Read 'The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean'

Sept. 16, 2010— -- For years, everyone believed the legend of massive waves towering above the bows of large freighters were figments of the imagination of tired sailors or distressed shipwreck survivors; they just didn't seem physically possible.

In recent years, however, scientists have made a stunning discovery: Mega-waves, some more than 100 feet tall, do exist and rumble through oceans.

In "The Wave," Susan Casey discusses the massive swells and the two seemingly disparate groups of surfers and scientists who race to learn about them, up close and personal.

Read an excerpt of the book below and head to the "GMA" Library to find more good reads.

FEBRUARY 8 , 2000

The clock read midnight when the hundred-foot wave hit the ship, rising from the North Atlantic out of the darkness. Among the ocean's terrors a wave this size was the most feared and the least understood, more myth than reality—or so people had thought. This giant was certainly real. As the RRS Discovery plunged down into the wave's deep trough, it heeled twenty- eight degrees to port, rolled thirty degrees back to starboard, then recovered to face the incoming seas. What chance did they have, the forty-seven scientists and crew aboard this research cruise gone horribly wrong? A series of storms had trapped them in the black void east of Rockall, a volcanic island nicknamed Waveland for the nastiness of its surrounding waters. More than a thousand wrecked ships lay on the seafloor below.

Captain Keith Avery steered his vessel directly into the onslaught, just as he'd been doing for the past five days. While weather like this was common in the cranky North Atlantic, these giant waves were unlike anything he'd encountered in his thirty years of experience. And worse, they kept rearing up from different directions. Flanking all sides of the 295-foot ship, the crew kept a constant watch to make sure they weren't about to be sucker punched by a wave that was sneaking up from behind, or from the sides. No one wanted to be out here right now, but Avery knew their only hope was to remain where they were, with their bow pointed into the waves. Turning around was too risky; if one of these waves caught Discovery broadside, there would be long odds on survival. It takes thirty tons per square meter of force to dent a ship. A breaking hundred-foot wave packs one hundred tons of force per square meter and can tear a ship in half. Above all, Avery had to position Discovery so that it rode over these crests and wasn't crushed beneath them.