Claire Nouvian

I love monsters - I love hearing about them, reading about them, and thinking about them for stories. But I tell you, the wildest and weirdest imaginings of my or anyone else’s mind are nothing, /nothing/ - I’m delighted to say - compared to the kinds of real creatures that human science is only now beginning to discover in the deep darkness of the Earth’s oceans. This book is absolutely breathtaking, and I heartily recommend it. There's a special website where you can check out some show more of the photos here: http://www.thedeepbook.org/ show less

I am dotty. Giddy. Over the moon in love with The Deep. If I still had one, I'd be writing "Mr. & Mrs. The Deep" on my Trapper Keeper. With lots of little hearts. This is one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen. Absolutely gorgeous photos of the denizens of the deep, showing incredible detail. There's enough text to be informative, but not enough to intrude on the pretty, pretty pictures.

Scientific interest and study of the deeper parts of the ocean has only come into its own in the past 40 years, with the past 25 years seeing a real explosion of new discoveries. The scientific literature is abundant, but for the interested layperson there has not been much to tie it all together. 'The Deep' is one of a few recent works to bridge that gap, bringing to a wider audience for the first time some of the most marvelous images and discoveries. Nouvian says in the introduction her show more intent was to marry both visual and intellectual stimulation.

If you decide to purchase The Deep, it would not be overly fastidious to wear gloves.. Most pages are printed in deep glossy black, even the slightest touch of a finger leaves a permanent oily smear. The blackness of the pages and the alien eeriness of the creatures is at first offsetting, but as each full-page picture goes by, the reader is drawn into another world, vicariously experiencing what it must be like to be in a deep sea diving submarine peering out the window into an "inky" blackness. It is primordial, the book achieves its goal of both intellectual transmission of new information, and the visceral experience of traveling to the deep.

--Stephen Balbach, CoolReading ((c) 2008 by-nd) show less

Coffee table book that my wife got me for Christmas. It's got pretty pictures! And the accompanying text is really nicely done. This book is great.

If you were totally mesmerized by the Deep episode of Blue Planet, this is the book for you. If you haven't seen Blue Planet, my God you're wasting your life.