‘Deep Water is a major achievement; a vast fathoming of the pasts, presents, and futures of the world’s oceans and seas. Bradley’s skills both as novelist and essayist converge here to create this wise, compassionate, and urgent book, characterised throughout by a clarity of prose and a bracing moral gaze that searches water, self, and reader.’

‘Bradley vividly conveys the awe-inspiring scale of the deep seas, both in space and time. Celebrating our blue planet and highlighting the perils it faces as a result of our own greed and ignorance.’

‘No part of the Earth system is more vital to the human past and future than the world ocean, and few indeed are better qualified to tell its stories than James Bradley. A love letter and a warning, Deep Water is a work of rare scholarship, wide range, and fierce urgency.’

‘Deep Water is written with panache and argued with compelling clarity. The result is a provocative, engrossing read.’

James Bradley is a writer and critic. His books include the novels Wrack, The Deep Field, The Resurrectionist, Clade, and Ghost Species; a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus; and The Penguin Book of the Ocean. Alongside his books, James has an established career as an essayist and reviewer, whose work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Monthly, Sydney Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, Meanjin, and Griffith Review. His fiction has won or been shortlisted for a wide range of Australian and in