Review was posted to Shelf Awareness at time of publication, and can be found on that website by searching author and/or title

It has been awhile since I've read a nonfiction book but In Oceans Deep by Bill Streever did not disappoint. It was a wild and informative ride about a topic I had little knowledge of. When I picked out this book, despite my fascination with the ocean, I could see it was a topic that could easily be a hit or miss for me.

Streever does an excellent job of introducing the reader to the topic of deep-diving and with a penchant for story-telling, it's a smooth transition between an anecdote to the cold, hard facts of history. The book is divided into seven chapters, all covering a range of topics from decompression to saturation to manned vehicles and even robots.

I flew through this book but that's not to say it was a short read by any means. It is a lengthy book jam packed with information and visuals (mostly from Creative Commons) showcasing old newspaper clippings, photographs or even prototypes of the first diving gear created for the use of deep-diving.

There were two topics that spoke to me from the entire book. The decompression chambers, how the Bends started up, what the pressure changes did to the human body and the solutions humans eventually came up with to resolve it. The other topic was scattered about several chapters and it was in reference to saturation and nitrogen narcosis. I found the following quote of interest "....narcosis that made men breathing air see railroad tracks and trains and mermaids and monsters at much shallower depths." but I think there wasn't a single bit from this book that I found myself pulled away from.

It was eerie and frightening the fact that so many deep-divers dived only to never resurface and that the body was never recovered. Death is always a possibility when taking up a hobby so dangerous but the author painted both sides of the spectrum, clear as water. He did not skim over the grimly details and unfortunate accidents but he also presented the idea that some divers are not in it just for fame or the competitive heat. Streever describes reaching a sort of meditative state powerful enough to challenge the risks associated with deep-diving.

The negatives were not grand but they were worth of mention. The author's passion for interviews at times seems persistence bordering on stalking, in particular, I agree with his own words in that last chapter and the bit about obsessing over submarine jokes and trying to get Navy personnel to share some with him seems a bit childish and off-putting concerning the seriousness of the topic discussed. Granted, I did enjoy the jokes he did chose toward the end of that chapter.

The negatives did not overshadow the positives and I would recommend this book to any ocean or nonfiction enthusiast. This book is perfect even for those that are just getting into the topic of deep-diving or that occasionally enjoy topic-hopping like I do.
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Thank you to Netgalley for supplying the kindle version of this ARC in exchange for a review but all thoughts and opinions are my own.

A fascinating portrait of human presence under the sea.

Streever writes unusually well for a science writer, many of whom are exceptional with information but stall badly on readability. Not so with Streever, who essentially says he’s aiming for something akin to an educational pleasure read in his intro. And in that, he succeeds.

Some of the diving helmet and suit development talk does get a bit on the dry side, but most of the content is appealing to the layman, and Streever’s writing style is refreshingly erudite yet accessible.

In some ways, this book reminds me of Her Name, Titanic by the immensely talented and brilliant Charles Pellegrino, which is one of my favourite explorations of the depths of the ocean and the depths of space. In it, Pellegrino marvels at how little we know about the earth’s water, what myserious creatures might live at the bottom, where it’s darker than pitch, darker than midnight.

With In Oceans Deep, Streever skillfully outlines the same thesis – that human beings have long focused upward, aiming for the stars, and ignored the wonderland of discovery that exists in the oceans, those uncharted territories and little touched blue deserts.

From the synopsis:

In Oceans Deep celebrates the daring pioneers who tested the limits of what the human body can endure under water: free divers able to reach 300 feet on a single breath; engineers and scientists who uncovered the secrets of decompression; teenagers who built their own diving gear from discarded boilers and garden hoses in the 1930s; saturation divers who lived under water for weeks at a time in the 1960s; and the trailblazing men who voluntarily breathed experimental gases at pressures sufficient to trigger insanity.

Tracing both the little-known history and exciting future of how we travel and study the depths, Streever’s captivating journey includes seventeenth-century leather-hulled submarines, their nuclear-powered descendants, a workshop where luxury submersibles are built for billionaire clients, and robots capable of roving unsupervised between continents, revolutionizing access to the ocean.

I knew little about free diving before beginning this book, and while the scientific methods behind it (which I think Streever spends a bit too much time on) are of little interest to me personally, the limits that people will push their bodies to was fascinating. These free divers “welcome” the convulsions of their diaphragms, fighting to breathe, spit out blood on the surface from lungs on the verge of crushing, and follow lines into the dark, anxious for that next personal record, or world-breaking depth. It’s dangerous, to be sure, but it’s also a testament to how far human beings will go in the name of exploration and the testing of the body.

With captivating prose and an obvious love for the ocean, Streever outlines the ways that we’ve studied the oceans from time immemorial, and the ways we’ve studied how far our bodies – and our machines – can go before they’re broken beneath the crushing weight of water.

It reminds me of mountaineers, tagging peaks and pushing beyond the realms of endurance, to breathe the thinnest air imaginable, while standing on the roofs of the world. It’s these kinds of people who find out what it means to be human, and find out what it means to discover. To stand or go where no one else has been, or where few have been, it must be the ultimate high. Whether they survive or not is almost beside the point – it’s what they come to know, sitting in a tiny submersible, touching the earth six miles down, in the Challenger Deep, where monsters may live.

Where their dreams live, and go on, to the next – the next depth, the next mountain, the next star. The next flicker in the unknown, reminding them what it means to be alive.

This was a well written book mainly about diving to the deepest depths of the ocean. It begins with one of the deepest dives any human has accomplished, down to the bottom of the the Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench at just over 35,700 feet deep, in 1960. The mission was done by the US Navy the one time and would not repeated. Missions like this then ceased..

The book covers the how this dive and other deep dives are accomplished, without getting very technical. Streever interviews one of the men on this dive, Don Walsh, and also other people who work in the diving industry. Streever himself used to work as a diver for an oil company then went back to school and became a writer. A large part of the book talks, not of his work in his earlier days, but instead of his experience as a free diver. Where the goal is to get as deep as possible on one breath. Ironically this is usually accomplished by exhaling as you sink instead of holding your breath.

Streever covers submarines, submersibles, ROVs, robots, scuba diving, different gasses that people breath at great depths, and of course the problems that are associated with being deep in the oceans. We also get the history of how it was figured out to combat decompression sickness, known as the bends. It all written in an engaging way, which made it absorbing and informative. We also learn briefly about the few attempts to have a colony on the ocean floor.

So why not a full five star rating if I enjoyed the book, and like the writing so well? A couple of minor aspects reduced it for me, one being something like what I did right here, where the author talks about the book writing process in the book. It was somewhat awkward, near the end of the book where he discusses how he shifted the ending and writing. The other part was there wasn't enough about how to help fix the problems that affect the oceans now. Streever reluctantly mentions conservation and the environmental damage being done. It seems an important aspect when the book is all about the ocean. It is doubtful that just by having people aware of the ocean, by being in it, will suddenly have them changing their ways. It hasn't worked on land so why would it happen if more people start diving?

Regardless of those points, I would highly recommend this book for anyone who likes a little history, with narratives and a bit of science and technology thrown in.

“I realized that what I had to write could no be limited to diving in the conventional sense out instead would tackle what I came to think as humanity presence beneath the waves. “

Bill Sheever tackles the topic of the ocean from the history of not only the ocean exploration but human's presence in the ocean's deep from the beginning of freediving and the first small manned submarines to the current explores and exploration. You can see the love that Mr. Sheever has for the oceans, ocean exploration and human interaction with the ocean and his knowledge of this topic and a deep understanding that only comes from the experience of years of doing exactly what he is writing about. His knowledge and understanding of the ocean and human exploration make this science and history in his writing more fact than fiction and his sharing those experiences allows the reader to go along with him and the other ocean explores in this book. I recommend this book for both teachers, students or even non-academic with interest in the past and presence of ocean exploration, oceanography or even ocean archaeology. The resource information alone in this book is a worthwhile investment and allows you to expand the knowledge you already have in the field of ocean exploration.

A summary of this book is done best with a quote, the book is about "people underwater, about the challenges of getting there, being there, and returning to the surface."
It is a great overview of the history of man's journey beneath the waves told from the perspective of a former oil diver (current marine biologist) . It covers topics from free diving, and scuba, to submarines, submersibles, and ROVs. The book ends, satisfyingly, with a brief discussion of man's continuing impact on the ocean and its inhabitants.
I recommend it for anyone who has ever dived beneath the waves, wondered at the marvels they witnessed, and longed to return.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

Streever clearly has a lifelong love of oceans and adventures. Here he writes true tales of humanity's quest to explore the deepest parts of our planet, from diving bells to submersibles. This will appeal to readers who are interested in the environment, exploration in extreme human conditions (think Into Thin Air), oceans and boats, and true adventure tales.

I am an environmental science major with a interest in marine life and oceans. I thought this book brought a sense of atmospheric vibes but also it’s crazy to think about humans diving so deep!

An excellent thought provoking read. I actually held my breath while reading this book just out of curiosity to see how long I could, I think I made it to one minute. I can't imagine diving to over a 100 feet and then surfacing on one breath.