SCUBA Travel have released their annual list of the best-selling diving books and DVDs of the year.
For fourteen years SCUBA Travel have published the top ten list, and its contents remain remarkably constant. Coral Reef Fishes: Indo-Pacific and Caribbean by Lieske and Myers has, in its various editions, been continually in the list since its inception in 2001. Another longstanding entry (since 2003) is Dive Atlas of the World: An Illustrated Reference to the Best Sites by Jack Jackson.
Newcomer this year is UK Dive Guide: Diving Guide to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales by Patrick Shier. The first time a British dive site guide has made it.
All the books (and the single DVD featured) are either guides to dive sites or sealife indentification books. Diving novels, histories and memoirs have fallen out of favour.
Funnily enough, of all the authors writing diving books today, two author collaborations appear twice in the list: Lieske and Myers with their fish identification guides, and Beth and Shaun Tierney with their diving guides.
Here are the top ten. The list is compiled from sales made through the SCUBA Travel site. Books bought both new and second-hand are included in the figures.
1. Dive Atlas of the World: An Illustrated Reference to the Best Sites by Jack Jackson
300 pages detailing some of the world’s best dive sites. (1)
2. Fifty Places to Dive Before You Die: Diving Experts Share the World’s Greatest Destinations by Chris Santella
The fifth in Santella’s bestselling “Fifty Places†series. (2)
3. Shipwrecks from the Egyptian Red Sea
by Ned Middleton
Eight years of research went into this accurate and definitive guide to the wrecks of the Egyptian Red Sea. (–)
4. Diving Southeast Asia
by Beth and Shaun Tierney
Includes over 400 dives in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. (5)
5. Coral Reef Guide Red Sea by Ewald Lieske, Robert Myers
Excellent guide to the fish and invertebrates of the Red Sea. (4)
6. Dive Red Sea: The Ultimate Guide
Mainly covers Egypt but also mentions Aqaba, Eilat, Eritrea, Djibouti and Yemen. (–)
7. Coral Reef Fishes: Indo-Pacific and Caribbean by Ewald Lieske, Robert Myers
Another from Lieske and Myers, this goes on all my tropical diving holidays. (3)
8. Diving the World
by Beth and Shaun Tierney
Husband-and-wife team Beth and Shaun Tierney are another pair who have two entries in the list. They have selected, reviewed and photographed over 200 tropical sites for Diving the World, and released a fully updated and expanded third edition this month. (6)
9. The World’s Best Dive Destinations DVD.
Visual SCUBA dive guide to the world’s best diving locations (10)
10. UK Dive Guide: Diving Guide to England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales
by Patrick Shier
Shier describes 100 dives which are shallower than 18 m (presumably to match the PADI open water diver limit). (–)