The Sea Around Us [J0017]

1991 - HCDJ reprint of the 1951 orginial, Nice clean condition. Originally published in 1951, The Sea Around Us is one of the most influential books ever written about the natural world. Rachel Carson's ability to combine scientific insight with poetic prose catapulted her book to the top of The New York Times best-seller list, where it remained for more than a year and a half. Ultimately it sold well over a million copies, was translated into 28 languages, inspired an Academy Award-winning documentary, and won both the National Book Award and the John Burroughs Medal.

The Sea Around Us remains as fresh today as when it first appeared over six decades ago. Carson's genius for evoking the power and primacy of the world's bodies of water, combining the cosmic and the intimate, remains almost unmatched: the newly formed Earth cooling beneath an endlessly overcast sky; the centuries of nonstop rain that created the oceans; giant squids battling sperm whales hundreds of fathoms below the surface; the power of the tides moving 100 billion tons of water daily in one bay alone; the seismic waves known as tsunamis that periodically remind us of the oceans' overwhelmingly destructive power. The seas sustain human life and imperil it. Today, with the oceans endangered by the dumping of medical waste and ecological disasters such as the Exxon oil spill in Alaska, the gradual death of the Great Barrier Reef, and the melting of the polar ice caps, Carson's book provides a timely reminder of both the fragility and the centrality of the ocean and the life that abounds within it. Anyone who loves the sea, or who is concerned about our natural environment, will want to read, or re-read, this classic work.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Her writing is marvelous and captures the magic of the ocean - there are some seriously memorable paragraphs on the uniqueness of oceanic islands, the fall of sediments to the sea floor, remnants of ancient seas in the Himalayas and in Dover, the Convoluta worm and its intrinsic memory of the tides, the multiplication of plankton in the spring, and humans' physical and spiritual connection to the ocean. I'm excited to read Edge of the Sea next."; "The Sea Around us was another fantastic book by Carson. I'm not sure it compares to Silent Spring, but still definitely worth the read. I especially enjoyed the chapter relating to Island Formation, Erosion, and species colonization of those islands. The potential colonization of islands via wind and driftwood "life rafts" and resulting speciation due to isolated evolution is such an interesting concept to me. Additional chapters I enjoyed a lot related to seasonality of the oceans and oceanic "snowfall" by which a flurry of sediments rains down from the upper ocean to bury the ocean floor in as much as 12,000 feet of sediment. Super interesting to think of the ocean as experiencing seasons and weather patterns. I also found it interesting to learn just how recently plate tectonics has been accepted as common scientific knowledge. Overall great book and would recommend to anyone who enjoys ecology and especially geology."; "A chill ocean focused nonfiction"