Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do

I have always loved to swim. Along with reading, traveling, and baking cookies - I have the best chocolate chip cookie recipe you'll even taste, trust me - swimming is one of my favorite activities. (It also counteracts all those cookies...) All of which is to say that I when I stumbled across Blue Mind in a bookstore recently, it went to the top of my reading list. And I so wanted to like this book.

Unfortunately, I didn't like it at all. In fact, I couldn't even finish it. Aside from the fact that the book didn't seem to scratch the surface of answering how or why being in, on, or under water can make you happier, healthier, blah, blah, blah, I was most distracted - and irritated - by the number of places where the author (Wallace J. Nichols) inserted himself for no apparent reason other than that he likes to talk about himself. It's quite important that his readers know, for example, that his brother-in-law was a Harvard professor, which might be the place where I finally closed the book for good.

The research and studies that he does site seem to be inserted haphazardly so that Blue Mind feels like a random collection of anecdotes and research pieces stitched together in an incongruous fashion. (In between each, Nichols reminds his reader that he has even created a conference by this name, as he repeats again and again until it's the last thing on earth this reader would ever contemplate attending. And if I'm exaggerating, it's not by much.)

As one Amazon reviewer noted (and I'm still kicking myself that I didn't read the reviews before I opened the book), "Many people have an innate desire to be near water and our brains appear to benefit from that proximity. That's it, folks, that's the central theme that is tortuously repeated over and over until you just want to punch the next beach-goer that crosses your path." Only I didn't want to punch the beach-goer; I wanted to punch Nichols. 

Want water? Read Paddling the Pacific. Want science? David Quammen has you covered. But my all means, skip Blue Mind. Water may making you happier and healthier, but this book won't.