Despite her name, this intrepid explorer had a deep fear of fish, so to overcome her phobia she plots to travel to Thailand, learn to dive and swim with the biggest fish in the world, the mighty whale shark. Revealing, poignant, hilarious and horrific, it is a serious piece about conquering fears, personal courage, bereavement, family, the science of underwater exploration, decompression chambers and divers, and considerable knowledge about, well, fish. Studded with PADI open water manual quotations like 'No one but you can say what calls you to scuba diving', and References. 330pp.

On deep blue or black glossy pages, superb photographs of 46 sharks loom from the depths with their beady eyes and sharp teeth, fins and gills. Some are easily recognisable like the Great Hammerhead or the Goblin shark with its pinkish white teeth, very long tail, rounded fins and large sword-like extended snout. It is harmless to humans. There are fact boxes and statistics giving common name, family, size at birth, maximum size and weight, maturity for males and females, reproduction, litter size where known, food eaten like fish and squid and maybe also crustaceans, top speed, teeth count and depth. There is a cookie-cutter shark, a Caribbean reef shark, and for each a diver is pictured in silhouette alongside a silhouette of the shark itself in this superb A-Z directory of 46 of the most astonishing marine creatures. Ages seven to adult, colour softback.