Summer Challenge 2025: Ocean Books

Looking for help completing your Summer Challenge Bingo Card? Dive into one of the books about the ocean!

Updated June 26, 2025
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The underworld : journeys to the depths of the ocean
Casey, Susan
Paper Book
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...
Waves in an impossible sea : how everyday life emerges from the cosmic ocean
Strassler, Matt
Paper Book
Longlisted for the 2025 PEN / EO Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Big Think's Best Science Book of 2024 A theoretical physicist takes readers on an awe-inspiring journey--found in "no other book" (Science)--to discover how the universe...
The brilliant abyss : exploring the majestic hidden life of the deep ocean and the looming threat that imperils it
Scales, Helen
Paper Book
A marine biologist vividly brings alive the extraordinary ecosystem of the deep ocean--a realm about which we know less than we do about the Moon--and shows how protecting rather than exploiting it will benefit mankind. "The oceans have always shaped human lives," writes marine...
The island of sea women : a novel
See, Lisa
Paper Book
A new novel from Lisa See, the New York Times bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and family secrets on a small Korean island. Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends that come...
The Wager : a tale of shipwreck, mutiny, and murder
Grann, David
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager...
Into the planet : my life as a cave diver
Heinerth, Jill
Ebook
The renowned cave diver takes readers on "a thrill ride into unfamiliar worlds"--exploring the hidden depths of our oceans and sunken caves (Publishers Weekly).More people have died exploring underwater caves than climbing Mount Everest, and we know more about deep space than we...
The sound of the sea : seashells and the fate of the oceans
Barnett, Cynthia
Paper Book
Seashells have been the most coveted and collected of nature's creations since the dawn of humanity. They were money before coins, jewelry before gems, art before canvas. In The Sound of the Sea, acclaimed environmental author Cynthia Barnett blends cultural history and science to trace...
How far the light reaches : a life in ten sea creatures
Imbler, Sabrina
Paper Book
A fascinating tour of creatures from the surface to the deepest ocean floor: this "miraculous, transcendental book" invites us to envision wilder, grander, and more abundant possibilities for the way we live (Ed Yong, author of An Immense World). A queer, mixed race...
Deep : freediving, renegade science, and what the ocean tells us about ourselves
Nestor, James
Paper Book
An Amazon Best Book of 2014 While on assignment in Greece, journalist James Nestor witnessed something that confounded him: a man diving 300 feet below the ocean's surface on a single breath of air and returning four minutes later, unharmed and smiling.
Why we swim
Tsui, Bonnie
Paper Book
A Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020 A Best Book of the Season: BuzzFeed * Bustle * San Francisco Chronicle A Best Book of the Year: NPR's Book Concierge * Washington Independent Review of Books...
Ocean : a history of the Atlantic before Columbus
Haywood, John
Paper Book
A magisterial cultural history of the Atlantic Ocean before Columbus, ranging from the early shaping of the continents and the emergence of homo sapiens to the story of shipbuilding, navigation, maritime exploration, slavery, and nascent European imperialism. A...

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