Scan barcode
leah_markum's review against another edition
5.0
I have a soft spot for illustrated encyclopedia-type books and this one was no exception. It follows the lineage of including focused stories that everyone from the non-science lay reader to the college graduate with a biology degree (as opposed to many modern popular science encyclopedias, which are virtually all photos with some generic text that shadows the might of a dozen Zoobooks).
The journey travels all the major oceans and seas, ecosystems within those waters, species profiles, major human-environment issues, and more.
What was special for me, a land lubber, was how well the author described the subsurface world. It has grass meadows, mangrove forests, corals, trenches, life between ice, Sargasso. Essentially I got to see the ocean a second world with every bit as much habitat diversity as land. It wasn't the blob of water that had stuff in it. I easily marked a plethora of pages to come back to so I can use those specific topics to spur research projects that I can write for my blog. I haven't had a book like that in a while.
It can be slow to read at the beginning. This isn't Douglas Adam's Last Chance to See--the reader has to be entertained by learning the content and not the author's effort to charm. That said, the sheer volume of niche topics and renewed perspective will definitely keep the true nature nerd occupied from start to finish.
Taste of trivia? Oil spills may be bad, but they are sporadic and seem disproportionately bad because of media sensationalism. What's every bit as bad, constant, and under the radar? Every ship out there not spilling enough to catch headlines. All ships leak, just like cars. Together they poison the waters moderately more than famous spills.
The journey travels all the major oceans and seas, ecosystems within those waters, species profiles, major human-environment issues, and more.
What was special for me, a land lubber, was how well the author described the subsurface world. It has grass meadows, mangrove forests, corals, trenches, life between ice, Sargasso. Essentially I got to see the ocean a second world with every bit as much habitat diversity as land. It wasn't the blob of water that had stuff in it. I easily marked a plethora of pages to come back to so I can use those specific topics to spur research projects that I can write for my blog. I haven't had a book like that in a while.
It can be slow to read at the beginning. This isn't Douglas Adam's Last Chance to See--the reader has to be entertained by learning the content and not the author's effort to charm. That said, the sheer volume of niche topics and renewed perspective will definitely keep the true nature nerd occupied from start to finish.
Taste of trivia? Oil spills may be bad, but they are sporadic and seem disproportionately bad because of media sensationalism. What's every bit as bad, constant, and under the radar? Every ship out there not spilling enough to catch headlines. All ships leak, just like cars. Together they poison the waters moderately more than famous spills.
alexauthorshay's review against another edition
reflective
3.0
A little bit out of date now, which is too bad because updated statistics on species and initiatives mentioned in this book, from coral bleaching to retreating glaciers, would have been good. But for the year it was published, a relatively informative book. It's not an 'atlas' in the typical sense, or even really a survey. Each spread contains information about either different oceans or different aspects of the oceans (circulation, storms, polar ice caps, etc), some are even species or habitat focused, and some give some geological and/or human history.
It's a large book, not too different from a textbook, but not quite as dry. Reading it from front to back did result in some repetition of information, and the author has a habit of describing things in the same way such that adjectives/etc felt overused. But mostly the book just needed one more pass with the copyeditor. There were some words missing, spelling errors, sentences with improper grammar structure, etc, and the way Farndon words sentences can at times be so round about and with so many sub-sentences in the main sentence you don't even remember what he was talking about or how it all links together. The sentences that he keeps simple and relatively jargon-free are the easiest to understand, and the information in them is interesting. More relevant as a research spring-off point this many years later though, as I'm sure none of the numbers provided in this book are accurate by now.
It's a large book, not too different from a textbook, but not quite as dry. Reading it from front to back did result in some repetition of information, and the author has a habit of describing things in the same way such that adjectives/etc felt overused. But mostly the book just needed one more pass with the copyeditor. There were some words missing, spelling errors, sentences with improper grammar structure, etc, and the way Farndon words sentences can at times be so round about and with so many sub-sentences in the main sentence you don't even remember what he was talking about or how it all links together. The sentences that he keeps simple and relatively jargon-free are the easiest to understand, and the information in them is interesting. More relevant as a research spring-off point this many years later though, as I'm sure none of the numbers provided in this book are accurate by now.
tangerineteeth's review against another edition
3.0
Read in April 2020, reviewed here: https://hollograms.blogspot.com/2020/05/books-read-in-april-2020.html
clarel's review
4.0
My review is here: http://www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/2012/01/28/bookshelf-atlas-of-oceans/
More...