The best fiction and nonfiction books about the ocean, which will show you how the deep blue sea impacts, connects and shares the world with us.
If there’s anything I love more than books, it’s the ocean. I grew up in the sea, with daily trips to the coast for my morning medicine: submerging myself in the breakers, no matter what time of year.
The ocean is fascinating. From its unapologetic force to its blatant connectivity across the globe to the fact that we only understand a tiny fraction about it. But these ocean-specific books do an amazing job in helping.
I’ve selected these fiction and nonfiction titles for readers who want to submerge themselves in the sea—without getting wet. You’ll learn about a mysterious sea that hides more than it reveals and hear stories that will show you how much the ocean influences us as human beings.
Here are 11 nonfiction and fiction books about the ocean that will have you falling in love with the deep blue sea:
The Sea Around Us
by Rachel Carson
In The Sea Around Us, famed American marine biologist Rachel Carson uses her stunning prose and unique scientific detail to explore the ocean’s history, from how the seas were created to their role in shaping life on earth.
As far as publications on natural landscapes, Rachel Carson was a force of nature (excuse the pun). This book won the 1952 National Book Award, and over 70 years later, still holds up as a relevant, powerful read on the history of the sea. Well ahead of its time, it’s the top of this list of ocean-based books for a reason.
Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and what the Ocean Tells Us about
by James Nestor
James Nestor follows freedivers into depths most land dwellers would never consider possible, using the one-breath activity as a means of sport, survival and understanding for our oceans. Ignited by his coverage of a freediving competition in Greece, Nestor sets off to explore the connection we have with our ocean by diving in head first himself, as a beginner freediver and novice ocean enthusiast. By the end of this book, you’ll be convinced that humans belong in the sea.
Known for his work Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, which made nasal breathing fashionable again, Deep is just as astounding in the way it evokes such incredible curiosity from something we take for granted. I read this after gaining my freediving certification and was itching to return to the deep blue sea with my new appreciation of the water and our place in it.
The Ocean Outlaw
by Ian Urbina
The Ocean Outlaw introduces us to a frontier mysterious to most of us, with its inhabitants ranging from traffickers and smugglers, oil-dumpers and abortion providers to pirates, thieves and vigilante marine conservationists. Packed with adrenaline and fast-paced tales, this is nonfiction at its best—and one of our favorite books about the ocean.
Incredible, action-packed and occasionally disturbing, The Ocean Outlaw will shock you again and again at the crime and exploits that go on well past the breakers.
Life of Pi
by Yann Martel
After a shipwreck leaves him adrift on the vast ocean for months, a young boy named Pi finds himself questioning the nature of reality while struggling to survive. With only the endless seas as his companion, Pi navigates both the physical and philosophical challenges of life on the open ocean, alongside his unique co-passenger—a 450-pound Bengal tiger.
As we’ve said before in our books about nature post, Martel’s symbolism brilliantly connects the unpredictability of the ocean to the search for meaning, making this novel a profound exploration of both the natural world and the depths of human belief. A must-read for lovers of thought-provoking, ocean-centered fiction.
Into The Planet
by Jill Heinerth
Did you know more people die exploring underwater caves each year than they do climbing Everest? Cave diving carries risks most of us won’t ever consider. But what makes it so worth it to the few who can swallow the dangers is the discoveries it provides. From the ocean’s hidden beauty to the historic remains left from ancient cultures, we’re taken on a deep dive into the ocean’s inner bosoms with one of the leading cave divers on the planet.
Following the Thailand cave disaster years ago, my interest in cave diving soared. Not ever wanting to cave dive myself, reading about it was the next best thing. Into The Planet took me to the deepest and darkest caverns, without a single drop hitting my skin.
How Far The Light Reaches: A Life In Ten Sea Creatures
by Sabrina Imbler
There’s so much more beneath the water’s surface than we could ever imagine existing. Alien-like species that sound so foreign and ironically unnatural that the case for them being extraterrestrial is by no means a far-fetched one.
This is such a fascinating read about ten sea creatures that are in one sense incredibly different to any species we share the land with, but also astonishingly similar. How Far The Light Reaches will give you enough cool marine facts to drop jaws at your next family barbecue.
Blueback
by Tim Winton
Australia’s Tim Winton shares the story of teenage Abel Jackson, a lifelong resident of coastal town Longboat Bay, who’s found in the ocean more often than on land. One day, he meets Blueback, a fish bigger and more beautiful than any he’s ever seen. But when developers set out to build on the local ecosystem, starting with the Jackson’s home, Abel and his mother set out to save both Longboat Bay’s natural beauty and Blueback’s ocean home.
This is a kid’s read that any willing adult will gladly digest, with all the poetic-fuelled prose from one of the most inspiring voices from Down Under.
In The Heart of the Sea
by Nathaniel Philbrick
The story itself is deemed to be the inspiration for Moby Dick (which doesn’t make this list but is recommended for lovers of the ocean), following the ramming and sinking of the whale ship Essex in 1820, by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifts on the open waters for ninety days in three small boats, desperate to return home before the baron seascape threatens to sink them all, physically and figuratively.
I’m obsessed with old tales about ship life, and this one is an easy favorite. Philbrick expertly retells the age of the whaler, from their unapologetic destruction of large marine life to the courage required to tackle the angry seas in a propellerless wooden boat. While I tipped my cap to the sperm whale who found its revenge on the Essex, I was blown away by the bravery of the folk on their ninety days of ocean drifting.
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean
by Susan Casey
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean dives into the world of massive, unpredictable waves and the people who chase them. We’re led by aquatic adventure writer Susan Casey, who explores the science behind these awe-inspiring forces of nature, from towering waves that threaten ships to the surfers who risk their lives to ride them.
This is oceanographic writing at its best and most gripping, and is simply a must-read book for anyone in awe of the ocean’s sheer power and ferocity.
Ocean Sea
by Alessandro Baricco
This won’t be a novel you’ll forget anytime soon. It’s set in a mysterious seaside inn, where a painter uses ocean water for his art, a scientist writes love letters to a stranger and a woman seeks an escape from her own heart. As these characters’ fates intertwine, both a storm and a vengeful mariner arrive on the inn’s doorstep, turning the inn into a stage for passion and destiny.
Ocean Sea is a mesmerizing tale of love, longing and revenge. It’s hauntingly—and beautifully—written, and in my opinion, is one of the most unique portrayals of the ocean’s impact on our lives.
Lady With A Spear
by Eugenie Clark
The underwater exploits of one of the first marine biologists to make the profession fame-worthy, this classic book will be hard to find, but worth the search.
Eugenie Clark was a pioneer of oceanography. She was known as the Shark Lady, and her sole account of her life-long experiences in the sea will give you WW2-era fascinations about deep-water fish from all corners of the globe. I love it because of the age it was written, when one couldn’t merely google “the most fascinating sea life in the world,” but needed an expert to deliver the descriptions to them. Eugienie Clark was that expert.