Scuba Diving - A Trailside Guideby Karen Berger, Published by W.W. Norton & Co.This 224-page book is a comprehensive guide with all of the information divers need to get started, including tips on learning to snorkel, choosing a dive school, selecting gear and planning dive trips. Author Karen Berger begins with an engaging account of her first underwater experience on a tropical reef off eastern Africa in 1991 and then runs through a brief history of the sport before getting down to the basics of scuba. The book includes a number of useful illustrations and superb underwater images from photographers such as Tom and Therisa Stack and Franklin Viola, each regular contributors to Sport Diver. The book is priced at $18.95. For more information, go to www.trailside.com. Bottles - Identification and Price Guideby Michael Polak, HarperCollins PublishersThe updated and expanded third edition of the book known as the Bottle Bible includes a new 10-page chapter on diving for bottles by veteran salvage diver and author David Finnern.In past centuries, water was considered to be a universal dumping ground, notes Finnern. While one may question the intelligence of this, the practice is of considerable benefit to the bottle diver.Finnern goes onto explain how beaches that have been in use for many years can serve as prime hunting grounds for all sorts of antique bottles.If you find an old bottle in the water, chances are this exhaustive 540-page book has information about it - including an estimated value. In addition to detailing the history of bottles back to their hand-blown origins in the first century BC, the book discusses the latest trends in bottle collecting. Suggested price: $16. For more information, go to www.harpercollins.com.
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