Below the Edge of Darkness

“Gripping … Widder’s voice is in turns jaunty, precise and nerdily quippy… . The prose glints… . Widder [has] worked hard to bring the abyss to light. It is our duty, as clumsy land-bound dwellers of a water planet, to look, and to remember.”—The New York Times Book Review“Edith Widder’s story is one of hardscrabble optimism, two-fisted exploration, and groundbreaking research. She’s done things I dream of doing. I’d have wrapped my submersible, the Deepsea Challenger, in bacon if it would have lured the elusive giant squid from the depths. In Below the Edge of Darkness, Widder tells you how she did it.”—James Cameron“My experience of exploring the deep ocean and its alien life with Edie Widder was fabulous. She enthralls us with many such stories in her book. I recommend it.”—Ray Dalio“To shed light on a subject is what any scientific book should do. To go into it in depth without losing the reader is a harder task. Edith Widder’s subject is light itself—the manufacture of light by strange and eerie denizens of the deep sea—and her scintillating style is worthy of the topic. This is a book to delight the general reader while simultaneously informing the professional: a book of marvels, marvelously written.”—Richard Dawkins, New York Times bestselling author of The God Delusion“Personal and page-turning, adventurous and awe-inspiring, Below the Edge of Darkness sparkles with the thrill of exploration and glows with an urgent plea for the future of our precious seas. Comparisons to Jacques Cousteau spring to mind as Edith Widder shares the profound journey of her life—one as unique and important as the unexplored realms of our very own planet.”—Juli Berwald, author of Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone“‘Luminous’—the topic, the heroic journey, and the author herself. Dive in with Edith Widder, trailblazing scientist and explorer, as she reveals the galaxy of light and life in the universe below the surface of the sea, out-shining skeptical male colleagues with dignity, grace and a robust sense of humor.”—Sylvia Earle, National Geographic explorer in residence, founder of Mission Blue

Edith Widder, Ph.D., is an oceanographer, a marine biologist, and the co-founder, CEO, and senior scientist at the Ocean Research & Conservation Association, a nonprofit organization where she is focusing her passion for saving the ocean into developing innovative technologies to preserve and protect the ocean’s most precious real estate: its estuaries. She has given three TED talks; has been awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as well as the Explorer’s Club Citation of Merit; and is the first recipient of the Captain Don Walsh Award for Ocean Exploration established by the Marine Technology Society and the Society of Underwater Technology.