- Hardcover: 400 pages
- Publisher: Da Capo Press Inc; New edition edition (9 May 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0306814870
- ISBN-13: 978-0306814877
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.5 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,127,601 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Underwater To Get Out Of The Rain
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
Marine biologist Norton (Stars Beneath the Sea, 2000, etc.) chronicles his enviable peripatetic life. He grew up in Britain, next to a sullen sea rimmed with coal dust. But underwater, there was gold. The first image he recalls is of a cormorant scooting to the surface, "a dark javelin in a cone of bubbles." There was no looking back for Norton. Water would be his metier. The author here provides shrewd commentary about sponges, anemones, barnacles, sea cucumbers, puffins, limpets, water spiders, coral, sea snakes and kelp. That acuity might be taken for granted, given his reputation, but he also makes intelligent observations about the histories of the regions he visits, a diverse topography including Britain, Sweden, the Canary Islands, Egypt, Yemen, the Philippines and Ireland. He engagingly holds forth on continental drift, the Bermuda Triangle, the strange juju of shipwrecks, the eroticism of the sea world. But he also delivers an elbow to the windpipe regarding humans' degradation of the oceans. Norton claims-and justifies-his air of authority from the fieldwork he has done. He is out there getting wet and dirty, living rough, gathering findings first hand. When he talks about changes in the seascape, readers know that he has seen the before and after. Norton would never suggest that the oceans are anything less than theaters of surprise and wonder, but he reminds us that they are not limitless and recommends some significant remedial behavior to help preserve them. A chattily erudite account of the author's personal pilgrimage. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
On a hot summer's day there could be no quicker transport to the seaside than Trevor Norton's cool and entrancing account of a lifetime's adventures under or near the water. Norton's eye for the bizarre, amazing, and beautiful inhabitants of the oceans, and the eccentric characters who work, study, and live by the shore make his book a wonder-filled experience. An intrepid diver and distinguished scientist, Norton's writing is self-deprecating, very funny, and full of wry and intriguing anecdotes; he is an unfailingly delightful companion. Whether his setting is a bed of jewel anemones in an Irish lough, a giant California cavern shared with sea lions, a mildewed research station, or the glittering coral gardens of Sharm el Sheikh, his captivating prose always finds the mark. Sometimes following the shoreline with earlier beachcombers such as Darwin, John Steinbeck, and George Orwell, Norton also takes the reader to depths where the shapes of creatures living without sunlight defy imagination. Admirers of the gorgeous detail of Rachel Carson's "The Sea Around Us" will revel in Norton's writing, his observations, and irreverent wit.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A true pleasure,
By Ben (Isle of Man) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Underwater to Get out of the Rain: A Love Affair with the Sea (Hardcover)
I have just read this captivating read on a recent diving holiday to Sardinia. Despite only a passing interest in marine life, Trevor Norton talks with such well-researched enthusiasm about his varied subjects that you cannot fail to be captivated by each chapter. From the sex life of algae to accidental trysts with amorous dophins the range of subjects covered is considerable. i truly enjoyed every single page and reading this was a pleasure.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truly a love affair with the sea,
By F. P. Ryan "Frank Ryan - author" (Sheffield, South Yorks United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Underwater To Get Out Of The Rain: A Love Affair with the Sea (Paperback)
Under Water to Get out of the Rain
Trevor Norton This book heralds another delightful marine adventure by Norton, who has written two other beautifully crafted, and wonderfully humorous, books about the characters he has met, and some of the adventures he has had, in a lifetime as a marine biologist. It starts out with his memories of his childhood home, on St Mary's Island, Northumberland, before whisking us away to a series of globally-based adventures: Devon, via Liverpool to the island of Anglesey, North Wales, to his first encounter with the Port Erin Marine Laboratory, where... `I was the least famous marine biologist ever to work on the Isle of Man'. From Port Erin we are whisked over the oceans to Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands, where by chance, I happened to read the book. How changed the Canaries are today from the time when the party of "least famous marine biologists" were met on the quay by Don Mariano López, local dignitary and ex-mayor, who arranged for their luggage to be taken away by donkey cart while inviting the all-too-rare visitors to join him in an eight-course lunch, followed by coffee and cognac. As one follows his ocean-bound circumambulations, back to Scotland, and the Scottish Islands, to Lough Ine, in the Southwest of Ireland - where he based his book, Reflections on a Summer Sea - to San Juan Island, Washington, then the Monterey California of Steinbeck's day, every journey is imbued with characteristic charm and wit, and all the while enlivened by his sharp observation of the idiosyncrasies of human nature. His odyssey takes him a good deal further than I have room to describe, but permeating the exhilarating narrative of courage, luck, humor and adventure, is a chronicle of change, painful to witness in the working lifetime of one man. We observe, by degrees, the progressive overfishing and pollution of the oceans, and we share his dismay over the loss of a more innocent world. And, finally, we embrace Professor Norton's caretaker role in the closure of the Marine Laboratory in Port Erin, a victim of the financial constraints that have afflicted many university centers in the UK in the first years of the New Millennium.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A real revelation,
By
This review is from: Underwater To Get Out Of The Rain: A Love Affair with the Sea (Paperback)
I read this because I love autobiography and was fascinated by the title - I had no idea that I had any interest at all in marine biology - but I have discovered that it is riveting! Trevor Norton has done that really difficult thing in writing his own memoirs in a very amusing and light way, he has succeeded in interesting the reader in his own subject - simply because he doesn't take himself too seriously. We discover that he is climbing the career ladder completely by the way, whilst he is busy regaling us with hilarious tales of his time in the middle east or the US. I have driven my husband mad by snorting with laughter, reading bits out and telling him he simply MUST read this book next. What a discovery! I shall now read all his other books. If you read this, Professor, thank you, for a great read, if only there were more experts who could write so interestingly out there, we'd all be a lot more educated in all sorts of fields we never dreamed could interest us!
GLH
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