Rating: 
Summary: Interesting read, but...
Review: Bernie writes an accurate account of how diving has progressed in the Northeast using a tragic event as a center point. The book is not the best piece of literature I have read, but his writing gets the point across. It was quite interesting to read about so many people I know and have been diving with.
Rating: 
Summary: Not fantastic, but recommended for all keen divers.
Review: A good read for those who like diving and thinking about tech diving or going particularly deep. This will make you think hard before getting too hooked on it.As another reviewer wrote, it would be a very good read if Bernie had just attended a creative writing course for a few weeks prior to starting it, or had collaborated with an already successful author on writing technique. There are repetitions throughout it (as if each chapter was written by a different person), and the supposed "dialogue" is totally unrealistic - like watching a poorly-acted movie, even though it describes actual conversations that must have taken place. The story is gripping towards the end though, and if you skim-read through the first third, you'll save a lot of wasted time.
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Good Read
Review: I picked up the Book & started reading it in a Bookstore. Couldn't put it down. Bought it.
Read it going home, late at night, going to work. Solid, engaging style.
Like Krakauer ( into Thin Air ) & Junger ( the Perfect Storm) Chowdhurys "The last Dive" takes you into a beautiful, exciting; intoxicating, sometimes dangerous world. The book covers everything from Cave diving & Wreck diving, swimming down the silent aisles of The Andrea Doria, inside a ship hundreds of feet below the surface, to sitting in the moonlight staring up at the night sky from twenty feet below . Like Krakauer, Chowdhury uses his own Diving experiences to amplify the story.
Fascinating, funny, beautiful, hypnotizing.
A very good read.
Rating:
Summary: Too bad it wasn't Chowdhury's last dive!
Review: This book is a good read for divers interested in the technical aspect of scuba diving, but more than half the book is spent on Chowdhury's own diving tales, including the story of how he got bent, partially paralyzed, etc. As I read I couldn't help but get the impression that this was more of an ego trip of Chowdhury's than a tale of a tragic father/son diving accident.
Chowdury's personal reverie doesn't contribute much to the story, but added pages to the book, thereby increasing the purchase price of the book!
P.S. Don't blame Michele for this review. I'm her husband, Dan Benson!
Rating:
Summary: A poorly written book about an interesting subject
Review: The author of this less-than-well-written book spends a good deal more time telling you about himself than he does the father and son team that it is supposedly focused upon. Indeed, if you removed all of the first person signular pronouns, the book would be shortened substantially. The subject matter is undeniably interesting and the book conveys a good deal of information, albeit somewhat repetitiously. The title, however, is misleading. The book should have been called "All About Me (and a little about Chris and Chrissy Rouse, who died of the bends after diving on the U-Who).
Rating:
Summary: This book tends to repeat
Review: The story and information were interesting and a good read. However the author tends to repeat himself throughout the book.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable even for non-divers!
Review: I picked this book up at the library because it looked interesting. I was hooked from page 1! I'm not a diver, I've never been interested in diving and I don't plan to start anytime soon. But this book was informative and compelling, but also very personal. I had no problem understanding the "technical" issues of deep-sea diving, and I feel that I learned quite a bit about the sport. Knowing from the beginning that the main characters would both die didn't make the book any less exciting.
Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: Reading this book is like sitting in front of a fire place, listening to the author telling his stories, as if to impress and scare the listener about incredible people doing amazing things. It is emotionally captivating; at the end of the book I felt as if had known Bernie Chowdhury and the Rouses and been friend with them for years. The author takes the readers to dive, not only into deep ocean waters, but also into the inner feelings and behaviours of himself and his friends, showing much more than adventures and risks in blue water. That so many men and women are willing to risk their lives, in order to do things such as deep diving, may seem crazy, or to some may show disrespect for human life. In my opinion, such a book clearly demonstrates that it is "normal" people, with their willingness to explore their limits, set new thresholds, and open up new frontiers, who advance humanity, step by step, little by little, towards better future. The economical reward, when and if it comes, and for few only, is a secondary element: most important is doing things first, is moving ahead exploring what someone has never tried before to show that it can be done. Great explorers, inventors and leaders have the same genes. A book worth every minute spent on it.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding reading for technical divers!
Review: After reading DEEP DESCENT, I had to come back and write a review for THE LAST DIVE. While I knew THE LAST DIVE was a great book, it took the side by side comparison to DEEP DESCENT to really make that register. I am part of a group of technical divers, principally involved in cave diving. After reading this book, we made it required reading for the entire team! For advanced and technical divers, learn from this book! The lessons flow from every page. For anyone else remotely interested in diving, or in action adventures, this book provides true life drama. Easy to read, hard to put down. You won't be sorry you bought this one!
Rating:
Summary: Well thought, researched and written
Review: I've found in the past few days, now that I am finished reading The Last Dive, that I find myself wishing there was a "Part Two", or continuation. The Last Dive is a great account on several levels, from the authors personal friendship with the Rouse's, to dive history, dive training and theory, and the 'cowboy' like culture of the deep & tech diving communities. Some parts in the book on dive training made me bring my own training into question and encouraged me to seek further answers and knowledge to augment my certification. The story jumps around a little, but it doesn't detract from the feel of the book. I felt as if I was on the Seeker, getting tossed around by pounding waves that were hitting the hull of the ship as I suited up for my decent to the Andrea Doria. I also felt the loss, like two of my friends just died when the Rouse's met their fate because of the author's wonderful character development. I would highly recommend this book to anyone because of it's sheer readability.
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