Soundings: Diving for stories in the beckoning sea

Book Author Kennedy Warner
Illustrators John Pule and Gregory O’Brien
Rights Available World excl. NZ

Perhaps the closest a human being comes to visiting another planet is to descend into the sea. In Soundings, Kennedy Warne connects his lifelong exploration of the underwater world with a global story of humanity’s relationship with the sea.

Drawing on more than 20 years of fieldwork for National Geographic, he shares experiences that range from diving with harp seals under the sea ice of the Gulf of St Lawrence to following the legendary ‘sardine run’ along South Africa’s Wild Coast; from watching turret-building ghost crabs in Arabia to witnessing the impact of dynamite fishing in the Philippines; from swimming with crocodiles in the Okavango Delta to finding seahorses on the Eastern Cape.

From myriad underwater encounters a wider conversation emerges about human engagement with the sea. One question dominates: How can we care for and reconnect with the oceans around us?

About the Author
Kennedy Warne is the founding editor of New Zealand Geographic and has written extensively for that magazine and for its American counterpart, National Geographic. He has written books about the world’s disappearing mangrove forests (Let Them Eat Shrimp), on the Tūhoe iwi (Tūhoe: Portrait of a Nation) and on his first 20 years with New Zealand Geographic (Roads Less Travelled), as well as two children’s books in collaboration with illustrator Heather Hunt (The Cuckoo and the Warbler and It’s My Egg: And You Can’t Have It!). In addition to writing, for the past 13 years he has been the outdoors correspondent for Radio New Zealand’s weekday Nine to Noon programme, with a segment called ‘Off the Beaten Track’.