Reef Life is the story of how Callum Roberts, Britain's pre-eminent marine conservation scientist, fell in love with coral reefs and embarked on a thirty-year career. He began as a young university student who had never been abroad, spending a summer helping to map the unknown reefs of Saudi Arabia. And from that moment, when Callum first cleared his mask, he's never looked back, moving on to survey Sharm El Sheikh, and from there diving and researching all over the world, including Australia's imperilled Great Barrier Reef and the more resilient reefs of the Caribbean. His stories are astonishing, lyrical and laced with a wonderful wry humour - and they allow us privileged access to, and understanding of, the science of our oceans and reefs. Reading this book will also commit readers to support Callum's goal to get marine reserve status for ten percent of the world's ocean.

Author : Callum Roberts

Edition : Profile Books Ltd, Paperback, 368 pages

ISBN : 9781788162166

Published : 3rd June 2021

Weight: 362g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 23mm

Winner of the 2020 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award for nonfiction and the 2019 NSW Premier's History Awards for general history

For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Until the arrival of European explorers they were the only people to have ever lived there. Both the most closely related and the most widely dispersed people in the world before the era of mass migration, Polynesians can trace their roots to a group of epic voyagers who ventured out into the unknown in one of the greatest adventures in human history.

How did the earliest Polynesians find and colonise these far-flung islands? How did a people without writing or metal tools conquer the largest ocean in the world? This conundrum, which came to be known as the Problem of Polynesian Origins, emerged in the eighteenth century as one of the great geographical mysteries of mankind.

For Christina Thompson, this mystery is personal: her Maori husband and their sons descend directly from these ancient navigators. In Sea People, Thompson explores the fascinating story of these ancestors, as well as those of the many sailors, linguists, archaeologists, folklorists, biologists and geographers who have puzzled over this history for three hundred years. A masterful mix of history, geography, anthropology, and the science of navigation, Sea People is a vivid tour of one of the most captivating regions in the world.

Author : Christina Thompson

Edition : Harper Collins, Paperback, 384 pages

ISBN : 9780008339050

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2019

A New York Times bestseller, The Outlaw Ocean is a riveting, adrenalin-fuelled tour of a vast, lawless and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen: the high seas.

The oceans are some of the last untamed frontiers on our planet.

Too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these treacherous waters play host to the extremes of human behaviour and activity.

From traffickers, smugglers and pirates to vigilante conservationists, stowaways and seabound abortion-providers, Ian Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world and their risk-fraught lives. Through their extraordinary stories, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil and shipping industries - but to which all of us are connected.

Author : Ian Urbina

Edition : Vintage, Paperback, 560 pages

ISBN : 9781529111392

Weight: 407 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 34 mm

'Most works of mountain literature are written by men, and most of them focus on the goal of the summit.  Nan Shepherd's aimless, sensual exploration of the Cairngorms is bracingly different.' - Robert Macfarlane

In this masterpiece of nature writing, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland. There she encounters a world that can be breathtakingly beautiful at times and shockingly harsh at others.

Her intense, poetic prose explores and records the rocks, rivers, creatures and hidden aspects of this remarkable landscape. Shepherd spent a lifetime in search of the 'essential nature' of the Cairngorms; her quest led her to write this classic meditation on the magnificence of mountains, and on our imaginative relationship with the wild world around us.

Composed during the Second World War, the manuscript of The Living Mountain lay untouched for more than thirty years before it was finally published.

Why Novel North Recommends

‘An inspiration to engage with the majesty and intricacies of the natural world. Nan Shepherd’s writing is evocative and observed, taking us with her to peaks, inlets and glass like surfaces.  It’s a nourishing read, capturing the vibrancy of seasons, even in the seemingly dreariest of moments.  An invitation to pause.’

Author : Nan Shepherd

Edition : Canongate, Paperback, 114 pages

ISBN : 9780857861832