Reviewing "100 Dives of a Lifetime" by Carrie Miller

I confess. Sometimes I put books on hold at the library not because of their words, but because of their pictures. These are the “coffee table” books that people don’t really read, just leaf through.

Except I do read them, I promise.

I borrowed 100 Dives of a Lifetime because I figured there would be plenty of pretty pictures, and I might learn something about diving. Not that I really am interested going diving myself—I’ve done enough of that vicariously through Shark Week…besides, I’m rather claustrophobic—but because one never knows whether learning about diving will inspire writing an adventure novel, or at the very least aid a conversation with someone who does like to dive.

As expected, the photographs were gorgeous. I sort of was disappointed that the book itself was not larger—and therefore did not have the giant photographs one comes to expect from a National Geographic coffee table book.

Unfortunately, aside from a few tidbits and a bit of geography, I can’t say I learned a ton about diving. This was not because the book was uninformative; actually the opposite. Either I’m WAY less knowledgeable about diving than I thought (in which case Shark Week has woefully let me down!), or this book was written with an intended audience of experienced divers. The reason I suspect this is because of some of the jargon the author Carrie Miller uses. Also, a lot of the dives that she classified as novice seemed quite difficult to my novice eyes.

I hate to say it, but in reading this diving book I found myself in over my head.