A deep dive into four aquatic reads

TimesLIVE

17-07-2025

From David Attenborough to Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell: these four Pan Macmillan titles re-establish our innate love for the ocean and being submerged in water
Ocean: How to Save Earth's Last Wilderness
David Attenborough and Colin Butfield
From the icy oceans of our poles to remote coral islands, David Attenborough has filmed in every ocean habitat on planet earth.
Now, with long-term collaborator Colin Butfield, he shares the story of our last great, critical wilderness, and the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate and creates the air we breathe.
Through one hundred years, eight unique ocean habitats, countless intriguing species -and through personal stories, history and cutting-edge science - Ocean uncovers the mystery, the wonder and the frailty of the most unexplored habitat on our planet.
And it shows its remarkable resilience: it is the part of our world that can, and in some cases has, recovered the fastest, and in our lifetimes we could see a fully restored marine world, even richer and more spectacular than we could possibly hope, if we act now.
It is a book almost a century in the making, but one that has never been more urgently needed.
Swimmingly: Adventures in Water
Vassos Alexander
In Swimmingly, sports journalist and ultra-athlete Vassos Alexander takes the plunge and explores the delights and rewards of wild and open water swimming.
Alexander got bitten by the swimming bug during lockdown – heading to his local patch of the Thames to find distraction and solace during that hot summer. And he stuck with it. He now pretty much can't pass a stretch of water without wanting to jump in it, even if just for a few minutes.
And, of course, he is one of those people with an ice bath in his back garden. Wild and open-water swimming has exploded in popularity in the last few years. The benefits of cold-water swimming are well known and we all know someone (or we are that someone!) who swims outside throughout the year.
Alexander works with the best trainers and interviews the great and good of swimming, such as Alison Streeter, the first woman to swim the Channel three ways non-stop, and figures out what makes so many of us want to wade, jump and dive in.
These Heavy Black Bones
Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell
These Heavy Black Bones is a brave and beautiful memoir written by the first Black woman to swim for Great Britain that reflects on race, identity, trauma and power with visceral vulnerability.
This is not a story about making history. This is the story of walking away from it all.
Rebecca Achieng Ajulu-Bushell was once a double British Champion and the first Black woman ever to swim for Great Britain. As her body and mind are sharpened through gruelling training, press scrutiny and the harshness of adolescence, Ajulu-Bushell charts her career's ascent and her singular love of the water, before explaining why she walked away from it all.
A compulsive and unforgettable study of intensity, These Heavy Black Bones meditates on Blackness, identity and the ecstasy of peak physical performance, and lays bare the pressures within the swimming world.
Deep Blue: Why we love the sea
Veruska De Vita
'. . . there is a quiet here that doesn't exist on land, a fluid suspension that reminds me that humans were never meant to be so rigid, so fixed in place. In the sea, we are both vulnerable and free. . .'
Deep Blue is a love letter to the sea, exploring humans' deep connection with it and the bliss of swimming, diving, dipping and simply being in salt water.
Join Veruska De Vita, a learner free diver and open-water swimmer, as she delves into why the ocean calls to us. Along the way she talks to those who find healing and wellness in swimming groups and cold-water immersion, scientists who study complex marine environments, elite athletes who swim super-human distances along our coasts and free divers who plumb the depths with one breath.
Water is primordial. It gives life. It represents hope and renewal. This book is not only for sea worshippers. It promises to inspire everyone to jump with joy into the waves – and offers reflections on our intimate relationship with the sea, which supports life on earth and requests that we respect it.