A dazzle of stories beautifully told...Czerski argues throughout that to truly see the miraculous oceans, to understand and to feel our connection to them, is vital and integral to our history and our future. Her outstanding book advances that understanding and honours that connection. Her readers will see the seas anew. Horatio Clare, Telegraph That still accounts for just a small fraction of the ocean, an interconnected mass of salt water thousands of miles in extent. As anyone who has looked properly at a globe, or studied the pictures of our planet from space, knows, water covers almost three-quarters of the Earth’s surface. And although on a planetary scale it is just a smear of moisture, it is still deep beyond human ken – the average depth of the whole lot is 3.68 kilometres. Down there, there are water movements vaster than empires and more slow, currents of matter and energy with a global reach.

Helen Czerski's fascinating new book casts the ocean as an extraordinary giant engine, and helps us grasp its complex physics and its key role in climate change" Czerski argues throughout that to truly see the miraculous oceans, to understand and to feel our connection to them, is vital and integral to our history and our future. Her outstanding book advances that understanding and honours that connection. Her readers will see the seas anew.

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Czerski is a wonderful writer ... Blue Machine really does change the way you see the world.' Daily Mail 'In Helen Czerski's hands, the mechanical becomes magical. An instant classic.' By 2021, Helen Czerski tells us, CPRs had been towed for 7 million nautical miles, which would take them 326 times around the world. Someone – in this case a team of researchers in Plymouth – then needs to examine, classify and count the contents of each trawl. All of our fresh water is borrowed from the ocean – every cup of tea, every waterfall, 60 per cent of you and me, the most expensive champagne, your dog’s territorial liquid markers, and the snow covering the top of Everest.” The oceans are full of water, and water is just water, so there’s not much to know, right? Wrong. Far from being homogenous, the water in our oceans varies in temperature, salinity and depth, among other things. It’s affected by the weather and affects the weather. Some parts are well mixed and others remain stratified. I recommend Blue Machine if you want to find out more about how whales are affected by war and where there’s a secret sound tunnel. All of the Earth's ocean, from the equator to the poles, is a single-engine powered by sunlight – a blue machine.

The author was mentored by Hawaiian wisdom keeper Kimokeo Kapahulehua who said in another place: "Call nā po‘e ka lani, nā po‘e moana, nā po‘e ka hōnua -- the people of the heavens, the people of the ocean, and the people of the land, we're all just one big family in how we work together in preserving everything." I wonder what he thinks of the machine metaphor and that would have made a much better book. Helen Czerski weaves together physics and biology, history and science, in a beautifully poetic way.'All of the Earth's ocean, from the equator to the poles, is a single engine powered by sunlight - a blue machine. This is a fascinating book about the ocean and how it shapes our world, how it impacts our lives and how it helps us today. The author does include science in this book, but it is explained in a way that is completely understandable to a non-science-brained person. Helen Czerski's fascinating new book casts the ocean as an extraordinary giant engine, and helps us grasp its complex physicsand its key role in climate change Graham Lawton, New Scientist

The world needs a 'David Attenborough for physics' and Helen Czerski is a prime contender - she's brilliant, clear, passionate, modern and inspiring.' - Emma Freud, BBC Radio 4 Loose EndsA fascinating dive into the essential engine that drives our world. Czerski brings the oceans alive with compelling stories that masterfully navigate this most complex system.—Gaia Vince, author of Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World It all adds up to a persuasive case that Earth-dwellers need to understand the ocean and work with it, a message that gains urgency from the way people are now changing the whole system. More than 90 per cent of all the extra energy our atmosphere has trapped as we have increased its load of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is stored in ocean waters as heat. That is affecting the whole, vast, intricate, machine, with untoward effects on climate and ecosystems. Humans no longer needed to connect to the ocean mentally in the same way and so the habit was lost. Understanding the intricacies of the blue machine is no longer a matter of raw survival now that radio, radar, GPS, satellite phones, weather forecasts… AIS [Automatic Identification] and distress signals are taken for granted. Some of the writing is beautifully descriptive and gave me an appreciation of the writers experiences and my own experiences with the sea. However, many sections of the book were very science heavy and I felt more like I was reading an academic paper or thesis and I didn't enjoy these sections as much. Czerski is a wonderful writer…. a compelling and elegantly written story…. [The] Blue Machine really does change the way you see the world.—Christopher Hart, Daily Mail

Helen Czerski, urging us to see the ocean as a presence, not an absence, has done a remarkable job of shoehorning an overview of the whole shebang into a single, very readable volume.—Jon Turney, Arts Desk Czerski aims to greatly expand and even revolutionise the reader’s understanding of what is going on in seven tenths of the planet that is not covered in land.—Financial TimesWhile it was all good and entertaining, the author really found her voice in Part Three of the book: The Blue Machine and Us. It was also in this section that I found the real flaws of this book as well. I get that 'the road to disaster is paved with good intentions' and that the ocean is so complex, and there's no way to begin to harness hydropower without having unintended consequences. However, in then in the next line- "one thing we know for sure is that we need to wean ourselves off greenhouse gasses." The author making the point that we need to learn how to live with the ocean, but doesn't want that to have unintended consequences, but also recognizes the need for somewhat drastic change because humanities current course of action is having disastrous effects on our environment, but doesn't want to propose any recommendations. Helen Czerski weaves together physics and biology, history and science, in a beautifully poetic way. Fascinating, funny, and deeply moving. From vast currents and tides to the smallest creatures that inhabit our oceans she reveals the spellbinding wonder of the oceans. From the opening paragraph, I was entranced.—Professor Alice Roberts As soon as she arrived in the world of oceanography, Czerski learned to scuba dive, an activity she believes should be less about recreational bravado and more about blending in. She says: “Being a good scuba diver is about being a fish”. Blue Machine also draws on Czerski’s extensive work on research ships around the world. “Which is a very different way of seeing the ocean; you’re out a long way from the coast in a steel bubble and you don’t see people for weeks”. But it is by charting her intrepid experiences of ocean canoeing with people from the indigenous communities of Hawaii that Czerski chooses to open and close Blue Machine. She first learned to paddle Pacific outrigger canoes on the Thames after moving to London in 2013. And then came the amazing opportunity to paddle a canoe in Hawaii which afforded Czerski the privilege of “looking at my own discipline—breaking waves and bubbles—through entirely different eyes”. The learning she has drawn from the deep Hawaiian connection to the ocean suffuses the book. “The ocean is as much part of home as the land. It’s changeable and it can be hazardous, but if you show humility, and you observe and learn, the ocean will support you and provide for you”. Ocean perspective