Life Between the Tides
- ISBN-10
- 0374721289
- ISBN-13
- 9780374721282
- Series
- Life Between the Tides
- Category
- Nature
- Pages
- 384
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2022-02-22
- Publisher
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Author
- Adam Nicolson
Description
Adam Nicolson explores the marine life inhabiting seashore rockpools with a scientist’s curiosity and a poet’s wonder in this beautifully illustrated book. The sea is not made of water. Creatures are its genes. Look down as you crouch over the shallows and you will find a periwinkle or a prawn, a claw-displaying crab or a cluster of anemones ready to meet you. No need for binoculars or special stalking skills: go to the rocks and the living will say hello. Inside each rock pool tucked into one of the infinite crevices of the tidal coastline lies a rippling, silent, unknowable universe. Below the stillness of the surface course different currents of endless motion—the ebb and flow of the tide, the steady forward propulsion of the passage of time, and the tiny lifetimes of the rock pool’s creatures, all of which coalesce into the grand narrative of evolution. In Life Between the Tides, Adam Nicolson investigates one of the most revelatory habitats on earth. Under his microscope, we see a prawn’s head become a medieval helmet and a group of “winkles” transform into a Dickensian social scene, with mollusks munching on Stilton and glancing at their pocket watches. Or, rather, is a winkle more like Achilles, an ancient hero, throwing himself toward death for the sake of glory? For Nicolson, who writes “with scientific rigor and a poet’s sense of wonder” (The American Scholar), the world of the rock pools is infinite and as intricate as our own. As Nicolson journeys between the tides, both in the pools he builds along the coast of Scotland and through the timeline of scientific discovery, he is accompanied by great thinkers—no one can escape the pull of the sea. We meet Virginia Woolf and her Waves; a young T. S. Eliot peering into his own rock pool in Massachusetts; even Nicolson’s father-in-law, a classical scholar who would hunt for amethysts along the shoreline, his mind on Heraclitus and the other philosophers of ancient Greece. And, of course, scientists populate the pages; not only their discoveries, but also their doubts and errors, their moments of quiet observation and their thrilling realizations. Everything is within the rock pools, where you can look beyond your own reflection and find the miraculous an inch beneath your nose. “The soul wants to be wet,” Heraclitus said in Ephesus twenty-five hundred years ago. This marvelous book demonstrates why it is so. Includes Color and Black-and-White Photographs
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2021-06-24
- 384 pages
- Paperback
- HarperCollins UK
-
- 2003
- 110 pages
- Paperback
- Tilbury House Publishers
-
- 1985
- 228 pages
- Paperback
- American Southwest Publishing Company of San Diego
Similar books
-
Between The Tides
By Patti Callahan HenryNew York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry portrays a woman burdened by the past—and the choices she must face to break free of it—in this emotional, engaging novel.
-
Rock Pool: Extraordinary Encounters Between the Tides
By Heather Buttivant... 2008) British Sea Fishes by Dr Frances Dipper (Underwater World Publications, 2001) Diver's Guide to Marine Life ... to Sea Anemones and Corals of Britain and Ireland by Chris Wood (Wild Nature Press, 2013) Sea Squirts and Sponges ...
-
The House Between Tides
By Sarah MaineShe had been warned, she reminded herself, as she peered into dark rooms opening off the hall, rooms where the window boarding remained intact. The lawyer acting as her grandmother's executor had told her the place had been empty for ...
-
Between the Tides: A Novel
By Susannah MarrenBetween the Tides is an engrossing, commanding debut from tremendous new talent Susannah Marren.
-
Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon: Exploring Beaches and Tidepools
By Ryan P. Kelly, Terrie KlingerThe authors systematically take readers along the coast, highlighting what makes each location fascinating and unique. (For example, pointing out where to find bioluminescent dinoflagellates, the single-celled algae that light up and trace ...
-
Between the Tides
By Fran HodgkinsWhat happens to the denizens of the tidal zone when the sea recedes every 12 hours? This is the question that Hodgkins answers in a playful yet instructive way.
-
Ebb and Flow: Tides and Life on Our Once and Future Planet
By Tom KoppelEbb and Flow was named one of 2007’s "best science books" by Peter Calamai, science editor of the Toronto Star [Dec. 30, 2007].
-
Tides
By Sara FreemanA brilliant newcomer, Henfield prize-winner Sara Freeman debuts with an intoxicating, compact novel about a woman who walks out of her life and washes up in a seaside town.
-
Dark Tides: A Novel
By Philippa GregoryA Novel Philippa Gregory. 14. The ending of Dark Tides mirrors that of Tidelands. Then, Alinor and Alys were driven from their home and setting out on a journey to a new life; now, Ned leaves his home in search of “unclaimed unused ...
-
A Place between the Tides: A Naturalist's Reflections on the Salt Marsh
By Harry ThurstonThis is the story of Thurston's return to the beloved environment of his boyhood.