Marine Life: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Invertebrates in the Sea

I have owned a copy of this book for a number of years and have had reason to refer to it on numerous occasions. It has never let me down. Marine Biologists can be awfully boring people - but so can anyone who can only talk about cars, computers or shipwrecks!!! This is one of the few books to cross my desk for review recently where the authors know and understand precisely what the word "Encyclopaedia" means. It is not, therefore, a book which you will read from cover to cover. Nevertheless, the authors have made the technical detail of their expertise most readable and understandable - and that is what makes this book stand out from the crowd. Furthermore, once you have - even the briefest description of some obscure creature, you "will" track it down here. Many people (and scuba divers are only a single example), take an interest in marine life. Leaving aside such dramatic subjects as whales, sharks and large fishes, there is a whole new world out there which is being explored by ordinary folk. This book will identify the uncommon and place that species into it's overall context of life under the sea. Personally, I would not be without a copy of this book and I can thoroughly recommend it to other scuba divers and anyone with an interest in such matters. Altogether an excellent work. NM