Truly, Madly, Deeply by ALI BIN THALITH

Clearview Books (2016) RRP $100.00 USD

EMIRATI documentary filmmaker and photographer Ali Khalifa Bin Thalith’s father and grandfather were pearl divers and he grew up in Jumeirah, UAE, where his family home was just 30 metres from the shore. And the sea has stayed with him.

His love for it and its creatures is clear from this wonderful book cataloging his adventures diving in the UAE, Oman, and 40 other destinations including the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Bahamas.

There are more than 100 beautifully presented colour plates of the familiar and not so familiar marine life, from giant tuna, dancing squid and floating flatworms to the tiny and all but invisibly camouflaged crinoid shrimp.

EVERYTHING CHANGES WHEN I GET IN, AND THEN WHEN I GET UP CLOSE, I DISCOVER THE UNIQUENESS OF EACH TINY BEING. I SEE GOD I N EVERYTHING, NOT JUST I N THE MAJESTY OF THE GIANTS OF THE SEA.

SWIMMING WITH GIANTS