'Holds up a mirror to a pioneering explorer of the deep seas' Financial Times

'Exquisite . . . full of fascinating technology, novel marine discoveries - and unusual scientists' New Scientist

'An exhilarating read and one of the best things I've read in years' Martin MacInnes

____________

11 June, 1930. On a ship floating near Nonsuch Island, a curious steel ball is lowered 3,000 feet into the sea. Crumpled inside, the famed zoologist William Beebe gazes out of the thick quartz windows, watching luminous marine life and never-before-seen creatures flit out of the inky darkness.

A deep dive into Beebe's eyewitness accounts of underwater exploration, The Bathysphere Book blends research and storytelling, uncovering a magical world where ghostly glowing organisms test the limits of human understanding.

____________

FURTHER PRAISE:

'A weird and often beautiful fusion of science writing, history and poetry' Guardian

'Wondrous' Spectator

'Hypnotic . . . beautifully written' New York Times

'Delightfully eccentric . . . a love letter to the magic of the ocean' Waterstones

'Full of suspense, revelation, and beauty' Sy Montgomery

"An alternative history of Beebe's exploration of the deep ocean, a weird and often beautiful fusion of science writing, history and poetry that explores our own relationship with the unknown" - Guardian

"Brad Fox's vivid retelling of the voyages of the first deep-sea submersible is full of fascinating technology, novel marine discoveries - and unusual scientists . . . Exquisite" - New Scientist

"Holds up a mirror to a pioneering explorer of the deep seas . . . Fox unspools a quirky, digressive series of meditations on Beebe, his times and ours" - Financial Times

"Hypnotic . . . Beautifully written . . . raises questions of exploration and wonder, of nature and humanity, and lets readers find answers on their own" - New York Times

"Wondrous . . . Beebe's descent becomes a Blakean heaven or hell, as the giant eyeball of the bathysphere hangs in the abyss . . . As Fox dives into Beebe's biography, the book itself becomes the bathysphere" - Spectator

"This is no straightforward narrative but a book built from scraps that belie its intricate engineering. It is also an exceptionally beautiful object" - Washington Post, Books of the Year

"A messy and delightful portrait of a life shaped by fascination with the natural world" - Times Literary Supplement

"Original and often profound, this is a moving testament to the wonders of exploration" - Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Imbued with the adventurous spirit of science and exploration . . . [The Bathysphere Book is] an enchanting cabinet of curiosities" - Kirkus Reviews