Life Between the Tides

Adam Nicolson explores the marine life inhabiting seashore rock pools 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 i