Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus Summary and Reviews

The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus by Jacques Cousteau, Susan Schiefelbein

The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus

Exploring and Conserving Our Natural World

by Jacques Cousteau, Susan Schiefelbein

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Oct 2007, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

In this magnificent last book, finally available for the first time in the United States, Cousteau describes his deeply informed philosophy about protecting our world for future generations. Weaving gripping stories of his adventures throughout, he and coauthor Susan Schiefelbein address the risks we take with human health, the overfishing and sacking of the world’s oceans, the hazards of nuclear proliferation, and the environmental responsibility of scientists, politicians, and people of faith. Cousteau’s lyrical, passionate call for action to protect our earth and seas and their myriad life forms is even more relevant today than when this book was completed in 1996.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Cousteau's reverence for life's miracles...shines through in this eloquent testimony on the importance of pursuing higher ideals." - PW.

"The author proves a trusted, familiar and knowledgeable voice as he draws on explorations in the Amazon, Antarctica, the underwater caves of the Caribbean and elsewhere to express his concern for humankind's future." - Kirkus Reviews.

"Cousteau's electrifying, many-faceted masterwork at once celebrates "life's miracles " and warns us that unless we stop ransacking "nature's irreplaceables," we may go the way of the dinosaurs." - Booklist.

"[E]loquent and at times almost poetical, especially in the eponymous final chapter. This worthwhile look back at the French scientist who taught us to love scuba diving and the ocean raises questions still highly relevant ten years later." - Library Journal.

This information about The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Information

Jacques Cousteau (1910–1997) was world renowned as an ocean explorer, filmmaker, educator, and environmental activist. He won three Oscars and the Palme d’Or for his films, was nominated for forty Emmys during the run of his TV series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, and wrote or coauthored more than seventy five books.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus, try these:

  • Landscape with Invisible Hand jacket

    Landscape with Invisible Hand

    by M.T. Anderson

    Published 2019

    About this book

    National Book Award winner M. T. Anderson returns to future Earth in a sharply wrought satire of art and truth in the midst of colonization.

  • Mockingjay jacket

    Mockingjay

    by Suzanne Collins

    Published 2010

    About this book

    Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins’s groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.

  • Lucky jacket

    Lucky

    by Rachel Vail

    Published 2009

    About this book

    With Lucky, Rachel Vail begins a powerful sisterhood trilogy, comprised of one book for each of the three fascinating Avery sisters, with all their secrets laid bare during the year that completely changes their lives.

We have 8 read-alikes for The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes

More Science, Health and the Environment

Browse all Science, Health and the Environment books

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
Who Said...

It is always darkest just before the day dawneth

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.