Ian Donald

The book consists of two equally sized parts. The first part is an introduction into freedivinig. The second part is mainly an enumeration of edible things in the sea; it starts with seaweeds and other plants, moves on to shellfish/crustaceans, and finishes with the holy grail: fish. For (almost?) all foods a method of preparation is suggested. Besides these two main parts, there are short sections on the history of "freediving for food", camping on the shoreline (and making a campfire), buying (and rigging) a speargun, and sustainability.

The book contains a lot of photos (which are not of the highest quality) and many pages only contain one large image with one or two sentences printed into it.

The book is published by the author himself and not by a publishing company. The consequence of this is that the style is often informal and lacking. For example, I found that sentences like "Every time you breath out your heart rate drops slightly, this can be due in part to Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA)."(p.40, there should be a dot instead of the comma) made the book harder to read than necessary. Also, the font size is freely varied and boxes in all sorts of colors keep showing up.

I found the freediving part quite understandable and conveniently absent of the quest for depth records. The second part, however, was rather boring; it more resembles a reference (but the book does not contain any index). Also, I perceived the "sustainability"-quirk as a bit of a rationalization which the author uses to justify his passion: catching fish.… (mais)