Marine Life Books

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World

Mark Kurlansky

List Price: $23.00 By: Walker & Company Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $7.30

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Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Professional Science -> Agricultural Sciences -> Aquaculture

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 115 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The codfish. Wars have been fought over it, revolutions have been spurred by it, national diets have been based on it, economies and livelihoods have depended on it, and the settlement of North America was driven by it. To the millions it has sustained, it has been a treasure more precious than gold. Indeed, the codfish has played a fascinating and crucial role in world history.

Cod spans a thousand years and four continents. From the Vikings, who pursued the codfish across the Atlantic, and the enigmatic Basques, who first commercialized it in medieval times, to Bartholomew Gosnold, who named Cape Cod in 1602, and Clarence Birdseye, who founded an industry on frozen cod in the 1930s, Mark Kurlansky introduces the explorers, merchants, writers, chefs, and of course the fishermen, whose lives have interwoven with this prolific fish. He chronicles the fifteenth-century politics of the Hanseatic League and the cod wars of the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. He embellishes his story with gastronomic detail, blending in recipes and lore from the Middle Ages to the present.
And he brings to life the cod itself: its personality, habits, extended family, and ultimately the tragedy of how the most profitable fish in history is today faced with extinction.

From fishing ports in New England and Newfoundland to coastal skiffs, schooners, and factory ships across the Atlantic; from Iceland and Scandinavia to the coasts of England, Brazil, and West Africa, Mark Kurlansky tells a story that brings world history and human passions into captivating focus.

The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss

Claire Nouvian

Amazon Price: $29.70 List Price: $45.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University Of Chicago Press Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $29.70

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Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Professional Science -> Biological Sciences -> Biology -> Marine Biology
Subjects -> Science -> Biological Sciences -> Biology -> Marine Biology -> Fauna
Subjects -> Science -> Biological Sciences -> Biology -> Marine Biology -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 66 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

On dry land, most organisms are confined to the surface, or at most to altitudes of a hundred meters—the height of the tallest trees. In the oceans, though, living space has both vertical and horizontal dimensions: with an average depth of 3800 meters, the oceans offer 99% of the space on Earth where life can develop. And the deep sea, which has been immersed in total darkness since the dawn of time, occupies 85% of ocean space, forming the planet’s largest habitat.  Yet these depths abound with mystery. The deep sea is mostly uncharted—only about 5 percent of the seafloor has been mapped with any reasonable degree of detail—and we know very little about the creatures that call it home. Current estimates about the number of species yet to be found vary between ten and thirty million.  The deep sea no longer has anything to prove; it is without doubt Earth’s largest reservoir of life.

Combining the latest scientific discoveries with astonishing color imagery, The Deep takes readers on a voyage into the darkest realms of the ocean. Revealing nature’s oddest and most mesmerizing creatures in crystalline detail, The Deep features more than two hundred color photographs of terrifying sea monsters, living fossils, and ethereal bioluminescent creatures, some photographed here for the very first time. Accompanying these breathtaking photographs are contributions from some of the world’s most respected researchers that examine the biology of deep-sea organisms, the ecology of deep-sea habitats, and the history of deep-sea exploration.

An unforgettable visual and scientific tour of the teeming abyss, The Deep celebrates the incredible diversity of life on Earth and will captivate anyone intrigued by the unseen—and unimaginable—creatures of the deep sea. 

(20070310)

The Great Minnesota Fish Book

Tom Dickson

Amazon Price: $23.07 List Price: $34.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Univ Of Minnesota Press Amazon Marketplace: 25 new & used starting at $23.07

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> Minnesota
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Editorial Review:

Fishing is one of Minnesota’s consummate pastimes. The North Star state boasts the highest number of anglers per capita in the nation and the most fishing lakes. Minnesota is abundant in knowledge about how to catch game fish, but there is little information on the lore and natural history of such prized species as the walleye and largemouth bass, not to mention lesser-known varieties such as the brook stickleback and pirate perch. From trophies to bait, The Great Minnesota Fish Book tells stories of these aquatic species in rich, colorful detail.

The Great Minnesota Fish Book pairs engaging and revealing stories about the history, habitat, and culture of more than one hundred species with strikingly lifelike depictions by world-renowned fish illustrator Joseph R. Tomelleri. Providing defining features for easy identification, descriptions of habitat, growth patterns, and behavior, as well as historical anecdotes, Dickson makes a convincing case for the appreciation of all fish and their important place within Minnesota’s aquatic ecosystems. Where else can you learn about the American eel, a fish that lives throughout southern Minnesota yet spawns in the Caribbean Sea? Or the Johnny darter, which reproduces upside down? Or the monstrous lake sturgeon that can reach more than 300 pounds and swims in waters from Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi River? Nowhere, until now. Tom Dickson takes us on a lively tour of Minnesota fish—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

An elegant full-color work for everyone from the passionate angler to the up-north cabin dweller, The Great Minnesota Fish Book conveys the love and fascination—and in the case of eelpout, the disdain—that people have for the fishes of our home state. 

The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice (P.S.)

Trevor Corson

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Perennial Amazon Marketplace: 57 new & used starting at $7.95

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Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Cooking by Ingredient -> Meat, Poultry & Seafood -> Seafood
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Gastronomy -> Essays
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Regional & International -> Asian -> Japanese

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Informative, but with some annoying passages. 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

After hearing Trevor Corson speak on the radio about sushi, I picked up his book because I wanted to learn more about one of my favorite foods. The Zen of Fish follows a new student through a sushi course at the California Sushi Academy. Mixed in with the story of the student and her classmates are historical facts and other information about things related to sushi such as fish, knives, rice, and etiquette.

While I was reading the book, I couldn't help feeling annoyed by the passages about Kate, the student going through the school. She's inept, clumsy, ditzy, and just not that interesting. I was more interested in the actual tidbits of information about sushi than Kate's classes.

I would have rated this book higher if it only contained the informational passages about the Japanese cuisine. Those parts were interesting and worth reading for anyone who likes sushi, but the other parts felt like a waste of time. Corson might have been trying to get readers to relate to Kate, but he would have been more successful if he had chosen a stronger student from the class to follow.

Editorial Review:

Everything you never knew about sushi—its surprising origins, the colorful lives of its chefs, and the bizarre behavior of the creatures that compose it

Trevor Corson takes us behind the scenes at America's first sushi-chef training academy, as eager novices strive to master the elusive art of cooking without cooking. He delves into the biology and natural history of the edible creatures of the sea, and tells the fascinating story of an Indo-Chinese meal reinvented in nineteenth-century Tokyo as a cheap fast food. He reveals the pioneers who brought sushi to the United States and explores how this unlikely meal is exploding into the American heartland just as the long-term future of sushi may be unraveling.

The Story of Sushi is at once a compelling tale of human determination and a delectable smorgasbord of surprising food science, intrepid reporting, and provocative cultural history.

A Field Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians of Eastern & Central North America (Peterson Field Guide Series)

Roger Conant, Joseph T. Collins

Amazon Price: $14.28 List Price: $21.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Houghton Mifflin Amazon Marketplace: 64 new & used starting at $7.78

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Subjects -> Children's Books -> Animals -> Reptiles & Amphibians -> Nonfiction
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Animals -> Nonfiction
Subjects -> Children's Books -> Animals -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Great guide 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have had this book for several years and absolutly love it. Not only is it nicely informative, it holds up well in the feild. I can not begin to count the number of times I have slipped (I generally keep it tucked in my waist band) in creeks on outings. After years of abuse, my cover is a worn, spine wrinkled and paged stained, but it's still solidly bound.

Excellent reference! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The book is great. Wonderful range maps, nice pictures, generally good ID characters. Could use some more info on larval amphibian identification though.

Excellent gift for a friend 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Thank you for your timely shipping of this brand new book. I ordered it for a friend who is looking forward to getting it soon.

Clear plates with good, yet badly printed pictures, and too little information on the species' biology 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book features clear plates with apparently well painted views of probably all the species of amphibians and reptiles occuring in Canada and the USA east of the Rocky Mountains, apparently also including those of Puerto Rico and introduced ones. Unfortunately, the plates of the third edition from 1998 are printed badly, with the colour dots not completely blurring in front of the reader's eye, and the pictures are a little tiny anyway. On the page opposing the plates are the common and scientific names given, as well as some important details of their appearance. Many species are represented with several images (e.g. from the side, from below; adults, juveniles), but this would probably be warranted for even more species.
The species accounts are, however, usually much too short, giving almost no detail about biology and life history of the species. Among them are, however, some colour photographs, whose printing resolution is usually also somewhat too bad, though.
The range maps are in colour and show the different subspecies in different shades, yet they are also somewhat confusing, because water bodies like the sea or the great lakes are not shaded differently from the land, so that their borders look like the state borders, and because the range borders have also be drawn in black (maybe for copying?).
Laudable is the existence of a general section about amphibians and reptiles and their catching, handling and captive care. This section would be worth expanding, though.
The third printing (1998) is/was, as already stated, not very good because of its low colour resolution and its maybe somewhat too small size, and it is/was bind only as paperback with relatively thick pages throughout.

Editorial Review:

This newly designed field guides features detailed descriptions of 595 species and subspecies. The 656 full-color illustrations and 384 drawings show key details for accurate identification. More than 100 color photographs and 333 color photographs and 333 color distribution maps accompany the species descriptions.

Grayson

Lynne Cox

Amazon Price: $10.40 List Price: $13.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harvest Books Amazon Marketplace: 82 new & used starting at $0.01

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> Women
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This captivating bestseller tells the true story of a miraculous encounter between a teenaged girl and a baby whale off the coast of California. It was the dark of early morning; Lynne was swimming her last half mile back to the pier after a long workout when she became aware that something was swimming with her. The ocean was charged with energy as if a squall was moving in; whatever it was felt large enough to be a white shark coursing beneath her body.

In fact, it was a baby gray whale following alongside her. Lynne quickly realized that if she swam back to the pier, the young calf would follow her onto shore and die from collapsed lungs. On the other hand, if Lynne didn’t find the mother whale, the baby would suffer from dehydration and starve to death.

Something so enormous—the mother whale would be at least fifty feet long—suddenly seemed very small in the vast Pacific Ocean. How could Lynne possibly find her?

This is the story—part mystery, part magical tale—of what happened.

The Reef Set: Reef Fish, Reef Creature and Reef Coral (3 Volumes) (Reef Set)

Paul Humann, Ned DeLoach

Amazon Price: $75.60 List Price: $120.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: New World Publications Amazon Marketplace: 17 new & used starting at $69.68

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Subjects -> Outdoors & Nature -> Reference
Subjects -> Science -> Nature & Ecology -> Oceans & Seas -> Coral Reefs
Subjects -> Science -> Nature & Ecology -> Oceans & Seas -> Marine Life

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 32 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Don't leave home without it! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

My husband and I are passionate divers! He takes fabulous pictures and I like to identify what he takes pictures of. I have a couple of the plastic i.d. cards of fish, but so many critters aren't on them. However, these books have everything! It's nice to go to a reef and know what everything is and what it might do to you! This set is expensive, but you'll make up the cost by not having to buy multiple I.D. books.

Excelent 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Excelent books, complete identification with pictures and full information. Delivered in Brazil on time and without any problem.

The Reef Set: Reef Fish, Reef Creature and Reef Coral 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

We have used these volumes regularly to aid in identifying what we've observed when SCUBA diving. Excellent photos and descriptions.

The standard 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is THE book on Caribbean underwater life. Any where you dive this is the reference used. The only thing missing from the set is the behavior book, and it would be a great addition.

Editorial Review:

Reef Fish3rd Edition, Reef Creature 2nd Edition and Reef Coral 2nd Edition Identification books packaged in a beautifully printed Shelf Case.

Reef

Scubazoo

Amazon Price: $26.40 List Price: $40.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: DK Publishing Amazon Marketplace: 45 new & used starting at $14.48

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Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Nature & Wildlife
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Reef 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I must say that I was very disappointed about the quality of the photos. They lack vibrancy, contrast and impact that seems to be the result of using single frames from video footage rather than a unique photo captured by a camera. The colours are all washed out and when you've seen one photo you've seen them all - too many of them are fish adnauseum. The accompanying DVD is very good and is the only thing that makes this book worth buying.
At the same time as purchasing "Reef" I also purchased Roger Stein's "Oceanic Wilderness" and you don't have to put the two books side by side to see the difference in photo quality. Roger Stein's photos are simply stunning - everyone is a gem.

Editorial Review:

Coral reefs are often called "the rainforests of the sea" because of the quantity and diversity of life they support, and because they are highly sensitive and threatened ecosystems. Building on the success of DK's Rainforest, this unique pictorial celebration of the worlds reefs progresses through an ecological chain that goes from algae, sponges, and mollusks to the thousands of fishes that make their homes there. This vivid collection of photographs, from underwater photography collective Scubazoo, reveals reefs as they've never been seen before.

• Features reefs worldwide, from Southeast Asia to the Red Sea and Hawaii
• Captions identify plant and animal life and quotes give additional background information
• Photographic narratives demonstrate how reefs live/die, and how creatures depend on them
• Published in cooperation with the American Museum of Natural History

Sales of this book support the Coral Reef Alliance.

Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America

Eric Jay Dolin

Amazon Price: $18.45 List Price: $27.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: W. W. Norton Amazon Marketplace: 72 new & used starting at $5.48

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 47 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The epic history of the "iron men in wooden boats" who built an industrial empire through the pursuit of whales.

"To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme," Herman Melville proclaimed, and this absorbing history demonstrates that few things can capture the sheer danger and desperation of men on the deep sea as dramatically as whaling. Eric Jay Dolin begins his vivid narrative with Captain John Smith's botched whaling expedition to the New World in 1614. He then chronicles the rise of a burgeoning industry—from its brutal struggles during the Revolutionary period to its golden age in the mid-1800s when a fleet of more than 700 ships hunted the seas and American whale oil lit the world, to its decline as the twentieth century dawned. This sweeping social and economic history provides rich and often fantastic accounts of the men themselves, who mutinied, murdered, rioted, deserted, drank, scrimshawed, and recorded their experiences in journals and memoirs. Containing a wealth of naturalistic detail on whales, Leviathan is the most original and stirring history of American whaling in many decades. 32 pages of illustrations.

The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists Are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean (P.S.)

Trevor Corson

Amazon Price: $11.86 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Perennial Amazon Marketplace: 92 new & used starting at $1.60

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> Maine
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A GREAT book about noble creatures of the deep 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is fantastic; a great read, very informative and a real page-turner. Total E-Z read too. Recommend it in hardcover; you'll want to keep it on your bookshelf forever.

Dad loved it! 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

My father saw a review of this book and asked for it. He loved it! He's in a nursing home and tells everyone who visits him about this great book and how fascinating it is - he had me buy more to send as gifts to friends and relatives.

Just a common couple 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

We are not lovers of lobsters to eat or science wise, they are ok but not an absolute favorite to eat. However, in July we met the authors Mom at Seawall on Acadia National Park in Maine. She told us about her sons book, she was a good salesperson. We are reading it together for a hubby/wife time together - and we are surprised how it is so well written, very interesting for a subject that I wondered if I would even finish two chapters of, but it is engrossing even for those with a medium interest in learning more about Lobsters, Lobstermen, etc. Insightful too.

Editorial Review:

In this intimate portrait of an island lobstering community and an eccentric band of renegade biologists, journalist Trevor Corson escorts the reader onto the slippery decks of fishing boats, through danger-filled scuba dives, and deep into the churning currents of the Gulf of Maine to learn about the secret undersea lives of lobsters.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.