Deep

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RetailWhile on assignment in Greece, journalist James Nestor witnessed something that confounded him: a man diving 300 feet below the ocean’s surface on a single breath of air and returning four minutes later, unharmed and smiling. This man was a freediver, and his amphibious abilities inspired Nestor to seek out the secrets of this little-known discipline. In Deep, Nestor embeds with a gang of extreme athletes and renegade researchers who are transforming not only our knowledge of the planet and its creatures, but also our understanding of the human body and mind. Along the way, he takes us from the surface to the Atlantic’s greatest depths, some 28,000 feet below sea level. He finds whales that communicate with other whales hundreds of miles away, sharks that swim in unerringly straight lines through pitch-black waters, and seals who dive to depths below 2,400 feet for up to eighty minutes—deeper and longer than scientists ever thought possible. As strange as these phenomena are, they are reflections of our own species’ remarkable, and often hidden, potential—including echolocation, directional sense, and the profound physiological changes we undergo when underwater. Most illuminating of all, Nestor unlocks his own freediving skills as he communes with the pioneers who are expanding our definition of what is possible in the natural world, and in ourselves.**From BooklistStarred Review The ocean, journalist Nestor reminds us, is “the final unseen, untouched, and undiscovered wilderness.” It is also a frontier extremely difficult to explore. The pressure is so intense, at 30 feet down our “lungs collapse to half their normal size.” Yet Nestor watches divers descend to 300 feet without scuba gear at a freediving competition. Alarmed (the consequences can be dire) and intrigued, Nestor sets out to learn about the allure and best purpose of freediving as “a tool to help crack the ocean’s mysteries,” thus launching an exceptionally dramatic and revelatory inquiry. As he begins training as a freediver, in spite of his fears, Nestor learns about our body’s remarkable “amphibious reflexes,” instantaneous physical transformations used for centuries by pearl divers. Now innovative and daring marine explorers use freediving to swim among sharks, dolphins, and whales. Their mind-blowing discoveries about how these denizens of the deep navigate and communicate in the watery dark are matched by findings that prove that we, too, can practice echolocation and orient ourselves via our innate magnetic sense of direction, natural abilities our ancestors used long before maps and GPS. With a “wow” on every page, and brimming with vivid portraits, lucid scientific explanations, gripping (and funny) first-person accounts, and urgent facts about the ocean’s endangerment, Nestor’s Deep is galvanizing, enlightening, and invaluable. --Donna Seaman ReviewA New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice**** **An Amazon Best Book of the Month Scientific American Recommended Read iTunes Top 20 Books of the Month **“The deeper the book ventures into the ocean, the more dramatic and unusual the organisms therein and the people who observe them…Through [Nestor's] eyes and his stories, it’s a journey well worth taking.”— David Epstein, New York Times Book Review"Put Deep at the top of your reading list. This book will do for the oceans what Cosmos did for space. It's mind-bending, intrepid, and inspiring."— Po Bronson"We’ve all seen documentary footage of strange deep-sea creatures, trundling along a hazy ocean floor, maybe even glowing in the dark. But how much do we really know about these ecosystems, and how much have we forgotten about our own profound connection to the ocean? With verve and humor, the author describes his own risk-taking attempts to understand the ocean's ancient secrets and future potential and the daring and brilliant people who have dedicated their lives to probing deeper ... [Nestor's] writing is sharp, colorful, and thrilling ... Bring[s] the ocean to life from a research perspective as well as a human one. An adventurous and frequently dazzling look at our planet's most massive habitat."— **Kirkus **"A thrilling account, made timely by the rapidly changing state of earth’s most expansive environment." — Publishers Weekly