LoveReading Says
A clarion call of a read, explore the unknown in deep ocean waters, discover fascinating history, observe our effect on our environment, and reach for hope in our future. This is a book that offers much, and should find a space in every library, on every home bookshelf. Award-winning author James Bradley makes it very clear that oceans are at the centre of life on our planet, including human life. The oceans act as both magnet and barrier to the humans who live around and on it, and we need attempt to understand our relationship in order to understand our effect on the world as a whole. We are at the stage where scientists do not know how to reverse some of the catastrophic results of human interference, can we learn our lessons, can we yet make a difference? The fabulous Robert Macfarlane declares Deep Water as a major achievement: “Bradley’s skills both as novelist and essayist converge here to create this wise, compassionate, and urgent book…”. Scanning the wide ranging chapter titles gives a clue as to the depth and scope, from migrations to echo, net to cargo, beaches to deep, you begin to get some idea of what is to come. I read with eyes open wide, I was fascinated and felt connected, startled and in shock, but also energised and hopeful. This is a book that feels as though it is for everyone, it’s inclusive and welcoming even as it plunges deeply into the environmental emergency we have created. There was no option other than to add this to our LoveReading Star Books collection, and I’ve also chosen it as a Liz Pick of the Month. So eloquent and beautiful, Deep Water acts as a beacon of warning while shining a bright light of hope on our underwater world.
Liz Robinson
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Deep Water Synopsis
A Bookseller Nonfiction Editor’s Choice for March 2024
Plunge into the depths of the unknown in this thrilling work of nonfiction that combines science, history, and nature writing to explore the deepest recesses of the natural world.
Oceans created, shaped, and sustain not just human life, but all life on Earth, and perhaps beyond it. They are our history ? from evolution to exploration and colonialism; our present ? from beach holidays to transporting food and goods; and, as rising sea levels and warming water reshape coastlines and the climate, our future.
Deep Water is a reckoning with humankind’s complex relationship with the ocean, a book shaped by tidal movements and vast currents, and lit by the presence of other minds and other ways of being. It speaks directly and uncompromisingly of the urgency of the environmental catastrophe that is overtaking us, but is also suffused with the glories of the ocean, and alert to the extraordinary efforts of the scientists and researchers whose work helps us understand its secrets. Immense in scope but also profoundly personal, it offers vital new ways of understanding humanity’s place on our planet, and shows that the oceans might yet save us all.
About This Edition
James Bradley Press Reviews
‘Deep Water is a major achievement; a vast fathoming of the pasts, presents, and futures of the world’s oceans and seas. Bradley’s skills both as novelist and essayist converge here to create this wise, compassionate, and urgent book, characterised throughout by a clarity of prose and a bracing moral gaze that searches water, self, and reader.’ -- Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland
‘What a wondrous book. In vivid, urgent prose, James Bradley takes us on a journey through oceanic worlds. Epic in scope and charged with a compulsive capitalist critique, Deep Water balances the grief of environmental catastrophe with a profound sense of awe and possibility. There is no false hope here. But there is hope.’ -- Billy Griffiths, author of Deep Time Dreaming: uncovering ancient Australia
‘A sublime exploration of one of Earth’s most immense, powerful, and obscure entities, awash with humanity and wisdom. Deep Water will transform how you think about the ocean.’ -- Richard Fisher, author of The Long View
‘A sublime work, quite literally: vast, beautiful, sometimes frightening. Bradley is a talented scholar, surveying widely in various disciplines. But he keeps his novelist’s eyes for poignant intimacy: moments of love and grief, curiosity and rage. If you care about our oceans, submerge yourself in Deep Water.’ -- Damon Young, author of The Art of Reading
‘No part of the Earth system is more vital to the human past and future than the world ocean, and few indeed are better qualified to tell its stories than James Bradley. A love letter and a warning, Deep Water is a work of rare scholarship, wide range, and fierce urgency.’ -- Caspar Henderson, author of The Book of Barely Imagined Beings
‘Teeming with mysteries, wonders, and heartbreaking facts, this beautiful, lucid hymn to the sea is a reminder of what we still have, what we stand to lose, and why we must never stop fighting to save our home.’ -- Tim Winton, author of Cloudstreet
‘Astonishing in both its depth and breadth, Deep Water is an incisive, thoughtful exploration of the complicated and crucial relationships we have with our oceans. James Bradley has written a tour de force at a moment when we need it most.’ -- Juli Berwald, author of Life on the Rocks and Spineless
Praise for Ghost Species: ‘Ghost Species is a perceptive and timely tale about what it really means to take care of the Earth … spelling out ... where ordinary folk will fit in the future that Elon Musk and Bill Gates built.’ -- Simon Ings - The Times
Praise for Ghost Species: ‘Ghost Species is absorbing, sensitively written, and full of heart. A landmark novel in today’s environmentally ravaged world.’ -- Anne Charnock, author of the Arthur C. Clarke 2018 Novel Award-winning Dreams Before the Start of Time
Praise for Clade: ‘Moving and nuanced characterisations distinguish this subtle look at an Earth suffering the consequences of climate collapse.’ -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
Praise for Clade: ‘A stunningly beautiful novel, characterised as much by lyricism as pointed critique of how humans are stewarding the planet.’ - Chicago Review of Books
