A Love Affair with the Sea

Underwater to Get out of the Rain

The tender and funny portrait of Norton's discovery of the sea and his exploration of a very British love affair with the seaside.

'A rich and absorbing blend of autobiography, science and adventure'

'a wonderfully readable memoir, full of amazing facts and funny stories, but ultimately an elegy for a fast-disappearing world'

'Norton relates his struggles and fascination with genuine warnth and humour'

Lovers of the sea and sands will be swept away by Under Water to Get Out of the Rain in which distinguished marine biologist Trevor Norton writes so lyrically that you can taste the salt of his bonding with the oceans, from the submarine lava tunnels of Lanzarote, to the kelp forests of California and the pure silver strands of the Hebrides

'Trevor Norton's beautifully written memoir of a life spent probing and pondering the sea depths derives much of its power from his observations ashore. . . . What he saw is described with a novelist's sensibility and eye for detail. . . . And his literate, witty, luminous prose makes this a marine biology to cuddle up to.  This is a book to take to the seaside and to bed.'

To plunge into this book is to experience a glorious drenching. it is erudite, funny, weird and endearing. the deeps will never seem the same again

Trevor Norton is Emeritus Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Liverpool and Director of the Port Erin Marine Laboratory on the Isle of Man. He has authored over 150 scientific publications and books, and is an authority on the history of scientific diving.

This is the beautifully told tale of Norton's growing love of the sea, from family holidays in Whitley Bay as a boy, to his first over zealous attempts at diving. 
 
All that we know and love of the British seaside weaves throughout this funny, nostalgic and richly told memoir. Fortune telling gypsies found on crumbling promenades, lighthouses standing to attention, fishing villages giving way to arcades and brass bands and sand-playing in the bracing chill of a British summer. 
 
Throughout, Norton introduces us to a eclectic mix of sea-loving characters all of whom have helped to inform and shape his own journey to becoming a marine biologist. Like the early guides to the seashore by the Naturalist Philip Henry Gosse as much a part of the myth and history of the British coastline as fishermen's tales of mermaids and eerie monsters beneath the waves. 
 
This is both a history and a memoir of an enduring, if at times perplexing, love of the sea that won't fail to resonate with all who have felt the pull of the shores.

Reflections On A Summer Sea

Reflections on a Summer Sea stands apart, a thoughtful, funny look at life as it was

Norton captures wonderfully the wit of the local Irish neighbours-making me smile, laugh and scowl

Trevor Norton is Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Liverpool and Director of the Port Erin Marine Laboratory on the Isle of Man. He has authored over 150 scientific publications and books, and is an authority on the history of scientific diving.

This is the funny and touching story of a menagerie of eccentric and talented ecologists who, mainly as a hobby, spent forty summers at Lough Ine, a stunning marine lough in a corner of Ireland, where myths seep from the ground like will o' the wisps and, in one of the most unlikely projects in the history of science, were responsible for the reinvention of marine biology. Among the stars of the book are the marine creatures that occupy the lake: sea urchins that won't dine unless they wear a hat, otters that steal experiments, and worms that will only mate by order of the moon. The creatures' eccentric behaviour is matched only by that of the ecologists themselves, whose antics and interactions with their Irish neighbours are all lovingly described with Norton's keen eye for both the wonderful and the absurd. But for all its humour, the book is also a moving account of two ecologists who collaborated for forty years until their friendship came to a tragic end. The book brings together all the rich flavours of Ireland, the wonders of natural history and the magic of being a marine biologist just for the fun of it.

Stars Beneath The Sea

The incredible true story of the men who navigated the depths of the great unknown and pioneered one of the world's most exotic hobbies: deep sea diving. This is the ultimate guide to the world that exists under the sea, and to the men who explored it.

Trevor Norton has shown that a gifted writer is an alchemist... Norton's agile prose is burnished with faintly mocking humour, and he has the natural storyteller's eye for detail

This anecdote-packed book reads rather like the draft of a rollicking after-dinner speech... rich entertainment

Norton writes with wit and a fine eye for the poetry in the scientific work... funny and gripping

Trevor Norton is Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Liverpool and Director of the Port Erin Marine Laboratory on the Isle of Man. He has authored over 150 scientific publications and books, and is an authority on the history of scientific diving.

This is the remarkably funny true story of some of the brave, brilliant and often barmy men that invented diving. It is a story of explosive tempers and exploding teeth, of how to juggle live hand grenades and steer a giant rubber octopus. A series of vivid portraits reveal the eccentric exploits of these underwater pioneers. They include Guy who held a world altitude record when only sixteen, wrote a film for Humphrey Bogart, invented snorkelling and loved his wife enough to shoot her. Roy wore a backet over his head and stole a coral reef. Bill wearied of fishing with dynamite and wrestling deadly snakes, so he sealed himself in a metal coffin to dangle half a mile beneath the ocean. Cameron, testing the bouncing bomb for dam busters, made a plastic ear for a dog, a false testicle for a stallion and invented a mantrap disguised as a lavatory. He ascended from a depth of 200 feet without breathing equipment to see if his lungs would burst, then studied the effects of underwater explosions by standing closer and closer until shattered by the blast. The book also traces the evolution of underwater exploration, from spear fishermen to conversationalists, from treasure hunters to archaeologists, from photographers to philosophers. The sea is a secretive and seductive place and the author describes, with incredible humour, knowledge and historical accuracy, the magic and mystery of being beneath the waves.

Trevor Norton

This is a rip-snortingly entertaining omnium gatherum of the riskiest and most extraordinary experiments in the history of science and medicine, told in breezy-pop science manner

Wonderful ...  Professor Norton writes with engaging fluency and is easily understood by the non-scientist

This book is guaranteed to make you wince, laugh and marvel at the bravery and foolhardiness of the people who, through their own discomfort, have made our own lives a good deal better

packed full of amusing anecdotes ... delightful

His research has been intensive and his material is rich and plentiful...This book may not be for the squeamish or the very gentle of disposition but you soon come to share Norton's admiration for these crazed men and women

Fascinating celebration of those pioneers who have taken remarkable risks in the name of science its name

Written with plenty of wit and sass, and well researched to boot, it's a fun frolic through a world of quackery and general weirdness

Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth is a hilarious celebration of the great eccentrics who have performed dangerous experiments on themselves for the benefit of humankind, written with all the wit, humour and eye for the beauties of nature - and machinery and scientific equipment - that have gained Trevor Norton a cult following and critical acclaim. 
 
Many have followed the advice of the great Victorian scientist Jack Haldane to 'never experiment on an animal if a man will do' and 'never ask anyone to do anything you wouldn't do yourself.'.He and his father inhaled poisonous gasses to test the efficacy of the prototype gas mask they had invented. When breathing gasses under pressure he suffered the smoking ears and screaming teeth of the title. 
 
The stories are astonishing, disturbing or absurd - the Marquis de Sade meets Monty Python. John Hunter pioneered self-experimentation and deliberately infected himself with venereal diseases by the puss transference method and gave his name to chancre of the penis. The zoologist Frank Buckland made a concentrated effort to widen the nation's diet by personally testing everything that crossed his path, from boiled elephant's trunk to bluebottles. He published recipes for such delicacies as slug soup. Some medics deliberately contracted deadly blood diseases in the hope of finding cures. Then there was the the surgeon who got the sack and won the Nobel prize for thrusting a catheter into his own beating heart. 
 
Trevor Norton writes that self-experimentation is still a component of much scientific research. In our health and safety obsessed society, we need people who are willing to risk themselves to make life safer for us.

Trevor Norton

Praise for Smoking Ears and Screaming Teeth

This is a rip-snortingly entertaining omnium gatherum of the riskiest and most extraordinary experiments in the history of science and medicine, told in breezy-pop science manner

Wonderful ... Professor Norton writes with engaging fluency and is easily understood by the non-scientist

This book is guaranteed to make you wince, laugh and marvel at the bravery and foolhardiness of the people who, through their own discomfort, have made our own lives a good deal better

This is a rip-snortingly entertaining omnium gatherum of the riskiest and most extraordinary experiments in the history of science and medicine, told in breezy-pop science manner

Wonderful ... Professor Norton writes with engaging fluency and is easily understood by the non-scientist

This book is guaranteed to make you wince, laugh and marvel at the bravery and foolhardiness of the people who, through their own discomfort, have made our own lives a good deal better

This is a rip-snortingly entertaining omnium gatherum of the riskiest and most extraordinary experiments in the history of science and medicine, told in breezy-pop science manner

Wonderful ... Professor Norton writes with engaging fluency and is easily understood by the non-scientist

This book is guaranteed to make you wince, laugh and marvel at the bravery and foolhardiness of the people who, through their own discomfort, have made our own lives a good deal better

Books by Trevor Norton

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