| Maybe your summer vacation included burrowing into some soft, sugary sand and gazing serenely out at a sparkling sea. Maybe you wondered about the creatures that frolic beneath the waves, the plant life that thrives on the shadowy bottom and the secrets of the deepest reaches of the ocean. Oceans contain multitudes of mysteries that draw explorers, adventurers, poets and scientists. Writer HP Lovecraft said: “Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and dreams of Time.” So, here are two brand new books about the Earth’s oceans that I believe are must-reads. I listened to Susan Casey’s wonderful book about dolphins, “Voices in the Ocean,” after a recent trip to Greece where I spotted images of them in the frescoes and artwork of ancient painters. I was curious about whether dolphins were deified into Greek myths. Spoiler alert: they were. In Casey’s new book, “The Underworld,” she is, again, exploring mythology but this time of the abyss ... the water-bound world that exists below 600 feet. She writes about how uncharted the deepest ocean is, the methods that scientists are employing to reach these distant places and the creatures they discover when they get there. Helen Czerski is an ocean physicist and science columnist who specializes in bubbles under waves and the effect they have on climate and weather. Her new book, to be published in October, tackles “the dynamic liquid powerhouse that stretches around our planet and is connected to every part of our lives.” “The Blue Machine: How the Ocean Works” introduces us to our complicated relationship with the oceans, how we balance the commercial and ecological interests of the seas around the globe and, of course, how instrumental ocean conservation is to climate change. Czerski writes: “To look more deeply at the ocean is also to look more closely at our own identity, and at what it means to be a citizen of an ocean planet.”
— Kerri Miller | MPR News | 