8 Octopus Books You’ll Want to Get Your Tentacles On

If you’re already a fan of octopuses and their invertebrate relatives, you may already know that octopuses belong to a family of cephalopods. But did you know that there are more than seven hundred species of cephalopods who all share an octopus’s impressive brain functions and curious anatomy? 

If not, no worries! Octopus, Squid & Cuttlefish provides an illustrated guide to some of these species with profiles on their biology, evolution, and behavioral traits that are in-depth and easy to follow (even if you’re not a biologist!).

Written and illustrated based on the deep sea expeditions of Janet Voight, From the Seashore to the Seafloor takes you along on her adventure, without having to descend 14,000 feet below sea level in your own submersible. 

Peggy Macnamara’s illustrations are beautiful watercolor portrayals of the marine life she and Voight have encountered on their journeys. Meanwhile, Voight’s descriptions shed light on even the deepest underwater ecosystems and those that inhabit them, including the octopus and its cephalopod kinsmen. 

As its title may suggest, Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime provides a very… intimate view of the complicated nature of the ocean and its inhabitants, sharing lesser-known facts about marine animals’ biology and behavior that will take your relationship with these creatures to the next level. 

Prager’s research into the basic instincts of sea creatures big and small educates readers on the implications that marine life has on human behavior in ways that may surprise you. You’ll learn about the octopus’s capacity for memory and the mating and hunting rituals it practices, as well as the ocean’s impact on drug development and discovery, the economy, popular culture, and more. 

In My Family and Other Animals, naturalist Gerald Durrell narrates his childhood experience living on the Greek island of Corfu with his family. Durrell writes of all the living things he encounters on the island, including dogs, bats, octopuses, worms, and more, capturing the natural history of Corfu and its native inhabitants. 

His memoir depicts all of the island’s wildlife in beautiful and often affectionate detail that transports you to Corfu and to the lives of the animals, and Durrell’s own family, that reside there.

As you may have picked up on, octopuses and their family of cephalopods are highly intelligent beings surpassed only by mammals and humans themselves. In Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith, a philosopher, investigates the self-awareness and mental capacity of an octopus and what their cognizance reveals about the consciousness and memory of all living things. 

What makes an octopus’s cleverness so astounding is that cephalopods evolved entirely separate from humans, whose behaviors and tendencies the cephalopod’s so closely mimic. By studying the mind of an octopus alongside that which we know of human psychology, Godfrey-Smith is able to analyze the development of the mind itself, including the development of the first nervous system and the early development of the first animals under the sea. As readers will come to discover, there may be quite a lot to learn about ourselves from creatures such as the octopus. 

If you’re curious about just how much an octopus’s brain (and soul) is capable of, The Soul of an Octopus is the perfect read for you. This book, written by naturalist Sy Montgomery, profiles four individual octopuses from waters across the globe. Montgomery writes about the octopuses and their behavior with a perspective almost anthropomorphic in its descriptions of how the creatures think and feel, but with scientific fact and observation backing her claims. 

Her writing humanizes the majestic animals and highlights their incredible capabilities while giving an intimate look into the life and mind of an octopus, exploring grief, friendship, and memory in a beautiful portrait of the life of an octopus.

Many people are aware of the similarities between a dog’s ability to experience grief compared to that of a human’s, but you may be surprised at how similarly an octopus shares that capacity. Shelby Van Pelt’s novel Remarkably Bright Creatures explores the relationship between a grieving widow, Tova, who lost her son after a mysterious accident at sea years before her husband’s death, and the Giant Pacific octopus, Marcellus, who lives at the aquarium where Tova works following the death of her husband. 

Marcellus does not care for any of his human captors, but he is able to sense the weight of Tova’s grief and displays an empathy and steadfast loyalty towards her that is admirable in any creature. The two of them develop a bond that further demonstrates the amazing ability that octopuses like Marcellus have to feel, grieve, and remember in a way that is startlingly similar to human beings, and beautiful in its symmetry. 

In Sy Montgomery’s Secrets of the Octopus, you’ll be taken deeper than ever before into the mysteries of the octopus’s brain, spirit, and biology. It features stunning National Geographic photography alongside Montgomery’s intimate writing about the creatures she’s dedicated her career to studying. Secrets of the Octopus reveals truths about the intelligent animal and the scientists who study them that may shock you. 

Find out just how an octopus is able to alter its genetic makeup to change the color of its skin, how their brains occupy more than just their heads, and more.