by Susan Casey
First published 2010
Susan Casey explores two worlds colliding over the ocean's most extreme phenomena. For generations, sailors told stories of waves reaching 100 feet or more. Scientists rejected these accounts as impossible until February 2000, when a British research ship encountered exactly such giants in the North Sea. Now oceanographers race to understand what creates these destructive forces, studying everything from the 2004 Pacific tsunami that killed 250,000 people to the 1,740-foot wave that devastated Alaska's coastline. Meanwhile, extreme surfers like Laird Hamilton pursue these same monsters for sport. Hamilton and his crew in Hawaii developed techniques to ride waves of 70 and 80 feet, pushing toward their ultimate goal of conquering a 100-foot wall of water. Casey follows both communities as they grapple with forces that can swallow ships whole, revealing how human ambition drives people to seek out nature's most dangerous expressions.
Genres: science, nature, adventure, non-fiction
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: man-vs-nature
Setting: Alaska, Hawaii, North Sea, Pacific Ocean
Period: 2000s, 2004
326 pages · Hardcover · Doubleday