100 Books Like The Sea and the Bells

This book opened my eyes to the ocean world and its huge significance for the future of our planet. In scratchy font across its black cover, it read: “To industry it’s tin, aluminium, oil, gas, sulfur, iron, coal, phosphorites, manganese, diamonds and gold. To fisheries it’s £3,000,000,000 per year. To military and political interests, it’s battlefields and missile bases. To you and me it’s a breath of fresh air and a nice place to make a splash.”

These words resonated with me as a young PhD student of ocean science in Canada. It was the early 1970s. We were optimistic. The UN had just adopted a resolution that stated, “the seabed and ocean floor…are the common heritage of mankind.” The book may be out of print, but its message is as vital as ever.

This is a refreshing and very contemporary account of the changing face of our oceans. Despite the nearly five decades I have dedicated to ocean research, Helen Scales’ book provided me with new, intriguing insights and a wealth of fascinating factoids. More importantly, I welcome her positive and optimistic outlook for the future, following a candid assessment of just how much we have already affected a world we know so little about.

The oceans have changed many times in the geological past through natural Earth processes, and they will continue to adapt to whatever we impose. However, Helen argues with cogent elegance that we could still mitigate our worst excesses and work collectively for an environmentally sustainable ocean future.   

This is an enthralling tale of first-hand research at sea, of perilous work in the ‘screaming 60s’ around Antarctica, and the sheer delight and humility gained from making new discoveries in a world so few have ever seen and where exploration is still in its infancy.

I have experienced exactly that thrill and awe. My own research specialty is the deep ocean–the shape of the seafloor and the stories of sediment swept in to cover it. Alex Rogers is a leading specialist in marine biology, so I was intrigued to read his account of The Deep. Most importantly, Alex explores the ocean’s impact on all our lives, the dramatic effects of our use and abuse of the seas, and of what we might do to mitigate unnecessary damage in the future. Thought-provoking!

This utterly beautiful introduction to the ocean world–in all its power, mystery, and intrigue–captivates me every time I open it. The photography is stunning, jumping out from large-format double spreads, and the illustrations are eminently informative. It brings to life the startling richness of the marine world, from microplankton to baleen whales, from top predators to camouflage specialists. It explains tides and waves, coral reefs and hydrothermal vents, water chemistry, and ocean zones.

Personally, I love the spreads that focus on ocean art. At home, I always have a large coffee-table book that I can dip into. Because I loved the style, scope, and up-to-date science of this one, I agreed to play a very small part as a specialist contributor. But that does not influence my recommendation.

In this book the people and families of a human penal colony on a water-covered alien world are driven from their homes and into open waters after offending the indigenous alien species.

Out in the planet-wide ocean on a flotilla of ships, they encounter bizarre creatures and odd experiences. As the community falls apart, individuals come together, but ultimately, they will find that the planet itself is guiding them towards total unity.

This book will make you consider the bond between all living creatures, the need for forgiveness and progress forward, and succumbing to what is inevitable.

Tightwads on the Loose is another honest and well-written account of a couple’s ups and downs, in this case while cruising in the Pacific for seven years; only one year less than my husband and I traveled on our sailboat.

This enticing story also has a lot of parallels with my life: the couple’s age, their sense of adventure, their frugal means, their full-time commitment to their boat for many years, their need to make money, and some of the geographical and cultural experiences. Recognizing experiences and personality traits while reading this book made me enjoy it better.

Luckily, Wendy and her partner did not have to endure numerous dramatic life-altering events. Tightwads on the Loose is an easy-to-read sailing memoir that I highly recommend. 

Ben Finney was a surfer, sailor, and anthropologist who spent his career at the University of Hawai‘i and was a founder of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS). The PVS built Hōkūle‘a, a double-hulled sailing canoe modeled on a traditional Hawaiian design but constructed of modern materials.

Finney, then, was part of a team that sailed from Hawai‘i to Tahiti in 1976 without instruments under the leadership of Pius “Mau” Piailug, a renowned navigator from the Micronesian island of Satawal. This book is Finney’s account of that journey and its many challenges.

Hōkūle‘a and the PVS’s experience helped inspire me to write my volume on Anutan seamanship, and Finney wrote the foreword. Later, in 2007, he joined me in a study of Taumako voyaging.

As if a plague of memory loss that eventually makes you forget how to breathe isn’t scary enough, Cutter takes us deep under the ocean, to a lab where something has gone terribly wrong with our potential saviors. This is the most claustrophobic book I’ve ever read. You can feel the crushing weight of the water and the dark just outside the lab’s walls. There’s a wonderful sort of madness to the whole thing, and one scene, in particular, continues to haunt me.

I found this book a very exciting read about sailing alone on the ocean with little or no knowledge about sailing or the ocean. All problems he encountered were of his own making, and survival was largely due to good luck rather than good management.

Little did I realize he painted a more romanticized version of his misadventures.

Imagine, if you will: the world’s tallest mountain suddenly appears in the middle of the ocean. Where did it come from? What is its purpose? And what happens when dumb, curious humans (a natural but very dangerous combination) decide to go investigate?

They certainly don’t have fun! But the reader will because this horror novel is so wonderfully weird that I was gobsmacked by the time I finished. You can’t be sad when you’re wondering if there are monsters in the snow…