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  • Best Scuba Diving Books – Our list of the top books for Gifts for 2023

Last Updated: January 14, 2023

Looking for some history or tips from Diving Professionals? 

We've tried to take some of the hard work out of it for you. There are many books on Scuba diving to choose from, so we've put together a list of the best Scuba Diving books.

Some of the topics covered include scuba history, diver safety and insider tips, deep water diving, wreck and cave diving. There's also the most beautiful coffee table books perfect for gifts. 

All books shown here are rated 4 stars and above by Amazon customers. 

Scuba Confidential: An Insider's Guide to Becoming a Better Diver

Scuba Confidential - An insiders Guide to Becoming a Better Diver

Scuba Confidential is packed full of valuable tips and expert advice, giving you access to the secrets of technical divers and dive professionals.

With Scuba Confidential, you will learn how to master skills and techniques that will make you a more confident, capable and safe diver.

Scuba Confidential offers candid, no-nonsense practical advice from a professional who has been involved over the last three decades with virtually every aspect of the sport.

The Paperback is priced under $15.

Scuba Professional: Insights into Sport Diver Training & Operations

Scuba Professional  - Insights into Sport Diver Training & Operations

Scuba Professional is the natural successor to Simon Pridmore's first book, Scuba Confidential - An Insider's Guide to Becoming a Better Diver. Whereas Scuba Confidential focused on how to scuba dive, Scuba Professional looks at how diving is taught and how dive operations are conducted.

Scuba Professional is an excellent source of out-of-the-box ideas and independent, objective advice for instructors and dive operators.

It is also an indispensable guide for those aspiring to become dive professionals with chapters such as Do You Have What It Takes? and Which Training Agency?

100 Dives of a Lifetime: The World's Ultimate Underwater Destinations

100 Dives of a Lifetime

100 Dives of a Lifetime has over 350 beautiful and inspiring images from National Geographic. It includes some of the most iconic bucket list sites for Scuba divers.

As well as being filled with exquisite photography, this inspirational book also has trusted travel tips, and expert diving advice from world famous National Geographic divers and explorers.

This book is organized by diving experience and certification level. It covers from beginner Open Water and wreck dives, to expert cold water and cave dives.

Diver Down: Real-World SCUBA Accidents and How to Avoid Them

Diver Down: Real-World SCUBA Accidents and How to Avoid Them

Two divers fascinated by the undersea life of the Caribbean, fail to notice that a strong current is rapidly sweeping them away from their unattended boat. Another diver, after a seemingly brief time below the surface, discovers that his gas supply has run dangerously low. A diver, paralyzed, bobs helplessly on the surface, and when a poorly trained Divemaster attempts a rescue, things go from bad to worse. 

These are just a few of the true stories you’ll find in Diver Down, most of them involving diver error and resulting in serious injury or death. Each story is analysed in-depth, showing what went wrong and how to recognize and avoid similar calamities.

This is a unique survival guide exploring different diving situations including wreck and cave diving, deep water dives, drift diving, decompression illness, and much more. It shows you how to prevent similar tragic mishaps.

Dive Atlas of the World

The Dive Atlas of the World contains some great information on scuba diving some places all over the world.

This is a big, beautiful hard cover book and a great way to keep the scuba diving dream alive. It's definitely a coffee table book with lots of photos and lots of useful information and maps.

A perfect gift for anyone interested in Scuba diving.

Dive Atlas of the World

Shadow Divers

The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II

Shadow Divers The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II

For John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, deep wreck diving was more than a sport. This true story tells the tale of two weekend Scuba divers who risk everything to solve a great historical mystery, and in turn end up making history themselves.

In the fall of 1991, not even these divers were prepared for what they found 230 feet below the surface. Laying sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey in the frigid Atlantic waters is a World War II German U-boat, buried under decades of accumulated sediment.

Author Robert Kurson’s account of this quest is thrilling and emotionally complex. It's written with a vivid sense of what divers actually experience when they meet the dangers of the ocean’s underworld.

The story of Shadow Divers often seems too amazing to be true, but it all happened at 230 feet below the surface.

Caverns Measureless to Man

Caverns Measureless to Man

Caverns Measureless to Man is the story of the passion of an extraordinary individual who spent his life exploring underwater caves.

For nearly 30 years Sheck Exley was setting records and developing techniques while maintaining the highest standards of excellence. Sheck lived a life of adventure, danger and excitement to a degree that many people only ever dream of.

This book may terrify you but it will also fascinate you and in the end, Sheck Exley will convince you that his death came to him in the midst of the incredibly intense joy he took in diving into the depths of the earth.

Ocean - The Definitive Visual Guide

Ocean - The Definitive Visual Guide

Ocean - the Definitive Visual Guide Second Edition - is up to date with the latest scientific research, coverage of major events like Superstorm Sandy and the Fukushima tsunami, and new graphics and images.

From the physical and geological processes that affect the ocean floor to the key habitat zones, flora, and fauna, this is the definitive reference to our world's oceans.

Ocean includes an atlas of the world's oceans and seas compiled using brand-new 3-D Earth modeling, satellite data, and remarkable photography. 

With new expeditions to its depths, the wonder and power of the ocean is as strong today as it's ever been, with new discoveries beneath melting ice, in developing reefs, and on shores around the world.

Wet Pay: Stories from my Career as a Commercial Diver - Sam Humphrey

Wet Pay: Stories from my Career as a Commercial Diver
Wet Pay: Stories from my Career as a Commercial Diver

Fiction: Paradise Prison - Scott Bryson

Paradise Prison - Scott Bryson Novel

For a fleeting second, Scott thought he had the whole world in front of him. Shacked up with a beautiful twenty-something, the future he’d constructed for himself in his head came crashing down with the realisation she’d had a boyfriend the whole time.

With the motivation that only the lingering feeling of a two-day hangover can bring, Scott becomes committed to sorting his life out, or at the very least, escaping from what it’s become.

Refusing to return to a life of Tinder Plus and nights spent in the glare of the TV with the memory of beer still fresh on the lips, he desperately (and some would say ingeniously) applies to an advert with the byline “Come Work in Paradise”. Advertising for the position of a scuba instructor at a five-star resort.

Unfathomably, Scott is invited to an interview, which kick starts a journey that frees him from the repetitive, uneventful life he’s currently living. The next thing he knows he’s in the Maldives, tangling with the locals, mixing with the rich and famous and finding himself tackling a picture of “paradise” that was far more dangerous than he could have accounted for.

4.7/5 - (3 votes)

About the Author

Sharon McKenzie

Sharon McKenzie is an Advanced Certified Scuba Diver who loves to explore the ocean depths. She is an advocate for marine and eco conservation, promoting sustainable products. In her free time, Sharon also enjoys paddleboarding and snorkeling. She has two upcoming diving expeditions to Bali and the Great Barrier Reef, which are destinations she has always wanted to explore.

Author Web Link

Sharon McKenzie - Stand Up Paddle Boarding, Snorkeling

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  • The Dive Atlas To The World looks great – illustrated anything is always a winner for me! Plus, it really helps you decide if that’s where you want to go!

  • A great collection
    Sharon, such a great collection of unique books. Thanks for going to the trouble for me. Saved me hours.

    Jason

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