A simple title, The Deep, masks a profound scientific tome, an astounding coffee table book and an amazing journey into a world so unknown, so unreal that you can’t put the book down. 

Claire Nouvian is the author and motivator in this collaboration between the world’s top scientific experts in deep sea exploration to bring us a book that will be talked about for decades to come.

And here’s why.

When we think about oceans we tend to picture them as defining our blue planet.

Seldom we imagine the vast, unknown deeps of our oceans, our black planet, to be the largest repository of life on earth. And yet, with its immense vertical dimensions, deeper in places than Mt Everest, our oceans offer 99% of the space on earth where life can exist. In fact, The Deep graphically portrays that life does exist throughout this vast biosphere in myriad, hitherto unknown life forms.

Outer space may look like the final frontier of discovery, yet we know so little about our own deep blue sea and the devils in it. Or the angelic creatures that float against the speckled velvet blackness –suspended in bone crushing weightlessness. Oh, the oxymorons that surround the inhabitants of this darkest of continents! On the one hand the ugliest creatures one could conceive of live in the abyss and on the other hand we find exquisite, beatific and sometimes even downright funny looking animals living in the same liquid bowels of the Earth.

Mankind has only started to discover this wondrous biosphere in the last few decades when modern submersibles made it possible to descend below the furthest reaches of sunlight into a world where only bioluminescence stir the darkness. Surprisingly, light-emitting creatures are more numerous than we thought and bioluminescence is used by about 90 percent of deep-sea creatures, making it probably the most widely used form of communication in the animal world.

There’s also a large section on the black smokers – belching chimneys on the ocean floor that seem to be piped straight into hell itself. Yet these vents support an incredible diverse and colourful array of life in this most hostile environment.

 The Deep is heavy at over two kilos.  The Deep is also very black – consistent with the inkiness of the domain it describes. The printer must have used 100 times more black ink than any other colour as every page is ebony with only smatterings of ethereal, often translucent life forms depicted.

It’s a stunning effect. The pages with countless double-spread photographs are also very thick, in the beginning tricking me into thinking they are two pages stuck together...

The Deep exudes quality, befitting its unique subject matter.

Yet, USD 45 is a small price to pay for a ticket to the greatest underwater world show on Earth.

 I am not so sure if it is a good idea to display The Deep on your coffee table. 

For starters, I don’t want any liquids spilled and spoil the beautiful images. But the main “side effect” is that your visitors won’t be able to put the book down and the conversation will be about ethereal and nebulous things...

Clare Nouvian’s The Deep takes us on an armchair journey through the fantastical, mystical and awe-inspiring Abyss.

And you can’t help but marvel at the exuberant creativity of our Intelligent Designer!