Shadow Divers

Robert Kurson tells how divers, John Chatterton among them, came upon a World War II German U-boat 230 feet down in the Atlantic, 60 miles off New Jersey, in 1991. Both the U.S. and German navies denied that such a wreck could lie there, and the records put the nearest one hundreds of miles away. Identifying the submarine the team nicknamed U-Who took six years of dives and archival research. Along the way Chatterton became close friends with Richie Kohler, a diver he at first disliked, while the quest ended both men's marriages and cost three divers their lives. The book won the American Library Association's Alex Award.

Ryan Holiday included it in his best book recommendations of 2013, marveling at how well Kurson tells a story.