Earlier this month, we told you about Ocean: The World's Last Wilderness Revealed. Recently, I got my hands on a copy, and I'm so happy I did. This amazing reference guide is brimming with charts, tables, maps, pictures, drawings, and information -- so much information! -- that it's almost overwhelming. However, sit down with a cup of coffee, slowly turn the pages, and you'll see that...no...it'll still be overwhelming. However, looking at Ocean is overwhelming in the same way that the world's oceans themselves -- huge, sprawling, bottomless, and beautiful -- are overwhelming: despite their size, you still feel compelled to dive right in. Quite simply, Ocean: The World's Last Wilderness Revealed is the ultimate reference guide for our planet's most precious resource.

Recently, I had the chance to read The Art of Diving. Written by Nick Hanna and photographed by Alex Mustard, The Art of Diving is absolutely mesmerizing. I took it to the beach. I read it in bed. I examined it over coffee. I was totally enthralled.

Never before has a book about scuba diving been so beautiful, so literate, and so spot on. I can come up with at least 10 reasons why this book belongs on every diver's shelf.

I can't find much information about the new 216-page book Scuba Diving Safety, except:

• It's slated to come out in May.
  
• It's co-written by Dan Orr (who is President and CEO of DAN) and Eric Douglas (who is not).
• You can pre-order the book on Amazon for $14.93.

Will the book be good? If you're into books about safety, it'll probably get you fired up. Orr's other books include the DAN Pocket Guide to First Aid for Scuba Diving and A Common Sense Safety Guide to Applied Recreations Living, so I guess safety is kind of his "thing."

If you're having a tough time editing the photos you take underwater, and the How-To's around the Web aren't sufficient, then maybe it's time to step it up a notch. Maybe Jack and Sue Drafahl's recently published Adobe Photoshop for Underwater Photographers is for you.

Featuring 100 photos and 120 screenshots, this 224-page handbook walks users through the steps of correcting imperfect underwater images. Featuring tips on hardware, monitor calibration, and room lighting, the guide also offers step-by-step instructions on how to group underwater images for editing; approach corrections for images that require a multi-step enhancement process; and choose the right output options for printed images, video, slide shows, and Web viewing. The book isn't a Photoshop tutorial, though, so if you're completely unfamiliar with that software, you may need to grab a primer on that first.

The book is available through the Drafahl's website for $35 (signed) or on Amazon for around $27 (unsigned).

Michael Patrick O'Neil is a corporate exec-turned diver, nature photographer, and children's book writer. His books include Fishy Friends, and a "Let's Explore" series that covers coral reefs, sharks, and sea turtles. Although his books are geared towards children, the pictures inside them are so stunning, I'm thinking about picking up some for myself!

Currently living in South Florida, O'Neill travels the area and gives presentations to school-age children about the importance of underwater ecosystems. According to O'Neill, who's made his underwater pitch to more than 25,000 children in Florida, "One of my main messages is conservation and keeping the ocean and waterways clean. I'm teaching that our actions have a severe impact on the environment."

Clearly, this diver deserves Divester's Hero of the Week Award.

It's 2007 and hopefully you've survived another Festivus holiday. I'm looking forward to next year when I don't have to follow my 14-month-old around my in-laws' and pulling him away from tables and electrical outlets.

My scuba stocking had these great books inside...

The first, Master Guide for Underwater Digital Photography, is authored by Jack and Sue Drafahl. I've only paged through but it looks like an excellent introductory guide to underwater shooting with your digital camera. There are many photos and references to new(ish) gear from point-and-shoot digitals to SLR. Topics covered include camera settings (what <i>is</i> the histogram used for?), setting proper exposure, strobes, wide-angle, macro, composition, and traveling with your gear. This is my first book on the topic and it looks like an excellent place to start.

The other is a giant coffee-table-sized thing called Ocean: The World's Last Wilderness Revealed. With a foreword by Fabien Cousteau, it's the end-all, be-all visual reference and fact guide to our seas. There are beautiful two-page photos and hundreds of diagrams describing every facet of our great seas from ocean currents to temperature to the creatures living in dark depths. It's the type of book where you can read two or three pages and move onto the next topic. If nothing else this should inspire you to get back into the water, try a new dive site, or simply impress your friends.

So what did you get for dive-related gifts?

This weekend, I visited my local book store. While browsing, I discovered Ocean: The World's Last Wilderness Revealed. Covering everything related to the oceans -- from the shallow mangroves to the deepest sea floors -- Ocean is 50% photo essay and 50% reference manual, and 100% treasure.

Using informative illustrations, beautiful photographs, and satellite imagery, the 512-page tome details the fascinating ecosystems that dwell under the waves; discusses the latest developments in ocean exploration and photography; and highlights important people, habitats, human impact studies, and facts about the most precious resource on our planet. Published in association with the American Museum of Natural History, Ocean is written by Robert Dinwiddie and Louise Thomas and features a foreward by Fabien Cousteau. If you love the ocean, this book, which weighs in at just under 6 pounds, is for you.

The book lists for $50, but you can find it for under $30 on Amazon.

Whales' Angels is corporate-exec-turned-author Paul Mila's second novel. Featuring the husband-and-wife team of Joe Manetta and Terry Hunter, Whales' Angels details the couple's battles with nasty whalers and other bad guys. While simply trying to be good people protecting humpback whales, Manetta and Hunter are inadvertently drawn into the seamy underbelly of international politics, intrigue, and murder.

The fictional novel actually parallels recent non-fiction events. Specifically, the book's heroes work to halt a conspiracy led by Japan, Iceland, Finland, and Norway, as those nations attempt to overturn the International Whaling Commission's ban on whaling. Interestingly, Mila claims that his experience freediving with humpbacks inspired the story, which he hopes will increase efforts to save whales.

With the action taking place from the Caribbean to the North Atlantic, Mila's yarn sounds like a Hollywood film waiting to happen. Until it's on the big screen, however, Whales' Angels is available from Author House and Amazon. From the reviews ("a solid plot, intriguing characters and a realistic depiction of scuba diving and marine creatures"), it sounds like it's worth picking up for your next dive trip.

Mirko Zanni is a Swiss-born photographer who's been diving since 1989. Shortly thereafter, Zanni began taking photos underwater, and this year, his epic book Water Vision was awarded First Prize at the 33rd World Festival of Underwater Pictures in Antibes.

Water Vision features what Zanni feels are his 225 best images. Culled from thousands of shots, the selected images span 256 pages and are sprinkled with text written by Zanni and co-author Licia Paris. Throughout the book, all the animals have been classified by their Latin as well as their common name, both in Italian and in English. If you want to see some of Zanni's handiwork, check out Water Vision's website. The images are stunning.

If you want a copy of Zanni's book, the price is €59, plus shipping and handling. The "Limited Edition Hard Box" (a signed, collector's edition) is €69, plus shipping and handling. If you're interested in either, contact Zanni directly at mailto AT mirkozanni DOT com.

Eric Douglas, scuba diving author of Cayman Cowboys and Flooding Hollywood, sent me a note about his latest short story. Bait and Switch features dive instructor Jackson Pauley in Florida's fictitious Withrow Key.

You wanted me to say more and spoil the story?

I should mention Eric's other story, Pearl Harbor Christmas, about a serviceman onboard the U.S.S. West Virginia and the events between the attack and Christmas 1941.

The Diving Almanac & Yearbook 2007 is a reference guide detailing the underwater activities of the entire planet. Written by Jeffrey Gallant, director of the Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Group, the Almanac is a compendium of all things dive- and water-related and a must-have for all dive junkies.

Stuffed within the book's 550 pages is up-to-the-minute information on diving demographics, diver training, dive associations, diving news, diving personalities, dive destinations, and lots more. Fascinatingly, there's also a section dedicated to dive- and water- records -- from the first underwater photo to the fastest swimming bird. Twenty bucks (plus shipping) buys you the book, and will help ensure your victory the next time you play Team Trivia. Say, I wonder what the slowest fish is...

[Via Diverwire]

Tony Wu and William Tan spent much of the 1990s traveling, diving, researching, photographing, and writing. The result of their hard work is the breath-taking 168-page coffee table book, Silent Symphony, which was awarded the Grand Prize for Best Book of the Year at the 28th annual Festival of Marine Images. Underscoring that award, the review on Wetpixel proclaims that Silent Symphony "may be the most beautiful, most important underwater-themed book ever published."

Featuring photos ranging from the just gorgeous to the superbly sublime, (like the series of images of a Commensal Crab living inside the anus of a Sea Cucumber), each image is accompanied by informative and often amusing text. Providing such full, well-rounded descriptions of the marine life helps to make clear that it's not just fish down there under the waves -- it's a vibrant community filled with dynamic creatures. The book is way more than just pretty pictures, though. Taking advantage of an extended metaphor, Silent Symphony demonstrates how the sea, like a symphony, derives its beauty and meaning from the relationship among its parts: in the same way that one instrument can not play a symphony, one fish can not make an ecosystem. Ultimately, not only is Silent Symphony a photo essay of the marine world, it's also a treatise explaining why ocean conservation is imperative. Ultimately, Wu and Tan point out that everything in the sea works as one, like instruments in a finely tuned orchestra; removing any single player from the group would shatter an otherwise beautiful piece of music.

If you're interested in seeing a few more images from inside the book, check out Wetpixel or Silent Symphony's website. If you'd like to pick up a copy of this mesmerizing book for yourself, contact Tony Wu directly at Tony AT tony-wu DOT com. The books run $50 (plus shipping) per copy.

We've talked about Shadow Divers before; it's the first real mass media publication that shines a light of the fringe sport of deep wreck exploration. The best-selling book chronicles the story of two East Coast wreck divers who discover an unknown Nazi Submarine and their quest to identify it.

The book is being made into a movie and the last I heard it was Ridley Scott, who directed Blade Runner, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and the ground-breaking 1984 Apple Macintosh commercial. He's one of the best directors out there and usually makes very visually stunning motion pictures, so I was excited to see such a high profile director attached to the project.

Today, it looks like Ridley Scott is out and Peter Weir, who directed Witness, Master and Commander and a personal favorite of mine, The Year of Living Dangerously is now at the director's helm.

Given the talent they are throwing at this film, it has a chance to be amazingly great. And thank god they didn't have Uwe Boll do it.

Thanks to Divester reader Craig for the heads up.

If you're not finding that certain scuba diving book at Amazon, head over to Best Publishing. They publish scuba-specific books for hard-to-find topics about technical diving, equipment, dive medicine, history, commercial diving, and many more. Some titles:

• The Technical Guide to Gas Blending
• The History of American Deep Submersible Operations
• Histories and Mysteries: the Shipwrecks of Key Largo
• Dive Like a Pro: 101 Ways to Improve Your Scuba Skills and Safety
• Adventures with Sharks
• On-site Management of Scuba Diving and Boating Emergencies
• AIDS Under Pressure

The on-line store is a source for new and used copies ranging in price from $6 to over $100 based on the size and subject. You'll find other publishers' book in their store (such as NOAA guides and Shadow Divers) which makes it difficult to discern their publications from others. Well, that's not entirely true if you browse long enough. Best Publishing's book covers tend to give it away, going from a text-book-like clean and neat to one that would make Robert Crumb proud.

I don't need to tell you about the book Shadow Divers and it's status of being in development as a feature film slated for direction by Ridley Scott. Since all-knowing IMDb doesn't have production details it's anyone's guess when something will be produced but in the interim you can watch the 2004 documentary from NOVA, Hitler's Lost Sub. It brought the book to life, so to speak, by following Kohler and Chatterton's discovery of U-869.

When (if?) Shadow Divers The Movie is produced you can be sure that experts will surface in the media to correct whatever historical inaccuracies might exist in the film. Will we hear from wreck-diver, researcher, and author Gary Gentile? His book Shadow Divers Exposed: the Real Saga of the U-869 has mixed reviews at Amazon but appeals to history buffs (and engineers) who appreciate accuracy.

(Thanks Marshall!)