best Books of the Month on Goodreads * Library Journal Best Sci-Tech Book of the Year * An American Library Association Notable Book of the Year ” Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus does for the creature what Helen Macdonald’s H Is for Hawk did for raptors.” — New Statesman , UK ” One of the best science books of the year.” — Science Friday , NPR Another New York Times bestseller from the author of The Good Good Pig , this “fascinating…touching…informative…entertaining” ( Daily Beast ) book explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus–a surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature–and the remarkable connections it makes with humans. In pursuit of the wild, solitary, predatory octopus, popular naturalist Sy Montgomery has practiced true immersion journalism. From New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, she has befriended octopuses with strikingly different personalities–gentle Athena, assertive Octavia, curious Kali, and joyful Karma. Each creature shows her cleverness in myriad ways: escaping enclosures like an orangutan; jetting water to bounce balls; and endlessly tricking companions with multiple “sleights of hand” to get food. Scientists have only recently accepted the intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees but now are watching octopuses solve problems and are trying to decipher the meaning of the animal’s color-changing techniques. With her “joyful passion for these intelligent and fascinating creatures” ( Library Journal Editors’ Spring Pick), Montgomery chronicles the growing appreciation of this mollusk as she tells a unique love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopus reveals what octopuses can teach us about the meeting of two very different minds.

Julia Rothman’s best-selling illustrated Anatomy series takes a deep dive into the wonders of the sea with Ocean Anatomy. Follow Rothman’s inquisitive mind and perceptive eye along shorelines, across the open ocean, and below the waves for an artistic exploration of the watery universe. Through her drawings, discover how the world’s oceans formed, why the sea is salty, and the forces behind oceanic phenomena such as rogue waves. Colorful anatomical profiles of sea creatures from crustacean to cetacean, surveys of seafaring vessels and lighthouses, and the impact of plastic and warming water temperatures are just part of this compendium of curiosities that will entertain and educate readers of all ages. Also available in this series: Nature Anatomy, Farm Anatomy, Food Anatomy, and Nature Anatomy Notebook

A jaw-dropping visual voyage of fun facts discovery exploring the deep waters of the sea and the mysterious creatures that live in it. Uncover our oceans’ secrets in this kid’s book with a remarkable array of 80 sharks as well as other fascinating sea creatures that lurk in her depths! This comprehensive encyclopedia for children covers a diverse range of ocean inhabitants in mesmerizing detail. Incredible 3D digital images, breath-taking photography, and intricate cutaways reveal more about the species of the ocean depths than ever before, complemented by informative kid-friendly profile text to turn your little ones into ocean experts! Super Shark is so much more than just an educational book about sharks. From Barrel Shrimp to Blue Sharks, Starfish to Bat Fish, and Hammerhead Sharks to deep-sea monsters, rays, and eels, this book is packed with unbelievable facts about animal behavior and anatomy. New x-ray artworks utilize cross- sections to strip layers away and show key anatomical features in great detail. It highlights the deadliest predators and the most venomous creatures and explains how and why their bodies work the way they do. The combination of spectacular photography and clear authoritative text truly makes Super Shark the ultimate visual guide to the oceans’ most peculiar creatures and their stories. What are you waiting for? Dive in and become an expert of the deep blue! Explore – Discover – Learn! Super Shark takes you deep beneath the waves to meet some of the most amazing and unusual creatures on the planet. Find out how a hammerhead searches for prey, and discover what makes the pufferfish such a prickly fellow. Learn about the fastest fish in the water and get right under the skin of one of the deadliest predators of the sea – the great white shark! These are some of the crazy creatures you’ll encounter in this kid’s reference book: – The Basking Shark, whose open mouth is so big a child could stand up in it – The Tiger Shark, who happens to be the least fussy eater – The Narwhal, affectionately known as the unicorn of the sea – The Great White Shark, who can jump 10ft (3m) out of the water This book sits on the esteemed “Children’s Book Council Children’s Choices List Selection” – an International Literary Association. This is but one of the DK Super series of books for kids! Add Super Human, Super Space, Super Bug, Super Earth , and more to your collection to learn more about the world around you.

Named a Top Ten Science Book of Fall 2016 by Publishers Weekly Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also sprouted higher intelligence: the cephalopods, consisting of the squid, the cuttlefish, and above all the octopus. In captivity, octopuses have been known to identify individual human keepers, raid neighboring tanks for food, turn off lightbulbs by spouting jets of water, plug drains, and make daring escapes. How is it that a creature with such gifts evolved through an evolutionary lineage so radically distant from our own? What does it mean that evolution built minds not once but at least twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter? In Other Minds , Peter Godfrey-Smith, a distinguished philosopher of science and a skilled scuba diver, tells a bold new story of how subjective experience crept into being―how nature became aware of itself. As Godfrey-Smith stresses, it is a story that largely occurs in the ocean, where animals first appeared. Tracking the mind’s fitful development, Godfrey-Smith shows how unruly clumps of seaborne cells began living together and became capable of sensing, acting, and signaling. As these primitive organisms became more entangled with others, they grew more complicated. The first nervous systems evolved, probably in ancient relatives of jellyfish; later on, the cephalopods, which began as inconspicuous mollusks, abandoned their shells and rose above the ocean floor, searching for prey and acquiring the greater intelligence needed to do so. Taking an independent route, mammals and birds later began their own evolutionary journeys. But what kind of intelligence do cephalopods possess? Drawing on the latest scientific research and his own scuba-diving adventures, Godfrey-Smith probes the many mysteries that surround the lineage. How did the octopus, a solitary creature with little social life, become so smart? What is it like to have eight tentacles that are so packed with neurons that they virtually “think for themselves”? What happens when some octopuses abandon their hermit-like ways and congregate, as they do in a unique location off the coast of Australia? By tracing the question of inner life back to its roots and comparing human beings with our most remarkable animal relatives, Godfrey-Smith casts crucial new light on the octopus mind―and on our own.

From the author of Mayflower, Valiant Ambition, and In the Hurricane’s Eye– the riveting bestseller tells the story of the true events that inspired Melville’s Moby-Dick. Winner of the National Book Award, Nathaniel Philbrick’s book is a fantastic saga of survival and adventure, steeped in the lore of whaling, with deep resonance in American literature and history. In 1820, the whaleship Essex was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale, leaving the desperate crew to drift for more than ninety days in three tiny boats. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents and vivid details about the Nantucket whaling tradition to reveal the chilling facts of this infamous maritime disaster. In the Heart of the Sea , recently adapted into a major feature film starring Chris Hemsworth, is a book for the ages.

Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction Finalist for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction A “delving, haunted, and poetic debut” ( The New York Times Book Review ) about the awe-inspiring lives of whales, revealing what they can teach us about ourselves, our planet, and our relationship with other species. When writer Rebecca Giggs encountered a humpback whale stranded on her local beachfront in Australia, she began to wonder how the lives of whales reflect the condition of our oceans. Fathoms: The World in the Whale is “a work of bright and careful genius” (Robert Moor, New York Times bestselling author of On Trails ), one that blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? How has whale culture been both understood and changed by human technology? What can observing whales teach us about the complexity, splendor, and fragility of life on earth? In Fathoms , we learn about whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and whales that have modified the chemical composition of our planet’s atmosphere. We travel to Japan to board the ships that hunt whales and delve into the deepest seas to discover how plastic pollution pervades our earth’s undersea environment. With the immediacy of Rachel Carson and the lush prose of Annie Dillard, Giggs gives us a “masterly” ( The New Yorker ) exploration of the natural world even as she addresses what it means to write about nature at a time of environmental crisis. With depth and clarity, she outlines the challenges we face as we attempt to understand the perspectives of other living beings, and our own place on an evolving planet. Evocative and inspiring, Fathoms “immediately earns its place in the pantheon of classics of the new golden age of environmental writing” ( Literary Hub ).

A New York Times bestseller, Ocean is like being on a dive. Using Photicular technology, each image is like a 3-D movie on the page, delivering a rich, fluid visual experience. Open the book, and the reader is swept into the magic of an underwater world, face-to-face with a floating Yellow-Banded Sweetlips; with a glow-in-the-dark Deep-Sea Anglerfish; with a Sea Horse swaying in balletic motion; with a Sand Tiger Shark gliding along the ocean floor, its gaze haunting, its hook-toothed mouth gulping open and closed. The text by Carol Kaufmann enchants with its descriptions of coral reefs; a journey on Alvin , the 17-ton submersible; and a meditation on our oceans. Then, for each creature, she writes a lively and informative essay, along with vital statistics–size, habitat, range, diet, and more. The Photicular process uses an innovative lenticular technology, sliding lenses, and original four-color video imagery. The result is like a movie in your hands–the dance of life in a book.

New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • An Amazon Best Science Book of 2014 • Scientific American Recommended Read ” Fascinating, informative, exhilarating.” — Wall Street Journal Deep is a voyage from the ocean’s surface to its darkest trenches, the most mysterious places on Earth. Fascinated by the sport of freediving–in which competitors descend great depths on a single breath–James Nestor embeds with a gang of oceangoing extreme athletes and renegade researchers. He finds whales that communicate with other whales hundreds of miles away, sharks that swim in unerringly straight lines through pitch-black waters, and other strange phenomena. Most illuminating of all, he learns that these abilities are reflected in our own remarkable, and often hidden, potential–including echolocation, directional sense, and the profound bodily changes humans undergo when underwater. Along the way, Nestor unlocks his own freediving skills as he communes with the pioneers who are expanding our definition of what is possible in the natural world, and in ourselves. “A journey well worth taking.” –David Epstein, New York Times Book Review “Nestor pulls us below the surface into a world far beyond imagining and opens our eyes to these unseen places.” — Dallas Morning News “This is popular science writing at its best.” — Christian Science Monitor