Neutral Buoyancy: Adventures in a Liquid World

Four days after my mother's funeral I went scuba diving for the first time ... Surfacing from a dive ... I often think it strange that this mind-cleansing, emotionally charged experience is one that my mother never knew I had. It is something akin to the sense of regret I feel that she never met my daughter, born a few years after her passing. How odd that something so wonderful was not part of our shared experience.

The launch hype surrounding this book pushed it as scuba diving's answer to Nick Hornby's bestselling homage to football fandom, Fever Pitch, but even allowing for a hearty dose of wishful thinking on the publisher's part, there are two key similarities. Ecott, like Hornby, succeeds in explaining his passion in a way that speaks directly to the wannabe or even to the merely curious--lightly humorous; strong on characters; cross-references to popular culture (James Bond puts in an appearance); natural history in the TV prime-time style, rooted in personal experience. And just as Hornby's football fandom carries him back to the same sense of wonder and certainty of purpose that intoxicated him as a young boy, so Ecott portrays a link between diving and dissolving the anxieties and fearfulness of adulthood.

Be warned: if you are already a diver, Neutral Buoyancy will heighten the sense that you are wasting far too much precious time on dry land. For the rest, even if the last time you ventured underwater was in the bath, this inspirational book will have you contemplating a trip to your local swimming pool at the very least. --Alex Hankin