Trevor Norton

'In his whistle-stop tour of inventions large and small, the scientist Trevor Norton shares the Gershwins' view that invention is fundamentally comic.' The Sunday TimesTrevor Norton, who has been compared to Gerard Durrell and Bill Bryson, weaves an entertaining history with a seductive mix of eureka moments, disasters and dirty tricks. Although inventors were often scientists or engineers, many were not: Samuel Morse (Morse code) was a painter, Lazlow Biro (ballpoint) was a sculptor and hypnotist, and Logie Baird (TV) sold boot polish. The inventor of the automatic telephone switchboard was an undertaker who believed the operator was diverting his calls to rival morticians so he decided to make all telephone operators redundant. Inventors are mavericks indifferent to conventional wisdom so critics were dismissive of even their best ideas: radio had 'no future,' electric light was 'an idiotic idea' and X-rays were 'a hoax.' Even so, the state of New Jersey moved to ban X-ray opera glasses. The head of the General Post Office rejected telephones as unneccesary as there were 'plenty of small boys to run messages.'Inventomania is a magical place where eccentrics are always in season and their stories are usually unbelievable - but rest assured, nothing has been invented.

A celebration of the great eccentrics who have performed dangerous experiments on themselves for the benefit of humankind.

On a hot summer's day there could be no quicker transport to the seaside than Trevor Norton's cool and entrancing account of a lifetime's adventures under or near the water. Norton's eye for the bizarre, amazing, and beautiful inhabitants of the oceans, and the eccentric characters who work, study, and live by the shore make his book a wonder-filled experience. An intrepid diver and distinguished scientist, Norton's writing is self-deprecating, very funny, and full of wry and intriguing anecdotes he is an unfailingly delightful companion. Whether his setting is a bed of jewel anemones in an Irish lough, a giant California cavern shared with sea lions, a mildewed research station, or the glittering coral gardens of Sharm el Sheikh, his captivating prose always finds the mark. Sometimes following the shoreline with earlier beachcombers such as Darwin, John Steinbeck, and George Orwell, Norton also takes the reader to depths where the shapes of creatures living without sunlight defy imagination. Admirers of the gorgeous detail of Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us will revel in Norton's writing, his observations, and irreverent wit.

This is the beautifully told tale of Norton's growing love of the sea, from family holidays in Whitley Bay as a boy, to his first over zealous attempts at diving. All that we know and love of the British seaside weaves throughout this funny, nostalgic and richly told memoir.

This story recounts how a group of talented ecologists spent 40 summers at Lough Ine, a marine lough in a corner of Ireland. The lives of sea creatures are detailed, but the book is also a moving account of two ecologists who collaborated for 40 years until their freindship came to a tragic end.

He ascended from a depth of 200 feet without breathing equipment to see if his lungs would burst, then studied the effects of underwater explosions by standing closer and closer until shattered by the blast.