Voices in the Ocean

A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins

By: Susan Casey

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

From Susan Casey, the New York Times bestselling author of The Wave and The Devil’s Teeth, a breathtaking journey through the extraordinary world of dolphins

Since the dawn of recorded history, humans have felt a kinship with the sleek and beautiful dolphin, an animal whose playfulness, sociability, and intelligence seem like an aquatic mirror of mankind. In recent decades, we have learned that dolphins recognize themselves in reflections, count, grieve, adorn themselves, feel despondent, rescue one another (and humans), deduce, infer, seduce, form cliques, throw tantrums, and call themselves by name. Scientists still don’t completely understand their incredibly sophisticated navigation and communication abilities, or their immensely complicated brains.

While swimming off the coast of Maui, Susan Casey was surrounded by a pod of spinner dolphins. It was a profoundly transporting experience, and it inspired her to embark on a two-year global adventure to explore the nature of these remarkable beings and their complex relationship to humanity. Casey examines the career of the controversial John Lilly, the pioneer of modern dolphin studies whose work eventually led him down some very strange paths. She visits a community in Hawaii whose adherents believe dolphins are the key to spiritual enlightenment, travels to Ireland, where a dolphin named as “the world’s most loyal animal” has delighted tourists and locals for decades with his friendly antics, and consults with the world’s leading marine researchers, whose sense of wonder inspired by the dolphins they study increases the more they discover.

Yet there is a dark side to our relationship with dolphins. They are the stars of a global multibillion-dollar captivity industry, whose money has fueled a sinister and lucrative trade in which dolphins are captured violently, then shipped and kept in brutal conditions. Casey’s investigation into this cruel underground takes her to the harrowing epicenter of the trade in the Solomon Islands, and to the Japanese town of Taiji, made famous by the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, where she chronicles the annual slaughter and sale of dolphins in its narrow bay.

Casey ends her narrative on the island of Crete, where millennia-old frescoes and artwork document the great Minoan civilization, a culture which lived in harmony with dolphins, and whose example shows the way to a more enlightened coexistence with the natural world.

No writer is better positioned to portray these magical creatures than Susan Casey, whose combination of personal reporting, intense scientific research, and evocative prose made The Wave and The Devil’s Teeth contemporary classics of writing about the sea. In Voices in the Ocean, she has written a thrilling book about the other intelligent life on the planet.

©2015 Susan Casey (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Casey transports us through the many truths and myths about dolphins…. Painstakingly researched and gorgeously written, Voices in the Ocean provides textbook-depth education that is based on Casey’s years of swimming the open seas with dolphins, interviews with leading experts and protectors, and harrowing trips to the nether reaches of the globe where horrific brutalities occur.”―USA Today

"[W]hat starts out as a feelgood, new-agey account darkens like the sunlight diminishing in the deep, subtly turning into a devastating chronicle of one of the most egregious mismatches in natural-human history. The result is a brilliantly written and passionate book.... timely and urgent." --The Guardian

"A meticulously reported global odyssey during which [Susan Casey] sets out to answer the simple question: why do dolphins elicit such intense emotions and behaviors in humans? . . . Fans of Casey's writing know that she has an inexhaustible curiosity and a knack for fully embracing her subject."―Outside Magazine

Revealing!

I’m quite knowledgeable about dolphins and learned even more about the atrocities the various species of cetaceans have endured. I’m puzzled by the term “pod” used throughout. Dolphins are in social groups, not pods. Typically these groups fall into three categories: nursery groups of females and calves, juvenile groups with males and females doing their “teen stuff” prior to adulthood, and paired males. As learned as the author seems, I cringed every time I heard the word “pod.” That said, this is a must read for animal lovers. No, for everyone. Read it and weep.

Delightful

The narrator was one of the very best I have heard. She even used accents for the many different foreign voices. And the writing and thinking are wise and eloquent. Maybe one of my favorite books.

Fresh perspective, disturbing, and hopeful

If you love the sea, or are simply curious about different perspectives, this is a very interesting listen.

Moving, Insightful, Emotional

What did you love best about Voices in the Ocean?

It was an epic journey into the world of cetacean intelligence and the history of interactions between us and them. I loved the straightforwardness and feeling like you were on a journey with Susan.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Voices in the Ocean?

When she went to Greece; I am personally from Greece and so I could easily visualize her experiences there.

What does Cassandra Campbell bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

There was definitely emotion reflected in her tenor.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yess

Loved it

I learned a lot. The narration was excellent and relaxing. It never lulled but was paced so beautifully. I highly recommend this book.

Must Read!

This is an important story. Susan teaches us about the wonders of cetaceans, their extraordinary brains, their heroic compassion and their horrible treatment by humans. If you care about dolphins, our oceans, or any part if the natural world, read this book! Susan helped me understand how many and varied are the cetaceans tormenters. She, and the brave men and women she profiles in her story, make me want to fight for "non-human rights" too. Thank you, Susan.

So sad I love dolfins, I wish more people cared

I wish more people cared about marine life and animals in general nothing should be hurt hunted and killed it's not right !

So good.

“Kiska was depression in motion.”

This line really got me. We ruin the lives of this poor animal. We destroy their homes and kidnap them. This book was very informative and the narrator was spectacular. I highly recommend it.

Fabulous

I learned so much from this book. very knowledgeable and precise. A must read for any human.

Informative

This book is engaging and infuriating. The state of dolphin trafficking is as outrageous as human trafficking. Not necessarily an uplifting book, but educational.
The narrators voice is annoying and pretentious. I’ve heard several other books she’s narrated and thought the same thing each time, but, she’s better than she is bad, so, she gets 3 stars.