The Bathysphere Book

"Mesmerizing . . . Original and often profound, [The Bathysphere Book] is a moving testament to the wonders of exploration." —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "Imbued with the adventurous spirit of science and exploration . . . [The Bathysphere Book is] an enchanting cabinet of curiosities." —Kirkus Reviews A wide ranging, philosophical, and sensual account of early deep sea exploration and its afterlives, The Bathysphere Book begins with the first ever voyage to the deep ocean in 1930 and expands to explore the adventures and entanglements of its all-too-human participants at a time when the world still felt entirely new. In the summer of 1930, aboard a ship floating near the Atlantic island of Nonsuch, marine biologist Gloria Hollister sat on a crate, writing furiously in a notebook with a telephone receiver pressed to her ear. The phone line was attached to a steel cable that plunged 3,000 feet into the sea. There, suspended by the cable, dangled a four-and-a-half-foot steel ball called the bathysphere. Crumpled inside, gazing through three-inch quartz windows at the undersea world, was Hollister’s colleague William Beebe. He called up to her, describing previously unseen creatures, explosions of bioluminescence, and strange effects of light and color. From this momentous first encounter with the unknown depths, The Bathysphere Book widens its scope to explore a transforming and deeply paradoxical America, as the first great skyscrapers rose above New York City and the Great Plains baked to dust. In prose that is magical, atmospheric, and entirely engrossing, Brad Fox dramatizes new visions of our planetary home, delighting in tales of the colorful characters who surrounded, supported, and participated in the dives—from groundbreaking scientists and gallivanting adventurers to eugenicist billionaires. The Bathysphere Book is a hypnotic assemblage of brief chapters along with over fifty full-color images, records from the original bathysphere logbooks, and the moving story of surreptitious romance between Beebe and Hollister that anchors their exploration. Brad Fox blurs the line between poetry and research, unearthing and rendering a visionary meeting with the unknown.

The true story of the invention, disasters, and adventures of the first bathysphere--a small, cramped, bare-bones spherical deep-sea submersible that set the world record for deepest dive in 1934. Explorer William Beebe and engineering grad student Otis Barton teamed up despite mismatched personalities and disagreements and changed deep-sea exploration forever. Told through engaging rhyme, this playfully illustrated addition to the Unhinged History series follows their journey from frustrated inventors to international celebrities. The tiny bathysphere was miserable to be in, with terrible lighting, little room to move, stale air, and minuscule portholes--but still the scientist-adventurers went far under the waves to experience the mysterious waters as no one ever had. After near calamities and false starts, Beebe and Barton saw, for the very first time, deep-sea creatures in their home environment, broke world records, and made history.

"...one of the most fascinating and unusual new books I’ve read in some time." —Benjamin Shull, The Wall Street Journal "Hypnotic . . . Beautifully written and beautifully made." —W. M. Akers, The New York Times Book Review "...a weird and often beautiful fusion of science writing, history and poetry that explores our own relationship with the unknown..." —Edward Posnett, The Guardian "Mesmerizing . . . Original and often profound, [The Bathysphere Book] is a moving testament to the wonders of exploration." —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "Imbued with the adventurous spirit of science and exploration . . . [The Bathysphere Book is] an enchanting cabinet of curiosities." —Kirkus Reviews A wide ranging, philosophical, and sensual account of early deep sea exploration and its afterlives, The Bathysphere Book begins with the first ever voyage to the deep ocean in 1930 and expands to explore the adventures and entanglements of its all-too-human participants at a time when the world still felt entirely new. In the summer of 1930, aboard a ship floating near the Atlantic island of Nonsuch, marine biologist Gloria Hollister sat on a crate, writing furiously in a notebook with a telephone receiver pressed to her ear. The phone line was attached to a steel cable that plunged 3,000 feet into the sea. There, suspended by the cable, dangled a four-and-a-half-foot steel ball called the bathysphere. Crumpled inside, gazing through three-inch quartz windows at the undersea world, was Hollister’s colleague William Beebe. He called up to her, describing previously unseen creatures, explosions of bioluminescence, and strange effects of light and color. From this momentous first encounter with the unknown depths, The Bathysphere Book widens its scope to explore a transforming and deeply paradoxical America, as the first great skyscrapers rose above New York City and the Great Plains baked to dust. In prose that is magical, atmospheric, and entirely engrossing, Brad Fox dramatizes new visions of our planetary home, delighting in tales of the colorful characters who surrounded, supported, and participated in the dives—from groundbreaking scientists and gallivanting adventurers to eugenicist billionaires. The Bathysphere Book is a hypnotic assemblage of brief chapters along with over fifty full-color images, records from the original bathysphere logbooks, and the moving story of surreptitious romance between Beebe and Hollister that anchors their exploration. Brad Fox blurs the line between poetry and research, unearthing and rendering a visionary meeting with the unknown.

The suspenseful, little-known true story of two determined pioneers who made the first dive into the deep ocean. On June 6, 1930, engineer Otis Barton and explorer Will Beebe dove into the ocean inside a hollow metal ball of their own invention called the Bathysphere. They knew dozens of things might go wrong. A tiny leak could shoot pressurized water straight through the men like bullets! A single spark could cause their oxygen tanks to explode! No one had ever dived lower than a few hundred feet...and come back. But Otis and Will were determined to become the first people to see what the deep ocean looks like. This suspenseful story from acclaimed author Barb Rosenstock with mesmerizing watercolors by award-winning artist Katherine Roy will put you right in the middle of the spine-tingling, record-setting journey down, down into the deep.

Describes the 1934 dive of a bathysphere, or "sphere of the deep," in which two explorers, William Beebe and Otis Barton, set the world depth record and saw mysterious creatures of the deep ocean.

'Hypnotic... raises questions of exploration and wonder, of nature and humanity' New York Times Book Review 'Exquisite and shocking... just as any exploration of the deep should be' Helen Scales, author of The Brilliant Abyss '[A] rich, strange book' China Miéville, author of The City & the City ____________ 11 June, 1930. On a ship floating near the Atlantic island of Nonsuch, a curious steel ball is lowered 3000 feet into the sea. Crumpled up inside, gazing through three-inch thick quartz windows, sits the famed zoologist William Beebe. With uncontrollable excitement, he watches as bizarre, never-before-seen creatures flit out of the inky blackness, illuminated by explosions of bioluminescence. He is the first person to witness this alien world. Beebe's dives take place against the backdrop of a transforming and paradoxical America, home to ground-breaking scientists, eccentric adventurers, and eugenicist billionaires. Yet under the ocean's crushing pressure, scientific expectations disintegrate; the colour spectrum shatters into new dimensions; outlandish organisms thrive where no one expected them. The Bathysphere Book blends research, storytelling, and poetic experiments, traveling through entangled histories of scientific discovery into the bottomless magic of the deep unknown. ____________ Further praise for The Bathysphere Book 'The life work of an explorer-scientist becomes a thing of rich poetry' Helen Gordon, author of Notes from Deep Time 'A breathtaking book, full of suspense, revelation, and beauty' Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus 'An exhilarating read... shiveringly exciting, important, and new' Martin MacInnes, author of In Ascension 'An impressionistic work of art depicting one of the greatest moments of discovery in human history... tantalizing glimpses of deep-sea life' Edith Widder, author of Below the Edge of Darkness: Exploring Light and Life in the Deep Sea 'A genre-deying book about oceans that is imbued with intelligence, curiosity and wonder' Joanna Pocock, author of Surrender 'A brilliant work of literary art... a time-bending, gem-laden constellation' Wayne Koestenbaum, author of Ultramarine

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Fiction. Tess keeps vigil at the bedside of her friend Laura through a long night of labor as Laura's first child arrives. The two have known each other for what seems like forever. Their humanitarian aid work has taken them from the Balkans, to Egypt, to Istanbul amid the ongoing refugee crisis--an era that includes the US's war in Iraq, the Arab Spring, and many forms of global consequence and aftermath. Brad Fox's first novel is a luminous inquiry into the incarnations and limits of hope. This writer helps us endure our questions about what forms care may take, what we may offer to anyone, near and far. "Brad Fox's virtuoso novelistic voice, alternately terse and florid, in the mode of Joseé Saramago, Roberto Bolanño, or Alberto Moravia, is sonorous, lapidary, and melancholy--a seamless dreamy fabulist omniscience, bearing world-weary witness to perilous events, both inner and outer. Fox gives the impression of having lived underground or in other centuries and of only now emerging from his hiding place to narrate these limpid yet dense fantasias. A phenomenally gifted novelist and a probing intellectual, he transforms critical thinking into dramatic scenario. 'Thought' isn't appended to the story, but emerges in the complicated telling of the tale. In a bravura feat of formal construction, TO REMAIN NAMELESS flashes between a birth scene and international adventures: from the cramped, germinating vantage of a hospital room, the novelist unfurls a teeming network of international exaltations and disappointments. The room compresses; the world expands. Djuna Barnes and Virginia Woolf pioneered this trick of simultaneous engorgement and diminution, of funhouse-mirror space-time reversal; and now Brad Fox, wonder-worker, takes up the dizzying mantle."--Wayne Koestenbaum "Daring, vivid and utterly original, Brad Fox's debut is a tour de force."--Claire Messud "From Kansas City to Cairo to New York to the Balkans, Brad Fox goes to the heart of the contemporary experience. Stories of humanitarian crimes, errant friendships and euphoric protests come together in a tough, clean, elegant prose that moves gracefully from one continent to the next.This book is sprinkled throughout with a gravelly humour and a nod to Beckett's sense of Can't go on, must go on."--Colum McCann "TO REMAIN NAMELESS is a gorgeous meditation on a shifting self in a shifting world, a querying-onward in which there's both melancholy and delight."--Shelley Jackson "Very intense like a bright light."--Fanny Howe