Overview

The tender and funny portrait of Norton's discovery of the sea and his exploration of a very British love affair with the seaside. This is the beautifully told tale of Norton's growing love of the sea, from family holidays in Whitley Bay as a boy, to his first over zealous attempts at diving. All that we know and love of the British seaside weaves throughout this funny, nostalgic and richly told memoir. Fortune telling gypsies found on crumbling promenades, lighthouses standing to attention, fishing villages giving way to arcades and brass bands and sand-playing in the bracing chill of a British summer. Throughout, Norton introduces us to a eclectic mix of sea-loving characters all of whom have helped to inform and shape his own journey to becoming a marine biologist. Like the early guides to the seashore by the Naturalist Philip Henry Gosse as much a part of the myth and history of the British coastline as fishermen's tales of mermaids and eerie monsters beneath the waves. This is both a history and a memoir of an enduring, if at times perplexing, love of the sea that won't fail to resonate with all who have felt the pull of the shores.

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9780099446583

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Reviews

'A rich and absorbing blend of autobiography, science and adventure' Sunday Telegraph 'a wonderfully readable memoir, full of amazing facts and funny stories, but ultimately an elegy for a fast-disappearing world' Daily Mail 'Norton relates his struggles and fascination with genuine warnth and humour' Irish News Lovers of the sea and sands will be swept away by Under Water to Get Out of the Rain in which distinguished marine biologist Trevor Norton writes so lyrically that you can taste the salt of his bonding with the oceans, from the submarine lava tunnels of Lanzarote, to the kelp forests of California and the pure silver strands of the Hebrides Sunday Times 'Trevor Norton's beautifully written memoir of a life spent probing and pondering the sea depths derives much of its power from his observations ashore... What he saw is described with a novelist's sensibility and eye for detail... And his literate, witty, luminous prose makes this a marine biology to cuddle up to. This is a book to take to the seaside and to bed.' Guardian

'A rich and absorbing blend of autobiography, science and adventure' * Sunday Telegraph * 'a wonderfully readable memoir, full of amazing facts and funny stories, but ultimately an elegy for a fast-disappearing world' * Daily Mail * 'Norton relates his struggles and fascination with genuine warnth and humour' * Irish News * Lovers of the sea and sands will be swept away by Under Water to Get Out of the Rain in which distinguished marine biologist Trevor Norton writes so lyrically that you can taste the salt of his bonding with the oceans, from the submarine lava tunnels of Lanzarote, to the kelp forests of California and the pure silver strands of the Hebrides * Sunday Times * 'Trevor Norton's beautifully written memoir of a life spent probing and pondering the sea depths derives much of its power from his observations ashore. . . . What he saw is described with a novelist's sensibility and eye for detail. . . . And his literate, witty, luminous prose makes this a marine biology to cuddle up to. This is a book to take to the seaside and to bed.' * Guardian *

Marine biologist Norton (Stars Beneath the Sea, 2000, etc.) chronicles his enviable peripatetic life. He grew up in Britain, next to a sullen sea rimmed with coal dust. But underwater, there was gold. The first image he recalls is of a cormorant scooting to the surface, a dark javelin in a cone of bubbles. There was no looking back for Norton. Water would be his metier. The author here provides shrewd commentary about sponges, anemones, barnacles, sea cucumbers, puffins, limpets, water spiders, coral, sea snakes and kelp. That acuity might be taken for granted, given his reputation, but he also makes intelligent observations about the histories of the regions he visits, a diverse topography including Britain, Sweden, the Canary Islands, Egypt, Yemen, the Philippines and Ireland. He engagingly holds forth on continental drift, the Bermuda Triangle, the strange juju of shipwrecks, the eroticism of the sea world. But he also delivers an elbow to the windpipe regarding humans' degradation of the oceans. Norton claims-and justifies-his air of authority from the fieldwork he has done. He is out there getting wet and dirty, living rough, gathering findings first hand. When he talks about changes in the seascape, readers know that he has seen the before and after. Norton would never suggest that the oceans are anything less than theaters of surprise and wonder, but he reminds us that they are not limitless and recommends some significant remedial behavior to help preserve them. A chattily erudite account of the author's personal pilgrimage. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Trevor Norton is Emeritus Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Liverpool and Director of the Port Erin Marine Laboratory on the Isle of Man. He has authored over 150 scientific publications and books, and is an authority on the history of scientific diving.

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