The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean

by Susan Casey

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

Susan Casey, bestselling author of The Wave and Devil’s Teeth invites us — along with scientists, explorers and enthusiasts — on a thrilling, wild adventure deep beneath the surface of the planet — an exploration deeper, stranger, and more wondrous than imaginable.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From bestselling author Susan Casey, an awe-inspiring portrait of the mysterious world beneath the waves, and the men and women who seek to uncover its secrets

“An irresistible mix of splendid scholarship, heart-stopping adventure writing, and vivid, visceral prose." —Sy Montgomery, New York Times best-selling author of The Soul of an Octopus

For all of human history, the deep ocean has been a source of wonder and terror, an unknown realm that evoked a singular, compelling question: What’s down there? Unable to answer this for centuries, people believed the deep was a sinister realm of fiendish creatures and deadly peril. But now, cutting-edge technologies allow scientists and explorers to dive miles beneath the surface, and we are beginning to understand this strange and exotic underworld:  A place of soaring mountains, smoldering volcanoes, and valleys 7,000 feet deeper than Everest is high, where tectonic plates collide and separate, and extraordinary life forms operate under different rules. Far from a dark void, the deep is a vibrant realm that’s home to pink gelatinous predators and shimmering creatures a hundred feet long and ancient animals with glass skeletons and sharks that live for half a millennium—among countless other marvels.

Susan Casey is our premiere chronicler of the aquatic world. For The Underworld she traversed the globe, joining scientists and explorers on dives to the deepest places on the planet, interviewing the marine geologists, marine biologists, and oceanographers who are searching for knowledge in this vast unseen realm. She takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of deep-sea exploration, from the myths and legends of the ancient world to storied shipwrecks we can now reach on the bottom, to the first intrepid bathysphere pilots, to the scientists who are just beginning to understand the mind-blowing complexity and ecological importance of the quadrillions of creatures who live in realms long thought to be devoid of life.

Throughout this journey, she learned how vital the deep is to the future of the planet, and how urgent it is that we understand it in a time of increasing threats from climate change, industrial fishing, pollution, and the mining companies that are also exploring its depths. The Underworld is Susan Casey’s most beautiful and thrilling book yet, a gorgeous evocation of the natural world and a powerful call to arms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780385545587
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/01/2023
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	45,510
File size:	39 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Susan Casey, author of New York Times bestseller’s Voices in the Ocean, The Wave, and The Devil’s Teeth: A True Story of Obsession and Survival Among America’s Great White Sharks and is the former editor in chief of O, The Oprah Magazine. She is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist whose work has been featured in the Best American Science and Nature Writing, Best American Sports Writing, and Best American Magazine Writing anthologies; and has appeared in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and Outside.

Editorial Reviews

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

"An awe-inspiring journey."—People

“Casey’s descriptions of the shimmeringly strange life teeming below the waves capture her wonder and ravishment in prose that morphs into poetry … enthralling.”
—The Boston Globe

“Not just a knowledgeable guide, Ms. Casey is also a memorable wordsmith…[Casey’s] book has more than enough deep-sea biology and geology to dazzle.”
—Wall Street Journal

“A fascinating history of mankind's journeys to the depths of the ocean and the intrepid scientists and adventurers who have devoted their lives to the work … Casey's book satisfies our greatest curiosities about the mysteries of the ocean.”
—Time
 
“In [The Underworld] Casey proves to be an exceptional adventurer and chronicler but also a member of a community dedicated to exploration and conservation of our least-understood aquatic wild places.”
—Los Angeles Times

“[The Underworld] is a fine tour of the history and challenges of exploring this most fantastical and forbidding of earthen worlds.”
—The Washington Post

“[An] entertaining account…wondrous…Casey excels at conjuring the “marvelous weirdos” that glide through submersibles' beam." —Scientific American

“One of the most accurate and vivid portrayals of a deep-sea dive that I have ever read”
—Science Magazine

“A thrilling and enlightening exploration of the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, featuring some of the most daring aquanauts using cutting-edge technology to make discoveries that boggle the mind”
—The Explorers Journal

"Is Susan Casey the next Rachel Carson? Yes. Her latest book, The Underworld: Journeys to the Depth of the Ocean, establishes her as the latest in the lineage of great ocean interpreters that began with Carson’s Under the Sea-Wind ... Casey’s narrative is so cinematic we begin to feel the awe, wonder and excitement of the abyss." —Rachel Carson Council

"Masterful and mesmerizing, Susan Casey's THE UNDERWORLD is an irresistible mix of splendid scholarship, heart-stopping adventure writing, and  vivid, visceral prose. Her book about the ocean's deeps is both uplifting and profound in the literal sense. I was riveted to every page."
—Sy Montgomery, author of The New York Times bestseller THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS

"Prepare to submerge. Susan Casey is a reporter in a league of her own. She will go anywhere to get her story. This one is full of astounding news, great characters, wondrous explorations, and a full measure of outrage. Deep-sea mining, you will come to understand, must be stopped."
—William Finnegan, author of Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

From the Publisher

Susan Casey's exploration of the deepest oceans is fascinating, frightening, and compelling. As a narrator, she's also quite wonderful; her clear, warm voice has touches of humility and awe, and she has excellent timing. The bottom of the ocean is teeming with life-- bioluminescence, transparent fish, weird worms, volcanoes. It's also home to shipwrecks, rubbish, and valuable minerals. Scientists have been quietly researching the mysteries of the deep in submersibles for years with a remarkable safety record, and the adventuring profiteers skirting safety standards at the helm of the recent OceanGate Titan disaster bear little resemblance to them. Casey's passion for the deep is unmistakable and contagious as she urges listeners to prevent deep-sea mining, end industrial overfishing, and clean up the endless plastic in the sea. A.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2023 - AudioFile

★ 2023-04-11
A fascinating account of the ocean below its twilight zone.

Many scientists and adventurers have explored waters down to 600 feet, where the sunlight barely reaches, but award-winning journalist Casey, author of the bestseller Voices in the Ocean, points out that this zone, the epipelagic, “occupies only 5 percent of the ocean’s volume. For all its loveliness, it’s merely a ceiling. The real action takes place below.” Real action is not in short supply, as the author, an oceanography enthusiast, demonstrates her journalistic professionalism, beginning with a compelling history. Clumsy exploration persuaded some 19th-century experts that the deep was lifeless, but 20th-century technical advances allowed scientists to descend to the bottom (36,000 feet at its deepest) to reveal wildly strange life forms, boiling hydrothermal vents, and volcanoes—an entire ecosystem living on chemicals and heat pouring from the center of the Earth. At these depths, there are creatures that breathe methane, fish with glasslike skeletons, and other animals that communicate through their skin. The farther down you go, “the more astonishing everything becomes.” Today, dozens of deep-sea vehicles, built and operated by governments and universities as well as the occasional entrepreneur and billionaire, roam the oceans. Casey chronicles her travels around the world interviewing designers, adventurers, and scientists; she also joined some expeditions and participated in deep descents. She reminds readers that far more people have visited the International Space Station than the ocean floor, and getting down there remains more dangerous. Readers will be thrilled by the author’s descriptions of truly bizarre sights and creatures as well as dazzling archaeological treasures (according to estimates, some 3 million ships linger on the seabed). Less moving is the human detritus that has reached the deepest trenches, including ubiquitous microplastics; synthetic fibers as well as industrial, chemical, and pharmaceutical waste; and bombs, live ammunition, and unneeded weapons, which the world’s armies routinely dump into the sea.

Space exploration gets the headlines, but Casey makes a convincing case that the deep ocean is more interesting.

Kirkus Reviews