The lure of the deep

I found this a rather strange book. It’s about the first explorations into the deep oceans, the life they found there and the intrepid men and women lured by the mysteries of the deep.

By turns Brad tells us about the individuals involved, their bohemian (and in some instances almost hallucinogenic) lives in the 1930’s, the development of the bathysphere, it’s voyages into the ocean depths and the strange and marvellous creatures they saw through the three tiny portholes.

Seeing photos of the bathysphere makes you wonder how they fitted two adults into it even with the meagre equipment they would have had at the time. They were well aware of the risks of the increasing pressures as they descended but the unknowns in the deep blue and the chance to be the first to see them was a siren call these intrepid individuals just couldn’t resist.

Brad evokes the spirit of the 1930’s well, and this is an intriguing glimpse into the minds and lives of explorers in a new frontier. If you want to learn more about the deep oceans and the creatures that live there there are other books but I found this an interesting addition to understanding the full picture.

I was given this book from the author via netgalley only for the pleasure of reading and leaving an honest review should I choose to.

This was delightful.
A refreshing change of pace from the fantasy I've been reading.

Fox really does a fantastic job narrating an account of William beebe's 1930 Bathysphere expedition. The details it goes into, from the characters/nature of those involved, like Otis Barton who insisted on being one of the first pair to descend as its inventor, to just details about the bathysphere itself, like how one window had to be sealed shut with steel as they couldn't reinforce it enough.
The cramed, claustrophobic conditions of the vessel as well, honestly it sounded both awful and wonderful.

The book was filled with such wonderful photographs, sketches, lab notebook scans, everything you could want for this topic really.

You get a pretty comprehensive look at the backstory to most of the key players involved in the project and initial lives, their wacky and bizarre lives and what lead them to be in or witness that plunge into the dark depths...
The book does jump about a bit, which may put some people off, I have seen it described like a scrapbook and that's not a bad description. You have a chapter on one aspect of the dive or describing one creature, then you're whisked 40 years back in time to hear about Beebe following pheasants about for a while. But I really enjoyed this style of writing!

Overall, as an avid diver myself and ocean lover, this book was a treat to read, up there with books like Stars Beneath the Sea by Trevor Norton for just excellent accounts of pioneering marine research

As another NetGalley user reviewed, the kindle edition of this is completely unreadable as there are missing letters and strange formatting.
I'm unsure if this issue is fixed if the Kindle edition is for sale to the general public.
Very disappointed as I was excited to read this one!

The Kindle preview of this is unreadable, with missing letters all over the place. It looks as though the text was copied and pasted from a dodgy PDF file, without anyone checking the result. It’s impossible to get into reading the book when it’s so hard to piece together.