Reading

[Stu]

What are your favorite books about diving (educational or otherwise)?

[Nwbrewer]

Hands down Shadow Divers for non educational. Deep Descent and Dark Descent are good too. Last Dive is OK, but poorly written.

[Joshua Smith]

Shadow divers and Last dive, defenitely- I've read both many times. Caverns Measureless to Man is also great. Another pretty good one is Nuetral Buoyancy- kind of a long essay all about the history of underwater exploration, and all about diving in general. Also good reads- Submerged- all about the creation of the National Park Service's Submerged Cultural Resource Unit, and Dragon Sea- all about a big salvage operation in the South China sea- not strictly about diving, but it does explain commercial saturation diving- and I thought it was fascinating.

[dwashbur]

Diving on the Edge: A Unique Guide for New Divers by Michael Bane. It covers stuff the other books won't tell you about gear, choosing an instructor, what happens now that you have the C-card, and a host of other subjects. I can't recommend it enough.

[bigsky]

The Terrible Hours by Peter Maas
about the uss squalas and mr. momsen

[Ken G]

I also enjoyed The Dark Descent by Kevin F. McMurray. It is about diving the Empress of Ireland back in the day. A pretty good read

[camerone]

Hands down, the only educational dive book I'd keep on my shelf is Bennett & Elliott's Physiology and Medicine of Diving: http://www.amazon.com/Bennett-Elliotts- ... 0702025712 If you've got the mind for it, it's the real information behind what your body is doing underwater. Good stuff...

[Burntchef]

a few really good books i have read or is on the list. since the waters havent been to friendly at least you can read about diving

deep descent

new science skin diving

dark descent

taming of the slough

caverns measureless to man

descent

shadow divers

fatal depth

submerged

[LCF]

For a new diver, the Certified Diver's Handbook by Clay Coleman, has a bunch of useful information in it. The PADI Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving also has a bunch of information in it, even if some of it is a bit simplified.

Lippman and Mitchell's Deeper Into Diving has some very interesting information about the various decompression algorithms, the assumptions made in them, and how they were validated.

There is also some excellent information about decompression available on line: Erik Baker's "Understanding M-values" is widely cited, as well as his article on deep stops. Steve Lewis, who is I believe one of the directors of TDI's technical instruction, has an EXCELLENT article called "The Shape of the Curve" on the Deco Stop (you have to register for the site to read it).

Jablonski's Doing it Right: The Fundamentals of Better Diving has a definite bias, but has some thought-provoking ideas in it as well, especially regarding equipment ideas.

For fun reading, Shadow Divers is a must-read -- beautifully written and extremely engaging, even for non-divers. The Last Dive, written by Bernie Chowdhury (who was involved in the U-boat exploration) is a chilling portrait of how personality factors affect diving safety, although it's not nearly as well written. Caverns Measureless to Man is an amazing read about extreme diving in earlier days (it's not just about caves!) The Cave Divers by Burgess is a group of interesting anecdotes. I enjoyed Neutral Buoyancy, and especially his frustration with how irrelevant we are when we go underwater.

[dwashbur]

Bernie Chowdhury's Last Dive is not only an excellent story about the Rouses and what led to their tragic deaths, but is in essence a thorough history of technical diving as well, so it's quite informative besides being a good story.

[divergirl07]

I really enjoyed the book
The Universe next door; a personal odyssey by Judith Hemenway

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Next-Doo ... 1930536208
It is a collection of stories of this womans experiences diving over the years. It was nice because each chapter was a short story & you could just pick it up & read a little now & then... The nice thing is - I dont remember anyone dying in it!!

[Tom Nic]

... The nice thing is - I dont remember anyone dying in it!!

Yeah, some of the above mentioned books are NOT for the faint of heart or overly sensitive! :-)

Still, since we can't yet breathe water it's good educational stuff to read about that kind of stuff, IMO.

I still have a book that I am working my way through that is nothing but dive fatalaties (the name escapes me at the moment). I say working my way through because after a story or three I'm thinking that this isn't the best bedtime reading for me before my early morning dive! Can't read more than a little at a time without a blood pressure break.

[divergirl07]

good point Tom- I try to read ANYTHING scuba !!!
is the book youre reading Diver Down http://www.amazon.com/Diver-Down-Michae ... 0071445722????
I read that one as a new diver...
It was good for me to read about all the instuctors & people who had plenty of experience, making mistakes.. Taught me not to get cocky...

[defied]

Descent in to Darkness - Ed Raymer



This is about WWII MK-V divers in Pearl Harbor after the attacks. It's Surface Supplied (Which is why I like it), but it's an amazing read.