Review: Nouvian, The Deep
Another great review of a book the critics can't stop talking about, Claire Nouvian's The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss received high praise from reviewer Andrew Robinson in this month's issue of the Literary Review. The review begins:
When Robert Hooke published his famous folio of drawings, Micrographia, based on observations using a simple microscope and including astonishing fold-out copperplate engravings (some by Christopher Wren), the book caused a sensation and became a bestseller. Samuel Pepys bought it, sat up until 2am reading it, and noted in his diary for 1665 that it was 'the most ingenious book I ever read in my life'.It is possible that Claire Nouvian's The Deep will have a similar impact in our time, given its perfect marriage of astounding images with ingenious science and exotic ideas. This superbly designed large-format book of photographs of deep-sea creatures, eloquently edited by a French journalist and film director, with brief and highly readable contributions from sixteen leading scientific explorers of the deep, is eye-poppingly magnificent. So much so that it provokes gasps of amazement and awe at the complexity, beauty and uniqueness of life in the abyss. …
The Deep deserves to become a modern classic of natural history.
Navigate to www.thedeepbook.org to see a sampling of images from the book and more.
