James Nestor (writer)

Nestor's science/adventure book, DEEP: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves was released on June 24, 2014.[2][3] In 2015, the PEN American Center shortlisted DEEP for the "2015 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing."[4] It was also a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week[5] and was one of BuzzFeed's 19 Best Non-Fiction Books of 2014.[6]

Nestor co-wrote the Virtual Reality experience, The Click Effect (with director Sandy Smolan). It was released by The New York Times and Within on April 18, 2016,[7] and is about the efforts of two freelance freediving researchers attempting to understand the language of dolphins and whales. It was an official selection of a number of film festivals including the Sundance Film Festival[8] and the Tribeca Film Festival.[9][1]

In May 2020, Nestor published Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art through Riverhead/Penguin Random House.[10][11] The book examines the history of how humans shifted from the natural state of nasal breathing to chronic mouth breathing. Nestor explores research that argues that this shift (due to the increased consumption of processed foods) has led to a rise in snoring, sleep apnea, asthma, autoimmune disease, and allergies. He also worked with scientists at Stanford University whose research suggests that returning to a state of nasal breathing will improve an individual's health.[12][13][14] In the June 14, 2020 edition of The New York Times (one week after its release), Breath ranked #7 in the "Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction list."[15]