Immerse yourself in this beautiful, absorbing guide to the marine world.

Earth owes its identity as the blue planet to the vast oceans of water that cover almost 70 per cent of its surface. Home to an abundance of marine life and vital in regulating Earth’s climate, the oceans are also the backdrop to daring exploits of seafaring and to colourful mythological tales. Combining arresting photography, rich illustrations, and engaging, expertly written text, The Ocean Book showcases the animals and plants, physical geography, and captivating human stories of the world’s oceans.

Whether you’re interested in blue whales, penguins, coral reefs, whirlpools, or the golden age of pirates, this is the perfect exploration of the ocean realm.

Dive into this uniquely elegant visual exploration of the sea

An informative and utterly beautiful introduction to marine life and the ocean environment, The Science of the Ocean book brings the riches of the underwater world onto the printed page.

Astounding photography reveals an abundance of life, from microscopic plankton to great whales, seaweed to starfish. Published in association with the Natural History Museum, the book explores every corner of the oceans, from coral reefs and mangrove swamps to deep ocean trenches.

Along the way, and with the help of clear, simple illustrations, it explains how life has adapted to the marine environment, revealing for example how a stonefish delivers its lethal venom and how a sponge sustains itself by sifting food from passing currents. It also examines the physical forces and processes that shape the oceans, from global circulation systems and tides to undersea volcanoes and tsunamis.

To most of us, the marine world is out of reach. But with the help of photography and the latest technology, The Science of the Ocean brings us up close to animals, plants, and other living things that inhabit a fantastic and almost incomprehensibly beautiful other dimension.

The Shortest History of the Dinosaurs tells the 230-million-year epic of these staggeringly fascinating prehistoric creatures, covering their small beginnings, spectacular golden periods, and stunning evolutionary success—before an unthinkable asteroid event brought everything to a screeching halt. But this history digs deeper, using numerous recent fossil discoveries and fresh understandings of genetics and evolution to show how we’ve gleaned so much about a long-lost world from mere fragments of fossil. Marshaling the evidence, award-winning author Riley Black reveals the startling relationships that dinosaurs shared with one another, the land they lived on, and other animal species. By conjuring a more complete picture of Earth in the age of the dinosaurs, she shows us how these massive monsters owe their rise to luck as much as to their cunning—and the many surprising ways they left an indelible mark on their dramatically changing world.

The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read.