The Compleat Goggler

From prehistoric times to the present, the Ocean has been used as a highway for trade, a source of food and resources, and a space for recreation and military conquest, as well as an inspiration for religion, culture, and the arts. The Ocean Reader charts humans' relationship to the Ocean, which has often been seen as a changeless space without a history. It collects familiar, forgotten, and previously unpublished texts from all corners of the world. Spanning antiquity to the present, the volume's selections cover myriad topics including the slave trade, explorers from China and the Middle East, shipwrecks and castaways, Caribbean and Somali pirates, battles and U-boats, narratives of the Ocean's origins, and the devastating effects of climate change. Containing gems of maritime writing ranging from myth, memoir, poetry, and scientific research to journalism, song lyrics, and scholarly writing, The Ocean Reader is the essential guide for all those wanting to understand the complex and long history of the Ocean that covers over 70 percent of the planet.

"Neutral Buoyancy is a journey filled with exotic, eccentric human characters competing for space with misunderstood sharks, weeping turtles, smiling dolphins and erotically shaped sea slugs. This unique and inspiring insight into our relationship with the deep will allow even the most timid swimmer to lose themselves underwater."--Jacket.

Lifestyles have a history, and lifestyle media is fundamentally implicated in this history. This original volume examines issues of taste, media and lifestyle from the 1900s to 1970s, providing a wealth of empirical evidence and debate from varied international perspectives. Including examples as diverse as 'Good Housekeeping' and 'Playboy', it explores the continuities and discontinuities between the past and present to provide a better understanding of the representation of lifestyle and its relationship to the self. The volume demonstrates how ideas about gender, nation and 'race' problematize taken-for-granted assumptions about lifestyle, with particular emphasis on the new middle classes in the US. The book also examines the role of advertising and marketing in mediating ideas about lifestyle, the role of material culture in the construction of cultural hierarchies and the positioning of social groups within wider cartographies of taste. The volume makes a significant contribution to this growing field and will interest academics and students in media and cultural studies, communication studies, cultural history and sociology.

Diving Equipment: Choice, maintenance and function is a solid introduction to how diving gear works. It details the choices divers are faced with, and gives tips to help ensure it will last. If you want to better understand diving kit without having to dismantle it this book is the answer. It is filled with colourful illustrations and explanations of the hidden inner workings. Although it is therefore of obvious benefit to newer divers, Diving Equipment will also be of interest to qualified divers. Divemasters, instructors, those in need of a refresher and any non-diver who is curious about diving equipment are all likely to find out things they did not previously know. This book covers a wide range of diving gear including: accessories, BCDs, computers, cylinders, drysuits, fins, gauges, masks, rebreathers, regulators, sidemount, snorkels, stages, torches, weights, wetsuits, wings and more… Although many of the dives we make are in tropical regions, Diving Equipment takes an international perspective. It covers a range of conditions; discusses laws and regulations in different parts of the world; suggests what to look out for and what to ask locals about. If we are curious, we are often directed to look at manufacturers’ websites, with their limited descriptions of how equipment really works. This book aims to plug the gap. Diving Equipment also includes some less common and older items for interest and historical comparison, and finishes with some speculation on what the future might bring. Reviews ‘A must-have for newly qualified divers, but this excellent book shouldn’t be dismissed by those with more experience as a publication on the basics – it offers far more than that. The vast majority of us would benefit from a deeper understanding of the dive-gear on which we rely so heavily, what it does, how it works and how it should be used and maintained. This volume delivers such information in spadeloads, and should be on every diver’s bookshelf’– Diver magazine (read full review) ‘Some books you read and pass on, but this is one to keep and refer back to for many years to come’– British Diver (read full review) ‘One of the few diving titles out there that everyone should own and, in my view, should be a required text for those diving professionals working in instruction, supervision or sales’– Steve Warren, INON UK (read full review) ‘First thing I have to say about this book is that every sports diver should have one… Diving gear is not cheap and can become a serious investment, so knowing what to choose and how best to ensure its long and reliable life is to my mind definitely worth the cost of this book’– Scubaverse Second Edition of Diving Equipment This English-language second edition has been completely re-edited and enhanced. Originally published in Swedish in paperback and ebook, and in English as an ebook.

The New York Times–bestselling author’s memoir of diving in the Caribbean offers “in precise, lucid, prose, the marvels of the sea bottom” (New Yorker). Author Stephen Harrigan spent months diving on the coral reefs of Grand Turk Island in the Caribbean. In this evocative account, he describes his many explorations, both personal and natural. Though he is there to learn about the history of the coral reef, Harrigan freely admits that his true motivation is to become, at least for a time, his “underwater self.” “Moving, intelligent and, in the best sense, literary. . . . Stephen Harrigan is anchored in reality; he knows that the environment he's describing is in serious jeopardy. At the same time, he has made this book sparkle with his remarkable ability to discuss the metaphysical and spiritual aspects of underwater exploration without ever sounding saccharine or murky.” —New York Times Book Review