Beneath the North Atlantic

Rating:
Summary: Gorgious Photography, Interesting Text, & Weak Indexing
Review: This coffee table book has stunning photography and descriptions of the creatures you might find while diving in the Gulf of Maine. I use it to show non-divers what I see when I go diving in Massachusetts, but I rarely come across specimens as beautiful as the pictures in the book. The descriptions often have both a lot of detail, such as typical measurements of the creatures, where they are found, coloration, etc., and anecdotal information, such as how the author's dive buddy was chased by a 20 lb. lobster with claws as big as his head.

The chapters are sequenced in a taxonomic order, starting with the Plankton and going "up" through the phyla of sponges, jellyfish, mollusks, etc., with fish and marine mammals at the "top". This structure, while common in underwater creature ID books, is not particularly obvious to the casual reader (i.e., someone who is not a marine biology geek). The chapter names, which are sometimes the Latin phylum name (e.g., Echinoderms) and sometimes the common name (e.g., Sponges) won't help Aunt Martha find "that round green thing with the pointy spikes", and even if she remembered that it was called a "sea urchin" she couldn't find it in the index. That is the glaring weakness of this book: it is hard to look up something in particular unless you already know where to look, and even then the sub-headings aren't in the table of contents and aren't always indexed (Sea Urchins are described under the section sub-heading Echinoids, which are a type of Echinoderm).

So, Aunt Martha will just have to flip through the book to find the sea urchins, and that reveals the glaring strength of the book: excellent photography that makes searching through the pages enjoyable.

Don't get this book as a reference book of North Atlantic marine life; do get it as coffee table book to browse through and to show others what is "down there".