Good books and where to find them

[stuartv]

I'm just posting this here to possibly help future people like me.

I wanted to acquire 2 different books that I learned about here on SB. Of course I went straight to Amazon and found them both only available Used, in the Marketplace for well over $100 each. I (wrongly) took that to mean that they were out of print and I was out of luck (since I was not willing to pay that much for either book).

I have now found that both books are in print and available directly from their respective publishers. Here are the links:

Mastering Rebreathers, by Jeffrey Bozanic
Mastering Rebreathers, 2nd Edition

SCUBA REGULATOR MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR, by Vance Harlow
SCUBA REGULATOR MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR by Vance Harlow

And, here are some other scuba books that aren't necessarily so hard to find, but that I have personally read and thought to be good books. Maybe this can become a growing list and a sticky.

The NOAA Diving Manual, 5th Ed.
NOAA Diving Manual, 5th Edition Softcover Textbook

Deco for Divers, by Mark Powell
Deco for Divers: A Diver's Guide to Decompression Theory and Physiology: Mark Powell: 9781905492299: Amazon.com: Books

The Six Skills and Other Discussions: Creative Solutions for Technical Divers, by Steve Lewis (aka @Doppler)
The Six Skills and Other Discussions: Creative Solutions for Technical Divers: Mr Steve Lewis: 9780981228020: Amazon.com: Books

Staying Alive: Risk Management Techniques for Advanced Scuba Diving, also by Steve Lewis
Staying Alive: Applying Risk Management to Advanced Scuba Diving: Mr Steve Lewis: 9780981228044: Amazon.com: Books

Diver Down: Real-World SCUBA Accidents and How to Avoid Them, by Michael R. Ange
Diver Down: Real-World SCUBA Accidents and How to Avoid Them (International Marine-RMP): Michael R. Ange Captain: 9780071445726: Amazon.com: Books

Deep Into Deco: The Diver's Decompression Textbook, by Asser Salama
https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Into-Deco-Decompression-Textbook/dp/1930536798/
(My opinion: Deco for Divers was easier to understand and Deep Into Deco contains very little additional info beyond what is in Deco for Divers. If you want more theory, then you might go straight from Deco for Divers to one of Bruce Wienke's books. I have Basic Decompression Theory and Application and it is DENSE.)

SCUBA: A Practical Guide for the New Diver, by James A LaPenta (aka @Jim Lapenta)
SCUBA: A Practical Guide for the New Diver: James A Lapenta: 9781494900250: Amazon.com: Books

The Underwater Photographer, by Martin Edge
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IC84JLI/

 

[Sam Miller III]

Welcome to the world of diving bibliophiles.....

There are other places rather than Amazon to quire new and used books-- I will allow you to search for them

Twenty one years ago in May 1996 I organized and hosted the very first US diving bibliophile meeting. It was attended by serious diving bibliophiles from the western US and via telephone from throughout the US- I some how suspect you and the majority of this board were not involved in the world of diving at that time

Diving bibiliophilia is a horrible very expensive life long endeavor -- there is always another book to acquire and read, which I suspect you will soon discover

In have collected and maintain an extensive 2000 plus volume diving library, considered by most serious diving bibliophiles as one of the world's largest private diving library. The majority of the volumes are considered rare since many have been out of print for as long as 100 years and/or have been personally inscribed to me

Some of the books that have been personally inscribed by the authors who were also friends and diving companions, in addition to being noted diving authorities; Bill Royal, John Reseck Jr., James Dugan, Clint Degn, John D. Craig, (2) Dick Schroeder, two (2) Eugenie Clark, two (2) by Bill Barada & Lloyd Bridges, two (2) by Dr. Terry Mass, two (2) by Francis "Doug" Fane and (4) F. M. Roberts, (4) Dr.Bruce Halstead,(6) six by Sir Arthur C.Clarke, six (six) by Dr. Hans Hass, five (5) by Lotte Hass, seven (7) by Clive Cussler and seven (7) by J.Y. Cousteau, and many more long forgotten diving authors which once again you and others have never heard their names.

There is a lot more to my collection - numerous out of print and currently printed magazines, pamphlets and ephemera

Upon my demise the entire collection with be inherited by my son Dr. Sam IV, who is an inactive member of the Long Beach Neptunes, a NAUI (life) & PADI instructor, Pro 5000 and an ER & Hyperbaric doctor.

Good luck-- it is only money

Oh the Dazzz of R dives

Sam Miller,111

 

[David Wilson]

And, here are some other scuba books that aren't necessarily so hard to find, but that I have personally read and thought to be good books. Maybe this can become a growing list and a sticky.

Was there any particular reason, Stuart, why you posted your most informative message about diving literature here in "General Scuba Equipment Discussions" instead of "Book and Media Reviews", considering that the books you list are not all gear-focused?

In the case of my own very modest collection of diving books, I built up the American titles during visits to San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago and New York used book stores between the 1970s and the 1990s when I spent my annual summer vacation States-side with my only surviving relative. Another source during that period here in the UK was David Way's mail-order second-hand diving book service; he was a published British author on spearfishing and regularly issued catalogues of the vintage diving literature he had purchased for resale to collectors. And the bouquinistes on the banks of the Seine managed to supply me with a few French diving-related titles while visiting Paris several decades ago.

As for diving books of the current era, it does sound as though you have really done your homework and are fully aware not only of the available sources of printed literature but also of both the benefits and the shortcomings of the various best-sellers. My own book-related interests lie mainly in the times when the term "skin diving" was in vogue, the period up to the mid-1970s before basic gear manufacture moved to a different generation of technology. In the last year or so, I've noticed a rise in the availability of Soviet diving-related items, including books, on eBay at bargain prices. I've bought up a number of these titles to upgrade both my modest reading proficiency in Russian (my first degree was in French and German and I attended an evening class in Russian in the mid-1960s) and my knowledge of of pre-1975 diving equipment and practice in countries other than the "usual suspects" of Western Europe and North America. What I gleaned from these books has given me the confidence to compile several threads in the vintage diving forum here on Russian and Ukrainian gear. Book collecting can be a matter of spotting what is cheap now but may be hard to find later and being quick off the mark. I also hope that more older diving literature will no longer languish in an "out-of-print" status but will be shared online. This is happening with some Soviet diving manuals, which are being made available online without cost. This spirit of sharing has led me to post scans of some of my own diving literature collection at http://tinyurl.com/y9mtvfyk.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Sam Miller III]

David, ole Chap

I also have been following the Russian dive books being offered on e Bay but have not purchased my first book. Since I neither read write or understand Russian can you recommend one particular book or a series of books that are profusely illustrated, with photographs drawing graphs etc?

In the very early 1960s I was the CDO/DSO of a DDS (deep diving submarine) project. One of the items I have retained from that project for all these years is a USSR diving manual. At that time most Russian equipment was a close =some times exact copy of the western equipment, but Russian manufactured.

I questioned did the Russians have a license agreement with western manufactures or did they pirate the items and reversed engineered and manufactured the items (like the Lieu Brothers did in Hong Kong with their Bunns regulator which resulted in the UK Typhoon double hose regulator)

TTFN (Ta Ta for now)

Sam Miller,111

 

[Schwob]

@stuartv
Thanks.

 

[David Wilson]

I also have been following the Russian dive books being offered on e Bay but have not purchased my first book. Since I neither read write or understand Russian can you recommend one particular book or a series of books that are profusely illustrated, with photographs drawing graphs etc?

Of the ones I have bought, this is the title I prefer:

It translates to something along the lines of "underwater sports equipment" and is copiously illustrated with images of Soviet diving gear from the late 1960s. You can judge for yourself as there's a copy currently on eBay at Book Diver Russian Soviet Diving Dictionary Aqualung Plunger Underwater Scuba | eBay.

Whenever I've found a page in the book that's worth looking at more closely, I've scanned it and passed the result through one of the free Russian Optical Character Recognition sites online (e.g. i2OCR - Free Online OCR). This turns the print into editable text, which can then be passed through Google Translate for a very rough translation into English.

 

[stuartv]

Was there any particular reason, Stuart, why you posted your most informative message about diving literature here in "General Scuba Equipment Discussions" instead of "Book and Media Reviews", considering that the books you list are not all gear-focused?

Thank you for the kind words and the perspective.

I posted this thread in General Equipment for two reasons: One, I started off with just the intention to post about the 2 books on equipment - regulators and rebreathers. The other books were an afterthought. And, two, I didn't know there was a Books subforum!

It would be fine with me if a moderator moved this thread to a more appropriate place.

 

[azstinger11]

One note about the NOAA diving manual, well it's electronic editions. On their website they give you two options for an electronic version a thumb drive and an e-book. I mistakingly believed (I still maintain that it isn't clearly stated on the product's page) the USB thumb drive would just have the .PDF files and I could use them when/how I wanted. The epub version very clearly states it is for one device only, this isn't present on the thumb drive. Well the thumb drive is a locked down thumb drive and you must physically have the thumb drive to use it. I was able to write a short program that used the program's next page and apple's built in screen shot tool to make my own .pdf, but I wasn't very happy with the quality and it took forever. I purchased the epub version and with a few minutes of google searching (hint: do this )had a DRM free copy that I can use how I like.

Just to be crystal clear, I am NOT advocating pirating things, I am advocating against stupid restrictive DRM (digital rights management) on paid for goods. I have paid for a paper copy and a digital copy, I will use them in the manner in which I choose thank you very much. DRM on something I paid for is like Toyota telling me what street I can drive my car on.

 

[stuartv]

The rebreather book e-version was the same deal. I got a refund and ordered the softcover version. I also got the softcover version of the NOAA diving manual.

 

[azstinger11]

The rebreather book e-version was the same deal. I got a refund and ordered the softcover version. I also got the softcover version of the NOAA diving manual.

As long as it uses Adobe Editions, it's equally easy to remove the DRM. I had done it in the past for a textbook and just needed a refresher on how.