The Bathysphere Book

Reviews / Votes

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 * A work of vaulting ambition, wonder, and peerless technique, with startling ideas and insights on every page, The Bathysphere Book is an exhilarating read and one of the best things I've read in years. Its reckoning with ecology - its refusal to ignore the legions of animal life humanity is tangled up in - is shiveringly exciting, important, and new -- Martin MacInnes, author of In Ascension 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 -- Philip Hoare * Spectator * A delightfully eccentric melange of nature writing, popular science and poetic storytelling, Fox's tour de force is a love letter to the magic of the ocean, the vision of maverick scientists and a period of historic discovery -- Waterstones Brad Fox knows that the descent into the deep meant a sea-change not just in science, but in aesthetics, philosophy, the sense of what it is to be human. All have been changed, become rich and strange, as this rich, strange book shows so beautifully -- China Mieville, author of The City in the City 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 * A breathtaking book, full of suspense, revelation, and beauty. Masterful! -- Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus In Brad Fox's retelling the life work of an explorer-scientist becomes a thing of rich poetry, strange imaginings and otherworldly beauty. A wondrous, mesmerising collage of a book, one that celebrates the natural world while pushing up against the tantalising limits of human knowledge and perception -- Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep Time Exquisite and shocking, endless space and hypnotic details all pressed together at once, just as any exploration of the deep should be. Brad Fox shows there is so much in the deep ocean to know and think about and change who we are -- Helen Scales, author of The Brilliant Abyss Brad Fox has produced an impressionistic work of art depicting one of the greatest moments of discovery in human history. Fashioned from short, nimble verbal strokes, this gem of a book provides tantalizing glimpses of deep-sea life, alongside flashes of insight into the lives of William Beebe and his team of explorers -- Edith Widder, author of Below the Edge of Darkness Brad Fox blends excursions into science, history, colour theory, sea exploration and language to weave together a genre-defying book about oceans that is imbued with intelligence, curiosity and wonder -- Joanna Pocock, author of Surrender Brad Fox has created a brilliant work of literary art-at once almanac and seance, wonder-cabinet and hallucinogen. The vigor, pluck, and compression of his language turn a linear chronicle into a time-bending, gem-laden constellation, with surprising flashes of wit, gossip, and melodrama -- Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Ultramarine 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 * Brad Fox illuminates the extraordinary discoveries of the ocean depths, to be sure, but also of the scientists and artists who first explored them, less than a century ago. To read this glorious and beautifully illustrated account... is to feel again a child's awed delight at human ingenuity, and at our planet -- Claire Messud, author of The Emperor's Children What is this sublime, remarkable book? It's a black unreadable eye sliding past a submarine window, it's a color on an alien spectrum, it's a fish made of filaments and lit by its own light. I don't know what it is, I only know that it's luminous -- Shelley Jackson, author of The Melancholy of Anatomy