Better together: the June 21 edition of Nature magazine features a simultaneous review of two new books exploring the unusual and fascinating life that inhabits the earth’s deep oceans. Reviewer Mark Schrope places Tony Koslow’s The Silent Deep: The Discovery, Ecology, and Conservation of the Deep Sea side by side with Claire Nouvian’s fascinating photo-voyage to the deep sea in The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss to show how these two complimentary volumes offer a profound and unusual look at the inhabitants of one of the darkest and most mysterious environments on earth. Schrope writes:

The ‘vampire squid from hell’, the fireworks jellyfishes and the pigbutt worm are just a few of the creatures of the deep sea that have remained unseen by all but a select few. Two new books offer complementary views of this strange expanse and its inhabitants.…
No photo collection could replicate a visit to their realm or the breadth of the diversity to be found there, but Claire Nouvian’s The Deep, with more than 200 large-format photos, comes closer than any previous book. The Silent Deep, by deep-sea biologist Tony Koslow, is an excellent companion, with textbook depth on all aspects of deep-sea science and conservation.…
Collectively, these books offer a spectacular visual and cerebral introduction to the wonders of the abyss that could awaken many to the idea that, as Koslow puts it, exploration and protection of the deep sea “is one of the great scientific voyages of discovery, one that humankind has only just embarked upon.”

Preview some of the images in Nouvian’s The Deep on our Deep website.