I love books like this, in essence non-fiction but written from a very personal perspective. As the title suggests it is all about the North Sea, that non-entity that surrounds England, that greeny-grey sea that everyone looks forward to seeing and is thoroughly disappointed when they have. It is a disappointment of a sea and a let down, almost the antithesis of a sea. It should really have another word that denotes the vacuum of the thing itself.

But to the book. I can only admire Tom Blass because he does actually manage to put some flesh on the absence of bones and some colour to the anonymity of it. A traverse around the shores and backwards and forwards in time and by this method you do get an impression of the thing. If you liked any of the Simon Winchester books you'll like this too but Tom Blass comes across more like a Johnny Morris and less like a public school boy.

Well written, and enough factoids to keep your butterfly brain engaged it does have the same kind of languorous motion as the sea itself. Reading it you cannot but feel like you are stuck in Hunstanton or Bridlington, but on an overcast day instead of wet one.

Dipping into the book will be more interesting and rewarding than any dip into the North Sea itself ( )

The North Sea is surrounded by a number of European countries, in particular Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark Norway and the top of France. Geologically it is known as a margin of the Atlantic Ocean, but for those that have inhabited its shores for millennia it feels much larger than a sea. It has carried many important trade routes, and the Vikings traversed it to bring their destruction to parts of northern Europe. The landscapes vary hugely; deep fjords and immense cliffs in the far north, and sand and mudflats in the south. It is part of the European continental shelf, and in certain areas it is not much deeper than 30m and has made safe navigation a hazard for ships.

Journalist Tom Blass has made it his intention to ride the waves and trawl the bottom of this sea to uncover its secrets. Using whatever method of travel he can, he meets the people who live and work in on and by the sea. It employs many different people, from the oilmen in the north working the rigs, marine biologists investigating fish stocks. He meets the man who understands most about Doggerland, the ancient land now covered by water, bomb disposal still making safe ordinance from the Second World War as well as those that fish these waters. It is a cruel sea too; there have been many ships sunk at the mercy of the fierce storms that can rise, they have been many deaths in the oil industry, most notably the Piper Alpha disaster. You are not safe on the shore either, particular weather conditions can give rise to storm surges and as water rushes down towards the Channel it has broken flood defences and caused significant devastation.

Blass visits places that I have never actually heard of before, like Heligoland & Föhr, tiny islands of the German coast, where each island seems to have its own language. He experiences the full anger of an Atlantic storm when he visits Shetland and eats ice cream whilst standing on the beaches of bleak northern resorts. He has written a reasonably interesting book on this sea that has shaped so much of British and European history, it is full of fascinating facts and details, and he manages to bring alive the human story too adding extra depth to his travels. But as fascinating as it is learning about these places, it doesn’t quite do it for me as it often feels a little like a newspaper article at times. 3.5 stars overall. ( )