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Life Between the Tides
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 of a rockpool and you will find a periwinkle or a prawn, a claw-displaying crab or a cluster of anemones ready to meet you. Go to the rocks and the living will say hello.
Inside each rockpool, 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 its creatures, all of which coalesce into the grand narrative of evolution.
In The Sea Is Not Made of Water, 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 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 rockpools 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 rockpool 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 Hellenists. 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.
It is all within the rockpools, 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
The sea is not made of water. Creatures are its genes. Look down as you crouch over the shallows of a rockpool and you will find a periwinkle or a prawn, a claw-displaying crab or a cluster of anemones ready to meet you. Go to the rocks and the living will say hello.
Inside each rockpool, 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 its creatures, all of which coalesce into the grand narrative of evolution.
In The Sea Is Not Made of Water, 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 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 rockpools 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 rockpool 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 Hellenists. 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.
It is all within the rockpools, 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
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2021
284 people are currently reading
4806 people want to read
About the author
Adam Nicolson
63 books224 followersAdam Nicolson writes a celebrated column for The Sunday Telegraph. His books include Sissinghurst, God’s Secretaries, When God Spoke English, Wetland, Life in the Somerset Levels, Perch Hill, Restoration, and the acclaimed Gentry. He is winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and the British Topography Prize and lives on a farm in Sussex.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 226 reviews
December 8, 2021
By all accounts I should have loved this book, outdoors, check, nature, check, the sea, check, creatures, check check check!
But something just felt off here and the title never resonated with me at all.
There seemed to be some indecision over whether to be a biology textbook (the section on creatures was pretty in depth and pseudo-scientific to the point of being tedious), an oceanography book, a philosophy text, a history book? Usually, nature journals with a mix of the personal and science fascinate me, but I think the bizarre, erratic nature of this book just baffled and disinterested me.
And I still don't understand why Nicolson felt it necessary to rearrange/dig/decimate parts of the local coastline to make artificial rock pools! Why not just visit an existing rock pool?!! Leave the sea shore alone man!
Majorly disappointed with this one.
But something just felt off here and the title never resonated with me at all.
There seemed to be some indecision over whether to be a biology textbook (the section on creatures was pretty in depth and pseudo-scientific to the point of being tedious), an oceanography book, a philosophy text, a history book? Usually, nature journals with a mix of the personal and science fascinate me, but I think the bizarre, erratic nature of this book just baffled and disinterested me.
And I still don't understand why Nicolson felt it necessary to rearrange/dig/decimate parts of the local coastline to make artificial rock pools! Why not just visit an existing rock pool?!! Leave the sea shore alone man!
Majorly disappointed with this one.
September 27, 2022
I found this book phenomenal, so much more than I had hoped. It's so accessible, fairly easy to understand, yet presents new information along with some I have been exposed to before, but in new, entertaining ways.
I love the chapter entitled 'Prawn.' Pascal Fossat's experiments with crayfish groundbreaking.
'In this context,' Fossat wrote in Science, 'the crayfish represents a new model that might provide insights into the mechanisms underlying anxiety that have been conserved during evolution. Our results also emphasize the ability of an invertebrate to exhibit a state that is similar to a mammalian emotion but which likely arose early during the evolution of metazoans.
And then comes the third chapter, 'Winkle,' where we enter the territory of fractals. Long of interest to me, Nicolson reports on fractals in ways that leaned toward philosophy and had me shaking my head in wonder and delight.
This unmeasurability means that the Mandelbrot world is a set of dizzying spirals. The closer you look, the deeper it dives. Any examination of anything becomes an ever-growing, ever-inward plunge into the indefinable. The slower you go, the more there is to your journey. Pause for a moment and a place will pool out around you, not as an illusion but as a fact, in details it would not have had if you had not stopped to look.
This passage created an image of time pooling around me. Who is to say it does not? When I stop and really attend to something, time seems to stop for a moment and expand out. Science or pseudoscience? Looks like science from where I'm sitting.
Adam Nicolson created his own tidal pools along the coast of Scotland, so that he could observe the intertidal life of the pool. His observations are accompanied by informative science and at times the views of philosophers and poets. I loved the mix, but if you think you're reading a book solely about nature and science, you might be disappointed. I was happily surprised!
I love the chapter entitled 'Prawn.' Pascal Fossat's experiments with crayfish groundbreaking.
'In this context,' Fossat wrote in Science, 'the crayfish represents a new model that might provide insights into the mechanisms underlying anxiety that have been conserved during evolution. Our results also emphasize the ability of an invertebrate to exhibit a state that is similar to a mammalian emotion but which likely arose early during the evolution of metazoans.
And then comes the third chapter, 'Winkle,' where we enter the territory of fractals. Long of interest to me, Nicolson reports on fractals in ways that leaned toward philosophy and had me shaking my head in wonder and delight.
This unmeasurability means that the Mandelbrot world is a set of dizzying spirals. The closer you look, the deeper it dives. Any examination of anything becomes an ever-growing, ever-inward plunge into the indefinable. The slower you go, the more there is to your journey. Pause for a moment and a place will pool out around you, not as an illusion but as a fact, in details it would not have had if you had not stopped to look.
This passage created an image of time pooling around me. Who is to say it does not? When I stop and really attend to something, time seems to stop for a moment and expand out. Science or pseudoscience? Looks like science from where I'm sitting.
Adam Nicolson created his own tidal pools along the coast of Scotland, so that he could observe the intertidal life of the pool. His observations are accompanied by informative science and at times the views of philosophers and poets. I loved the mix, but if you think you're reading a book solely about nature and science, you might be disappointed. I was happily surprised!
August 30, 2021
In many ways this is a fascinating book. Nicolson fashions his own rock pools in Argyllshire in Scotland in order to study, minutely, the life that fetches up there, and his resulting studies of shrimps, crabs, sea anemones and their place in the scheme of things engaged and enthralled me, even though, as a non scientist I struggled a bit to understand every word.
Then he looks more widely at tides, at waves, at geology. He looks at the philosophical ideas of Heraclitus. He discusses the bitter and harsh social history of Argyllshire. All of this is interesting, and interestingly accounted for.
In the end, I wasn't convinced this book hung together. I was glad to have read it, but remained unconvinced I knew what was at its heart, beyond the captivating contents of the rockpools.
Then he looks more widely at tides, at waves, at geology. He looks at the philosophical ideas of Heraclitus. He discusses the bitter and harsh social history of Argyllshire. All of this is interesting, and interestingly accounted for.
In the end, I wasn't convinced this book hung together. I was glad to have read it, but remained unconvinced I knew what was at its heart, beyond the captivating contents of the rockpools.
February 7, 2022
I think this may be one of the most bizarre books I have ever read. I can only describe it as a ‘brain dump’ by the author. The book jumps around from the author’s handmade rock pool, to authors, to fairies, to Ancient Greece. There’s also random portraits of authors thrown in. If I had just read the first part of this book, I would have given it five stars. Sadly, the rest of the book pulled my rating down.
April 4, 2022
3.5 thoughts soon.
October 7, 2021
The Guardian review of this work says 'the best books are never only, or even mainly, about the subject they claim to be about'. I understand the sentiment but ultimately I want a book about rockpools and the inter-tidal zone to be about rockpools and the inter-tidal zone, whereas this book ranges very widely and I concur with other reviews on here that it doesn't always hang together convincingly. That said there's a lot of interesting information and it's thought provoking, and would encourage me to take a fresh look at the life of rockpools.
A point of detail - for a hardback the quality of some of the illustrations and the quality of the reproduction of them is decidedly mixed. It looks much nicer on the outside than inside the covers.
A point of detail - for a hardback the quality of some of the illustrations and the quality of the reproduction of them is decidedly mixed. It looks much nicer on the outside than inside the covers.
May 13, 2022
To sit a watch the waves by the sea is one of the ways that I find to relax, but under this ever-moving surface there is often much more going on than you realise. Life and death in all of its form is taking place day in and day out and we are totally unaware of it. One way of seeing the creatures that inhabit this space is to go rock pooling.
In the intertidal zone, as the water recedes some creatures are left in the pools and if you know where and how to look, you can find a rich variety of life. On the coastline of Argyll, Nicholson wants to see what he can find in this zone, but first, he needs permission from the Scottish Crown to create his own rock pools. It is quickly granted and he sets about making them using rocks and waterproof cement. It was cold work and took three days but he had his first pool. The first tide came and went that evening and under the light of a full moon, he could see the first life in his torchlight; prawns.
The first few chapters are about each of the creatures that he finds in the pool; winkle, crab, anemone and sandhopper, with a potted history of each. The second part of the book suddenly zooms right out from the microscopic view, and then he is considering the tides that bring these animals in twice a day before taking an even bigger step back to look at the geological time and the rock that make up the bay.
The final section is the people that have inhabited this shoreline, how they came to be there, how they survived on the most meagre of rations and their faith that somehow sustained them is this harsh place. The book ends with the creations of a third and final pool and the latest influx of creatures that end up within it.
As with almost all of Nicolson’s books, this is a well researched and well-written book. He has a way of writing that feels knowledgeable and accessible at the same time and I always come away feeling that I have learnt something. What did through me a little though was the way he went from a detailed examination of the life in these pools that he has made to a full widescreen view of tides and how the very rocks he was standing on came about? It is a bit discombobulating, but picks up on a thread that is appearing in more books that I read at the moment; everything is interconnected even over aeons of time. This is a really good book and I highly recommend that you read it.
In the intertidal zone, as the water recedes some creatures are left in the pools and if you know where and how to look, you can find a rich variety of life. On the coastline of Argyll, Nicholson wants to see what he can find in this zone, but first, he needs permission from the Scottish Crown to create his own rock pools. It is quickly granted and he sets about making them using rocks and waterproof cement. It was cold work and took three days but he had his first pool. The first tide came and went that evening and under the light of a full moon, he could see the first life in his torchlight; prawns.
The first few chapters are about each of the creatures that he finds in the pool; winkle, crab, anemone and sandhopper, with a potted history of each. The second part of the book suddenly zooms right out from the microscopic view, and then he is considering the tides that bring these animals in twice a day before taking an even bigger step back to look at the geological time and the rock that make up the bay.
The final section is the people that have inhabited this shoreline, how they came to be there, how they survived on the most meagre of rations and their faith that somehow sustained them is this harsh place. The book ends with the creations of a third and final pool and the latest influx of creatures that end up within it.
As with almost all of Nicolson’s books, this is a well researched and well-written book. He has a way of writing that feels knowledgeable and accessible at the same time and I always come away feeling that I have learnt something. What did through me a little though was the way he went from a detailed examination of the life in these pools that he has made to a full widescreen view of tides and how the very rocks he was standing on came about? It is a bit discombobulating, but picks up on a thread that is appearing in more books that I read at the moment; everything is interconnected even over aeons of time. This is a really good book and I highly recommend that you read it.
October 25, 2021
Reading this book felt akin to some sort of sacred act - it left me reeling with awe at the thinking therein. The sense of suddenly understanding things I knew I had, at some level, known to be true but not yet fully perceived. I eked it out, over several months, because I didn’t want it to end and felt the need to savour various moments and roll them around my mind with relish.
If you believe that we humans are just another species and part of a rich tapestry of life and existence (rather than in charge of it, or entitled to profit from it) then this is book will warm your heart. And if you don’t, well this book just might persuade you otherwise.
If you believe that we humans are just another species and part of a rich tapestry of life and existence (rather than in charge of it, or entitled to profit from it) then this is book will warm your heart. And if you don’t, well this book just might persuade you otherwise.
March 16, 2024
I really wanted to like this book much more than I did. The bits about the sea and the creatures within it were incredibly interesting and detailed. But there was so much history and philosophy in this book that I did not expect, and I found myself extremely bored during those stretches. I think the author was either not sure what they wanted this book to be, or it was not advertised to be what it is. At times it felt a bit pretentious, and I really found myself wanting to skip the history lessons to get back to the sea.
August 29, 2023
This is the second Adam Nicholson book I’ve read (Seabird’s Cry was the first), and I get why people don’t like his writing, but I’m kind of obsessed? His approach is sort of joyfully and aggressively interdisciplinary, yielding a decidedly genre-slippery text, which I think is probably disappointing if you’re looking for a book of fun facts about tide pools…but honestly, it’s so good. Really really glad he’s out there in the world being incredibly weird and interesting and unclassifiable.
May 19, 2022
The book begins with the author building a tidal pool an investigating the marine life that he finds in it, which I found fascinating. Then he discusses tides and geology, which I also found interesting, then he veers off into the human history of the people in the area, and suddenly he's talking about poverty, clans, fairies, then philosophy, then suddenly he comes back and builds another pool. I found this progression bewildering at first, then annoying, and ultimately disappointing. I feel like the third section really belongs in another book, and it's not the one I thought I was reading.
October 10, 2022
Overwritten.
February 24, 2025
Started as an interesting book about tidepools and sea creatures, turned into a brain dump by the author about history/philosophy/everything. Also full of bad analogies such as “animal-quarks living in a strange quantum-crustacean universe” which makes zero sense.
June 19, 2022
Hm. So good in so many ways. But.
This is the first book by Adam Nicolson that I’ve read, with a couple more on my shelf. The title is intriguing and, just back from exploring the shoreline of Vancouver Island, I was open to any book that explores life in tidal pools.
I loved learning about the denizens of Nicolson’s rock pools; sand hoppers, winkles, prawns, sea anemones, and the different weeds that allow creatures to live through daily and seasonal tidal change. I loved learning how the lives of everything in the rock pool are interconnected. The book goes deep into the history of coastal geology. Much of the book is beautifully written and extends from biology to something larger through the history of how we have come to understand and account for tides. I even enjoyed learning about the philosophy of Heraclitus and how his ideas can inform our understanding of the interconnectedness of life.
Then we go sideways into a history of people from the area, which involves starvation and over-fishing, and the history of Scottish clan warfare and waaaaay too much information on how they are featured in the mythology and lore of the area.
I seriously wondered if I had somehow missed the book’s conclusion and had purchased a ‘two-books-in-one’ edition of the author’s work.
We gradually made our way back to the rock pool for a well-written conclusion, but for me, the spell was broken and the book fell from a five-star read to 3.5. Honestly, disappointed.
This is the first book by Adam Nicolson that I’ve read, with a couple more on my shelf. The title is intriguing and, just back from exploring the shoreline of Vancouver Island, I was open to any book that explores life in tidal pools.
I loved learning about the denizens of Nicolson’s rock pools; sand hoppers, winkles, prawns, sea anemones, and the different weeds that allow creatures to live through daily and seasonal tidal change. I loved learning how the lives of everything in the rock pool are interconnected. The book goes deep into the history of coastal geology. Much of the book is beautifully written and extends from biology to something larger through the history of how we have come to understand and account for tides. I even enjoyed learning about the philosophy of Heraclitus and how his ideas can inform our understanding of the interconnectedness of life.
Then we go sideways into a history of people from the area, which involves starvation and over-fishing, and the history of Scottish clan warfare and waaaaay too much information on how they are featured in the mythology and lore of the area.
I seriously wondered if I had somehow missed the book’s conclusion and had purchased a ‘two-books-in-one’ edition of the author’s work.
We gradually made our way back to the rock pool for a well-written conclusion, but for me, the spell was broken and the book fell from a five-star read to 3.5. Honestly, disappointed.
November 7, 2023
The first chapters suggest this is an exploration of ecosystems on the Atlantic shores of the British Isles, but that is not actually the case. Biology and ecology are certainly present in subsequent chapters, but they are not the main aspects - later chapters in particular are devoted more to people and historical events. Though some interesting philosophical ideas are on display, flowing out of considerations of the shores and the tides as liminal spaces, there isn't really a strong core concept and no real line to follow throughout the book. Overall it's not a bad read, but it's not great either - despite a few thought-provoking passages here and there it is ultimately fairly forgettable.
February 26, 2023
I understand that to many people a book about tide pools and the animals and plants that live in them may sound boring but that’s exactly what I wanted. And it’s NOT AT ALL what I found here. The first half of the book which is at least mostly about tide pools focuses on the authors DIY creations and how they filled up. Fine but why not have one chapter about that and the rest exploring mature tide pools in various marine environments around the world???
The second half is far worse. Its mostly about random events in Scottish history, with some Heraclitus and Martin Heidegger thrown in. WHY. By the end of the book I was literally just internally yelling “shut up Adam” ☠️☠️☠️
The second half is far worse. Its mostly about random events in Scottish history, with some Heraclitus and Martin Heidegger thrown in. WHY. By the end of the book I was literally just internally yelling “shut up Adam” ☠️☠️☠️
January 6, 2024
really excellent piece of work here, combining natural history, philosophy, and science. makes me want to stick my head in the sea and just look.
July 26, 2022
A lot more about life within the rhythm of sea and tides rather than what's happening amidst the tidal pools that the author created in the bay near his Scots summer residence.
On nature's side, pools constructed in which life can come and go as it pleases. Sometimes there are surprises, and sometimes it's near empty save some broken bits of wrack as the bay fills and empties with each tide. Examining how strife and competition encourages diversity in the pools. By removing the cause of the strife - the predator - the system eventually crashes into a monoculture or into an oblique cascade as other predators or prey need to find other prey or feeding locations.
A look at the life spans of sandhoppers, prawn, winkle, crab and anemones along with the moon's influence on tidal movement.
But there is a great deal more on the human evaluation - the history of the people that lived along the bay and made their living - or tried to - from the sea. From the Mesolithic to the present. As sacrifice, survival and beliefs tried to help their endurance of devastating conditions - abject poverty, hunger, and determination to more than exist.
To care and be aware of 'us'. About recognizing problems around us as well as reality - if you'd only stop and look past the blurred images zipping by.
That things have meaning as long as they have opposites - that the path up is also the path down. That knowing war, we can value and appreciate peace. Just as knowing hunger, one can value a full stomach.
To use Mandelbrot's fractals to look closer as more detail unfolds and reveals itself.
I opened the book looking for information about the life along the seashore and came away with a new way of looking at life all around me - - as well as at the shoreline, be it a beachy expanse or the rough, rocky, wind and wave battered coast of Scotland.
2022-164
On nature's side, pools constructed in which life can come and go as it pleases. Sometimes there are surprises, and sometimes it's near empty save some broken bits of wrack as the bay fills and empties with each tide. Examining how strife and competition encourages diversity in the pools. By removing the cause of the strife - the predator - the system eventually crashes into a monoculture or into an oblique cascade as other predators or prey need to find other prey or feeding locations.
A look at the life spans of sandhoppers, prawn, winkle, crab and anemones along with the moon's influence on tidal movement.
But there is a great deal more on the human evaluation - the history of the people that lived along the bay and made their living - or tried to - from the sea. From the Mesolithic to the present. As sacrifice, survival and beliefs tried to help their endurance of devastating conditions - abject poverty, hunger, and determination to more than exist.
To care and be aware of 'us'. About recognizing problems around us as well as reality - if you'd only stop and look past the blurred images zipping by.
That things have meaning as long as they have opposites - that the path up is also the path down. That knowing war, we can value and appreciate peace. Just as knowing hunger, one can value a full stomach.
To use Mandelbrot's fractals to look closer as more detail unfolds and reveals itself.
I opened the book looking for information about the life along the seashore and came away with a new way of looking at life all around me - - as well as at the shoreline, be it a beachy expanse or the rough, rocky, wind and wave battered coast of Scotland.
2022-164
July 18, 2024
Inconsistent. When the author is writing about the biology of shoreline plants and creatures, I found this held my interest (helped, admittedly by being on a North Wales beach at the time and able to catch a few clumps of seaweed whilst paddling and have small crustaceans wriggle on my hands). When he branches off into more disconnected fields of mythology, history and philosophy I found this less interesting and thought he came across over-keen to sound knowledgeable and poetic. Ending up seeming a bit of a pretentious prick, which I’m sure he probably isn’t.
March 18, 2023
biology, history, philosophy… what more could you want!!
June 28, 2025
WAR IS OVER. this read like a textbook (derogatory), and unfortunately never caught my interest. it's clear how much love, passion, and research went into this book by the author. I, however, just don't care. this book may have single handedly destroyed my 2025 reading challenge, good riddance.
"It felt, as all good places feel, hidden from the world, enormous and strangely private."
"It felt, as all good places feel, hidden from the world, enormous and strangely private."
March 23, 2024
It had been awhile since I’d read some good, solid nature writing, so I fired up this audio book. At the start, it did not disappoint - arguably 5-star natural history writing. Interwoven elements of all three of Rachel Carson’s underappreciated ocean trilogy that preceded “Silent Spring”: The poetry of “Under the Sea Wind”, the scientific synthesis and history of “The Sea Around Us”, and the detailed natural history observations of “The Edge of the Sea”. Tapping and threading the complementary styles of those three classics is a noteworthy feat.
Part II takes it down a notch with interesting and relevant overview of the oceanography and geology that shape the intertidal zone. It wasn’t bad, but a step down. I would have combined and condensed these chapters as a single stage-setting prologue. But that’s just me.
Part III is where the book collapsed, in my view. Titled “People”, it starts out well enough with a description of how neolithic people relied on intertidal organisms, until the advent of agriculture turned them away from the sea. That was interesting and relevant. From there, however, it devolves into a seemingly aimless meandering among history, mythology, and philosophy, all largely disconnected from the intertidal natural history that I came for. There are periodic reconnections to what the book is supposedly about, but they all feel like afterthoughts.
By the end when there is a return to the focal ecosystem, my heart wasn’t in it anymore. I muscled through the massive tangents, which wore me out. That’s on me, I know.
In a different state of mind, I might have gotten more about of “People”. But from where I was at and what I came for, half the book killed the outstanding nature writing that had me roped in. My rating splits the difference between these poles.
Part II takes it down a notch with interesting and relevant overview of the oceanography and geology that shape the intertidal zone. It wasn’t bad, but a step down. I would have combined and condensed these chapters as a single stage-setting prologue. But that’s just me.
Part III is where the book collapsed, in my view. Titled “People”, it starts out well enough with a description of how neolithic people relied on intertidal organisms, until the advent of agriculture turned them away from the sea. That was interesting and relevant. From there, however, it devolves into a seemingly aimless meandering among history, mythology, and philosophy, all largely disconnected from the intertidal natural history that I came for. There are periodic reconnections to what the book is supposedly about, but they all feel like afterthoughts.
By the end when there is a return to the focal ecosystem, my heart wasn’t in it anymore. I muscled through the massive tangents, which wore me out. That’s on me, I know.
In a different state of mind, I might have gotten more about of “People”. But from where I was at and what I came for, half the book killed the outstanding nature writing that had me roped in. My rating splits the difference between these poles.
June 22, 2024
Typically ecosystem/nature deep dives/memoirs are a genre I enjoy, but this one was a bit genre bending. There were a few too many scientific tangents and then a few too many personal and philosophical interjections on human life as it relates to the intertidal. Lots of Gaelic folklore, which was I wasn't expecting. Despite the different take, this book felt more tedious than enlightening or insightful and at some point just felt like a blue-sky mish-mash of the authors thoughts... like unedited free writing for therapy. I guess I was expecting 'Blue Planet' or 'My Octopus Teacher' and it deviated in a direction that wasn't all that interesting or well put together. I would, however, listen to or read an entire book on Gaelic folklore if that was an option... maybe I'll look into it. Just as long as this guy isn't the author and interpreting those stories in his voice. It WAS interesting to hear the audiobook narrator properly pronounce the Gaelic, which is a language I don't hear much of. Decent enough listen to garden to, but wouldn't opt for others like it or by the same author.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2022
This book is not what I thought it would be. I wanted to learn facts about the biology and maybe geology of the intertidal zone. There was precious little of that. Rather these topics were primarily an excuse for the author to start philosophizing pretentiously but vacuously about abstract notions. The following is typical of many other passages:
It [the author's artificial tidepool] represented a curiously true relationship to the natural. Making it would be a human act but with a natural outcome. It could both enclose and fail to enclose; its fractal spirals could spin off into the sea itself. It would be a model of Socrates's aviary, and in that inadequacy the explicit transience of its containment would be a kind of perfection--perfect because imperfect.
December 18, 2024
This is not a nature book. It is a poorly written philosophy notebook that uses man-made tide pools as a vehicle for waxing poetic on every pseudo-profound thought that comes to the author’s mind. Topics include: Heidegger, winkles, crabs, Virginia Woolf, Heracles, and rocks—I’m not kidding, there is a whole chapter that is titled “Rocks”…which would be fine if it was actually about rocks but it wasn’t!!!!
Spare yourself the slog and read literally anything else. The best thing about this one are the illustrations on the cover.
Spare yourself the slog and read literally anything else. The best thing about this one are the illustrations on the cover.
August 31, 2022
The first section is the strongest & more how I imagined the book to be from it’s description. The second is interesting, but won’t be anything new to people who read a bit about the sea & tides. The final section started off in a style akin to Kathleen Jamie so I was ready for a strong finish, which never materialised.
And the images were far more powerful than the drawings, which felt really out of place & not particularly professional.
And the images were far more powerful than the drawings, which felt really out of place & not particularly professional.
October 15, 2025
4.5. This is my favorite kind of nature book; some first-hand narrative, scientific insight into the particular features and elements that make up an ecosystem, in this case, tidal pools, and the vast potential for creative and insightful overlap into other disciplines, like literature, philosophy, astronomy, and history. Some of these texts, and notably the ones that don’t include first-person research, engagement, or narrative, often culminate in what is essentially a long form literature review, which isn’t unpleasant, but isn’t nearly as interesting. The way that Nicholson relates the tides to, for instance, Shakespeare, Brahe and Kepler, Heidegger, humanity in history and present amid climate change, in how he details the chain effect of ecosystems, or contemplates whether or not a prawn can make decisions from the place or mind, or the reaction of body is a lot more engaging. Because these meditations and findings are largely localized to Scotland and England, it is those histories, myths, and cultures that largely permeate the text, though at no point does it purport to be otherwise. I particularly liked the frequency with which Gaelic was intoned throughout, more prolifically than scientific Latin names (many of which were humorously criticized); it is joyful to hear whole phrases, anecdotes, and even snippets of stories in this language to denote that explicit connection to people, creature, land, and sea. The whole wonderful philosophical conclusion was like a swelling of violins. It was very rewarding.
Overall, this was a very pleasant, philosophical, informational, and lyrical read full of information I didn’t know about a locale I will be exploring my whole life, with no anticipation of finding the bottom; such limitlessness of sea is part of its many gifts.
Overall, this was a very pleasant, philosophical, informational, and lyrical read full of information I didn’t know about a locale I will be exploring my whole life, with no anticipation of finding the bottom; such limitlessness of sea is part of its many gifts.
April 23, 2024
I was really looking forward to reading this book, looking forward to observations and detailed facts about life in rock pools. I was waiting for beautiful descriptions of countless creatures in their beautiful seascape. I started with enthusiasm, so what happened?
The introduction was interesting with some good descriptive writing although it seemed to be a bit too drawn out. Into chapter one and I was finding points of interest. Chapter two and I was wondering what was the need for making a rock pool; there are plenty of beaches with natural pools. There was interesting stuff about about prawns and as far as I can see, the science was sound. Chapter three ‘Winkles’ is where it all started to go wrong for me and from that point onwards there was more divergence from the subject in hand. Nicholson seemed to have his knickers in a twist about various bits of philosophy. And to really annoy the reader, at the end of part one was the inevitable disaster in his ridiculous man made pool. I suppose I should just refer to Voltaire and say “good old Dr. Pangloss, it’s all for the best “.
After that we had a little geology and then the following chapters just had to be skimmed through. And I never want to hear Heraclitus mentioned again!
The introduction was interesting with some good descriptive writing although it seemed to be a bit too drawn out. Into chapter one and I was finding points of interest. Chapter two and I was wondering what was the need for making a rock pool; there are plenty of beaches with natural pools. There was interesting stuff about about prawns and as far as I can see, the science was sound. Chapter three ‘Winkles’ is where it all started to go wrong for me and from that point onwards there was more divergence from the subject in hand. Nicholson seemed to have his knickers in a twist about various bits of philosophy. And to really annoy the reader, at the end of part one was the inevitable disaster in his ridiculous man made pool. I suppose I should just refer to Voltaire and say “good old Dr. Pangloss, it’s all for the best “.
After that we had a little geology and then the following chapters just had to be skimmed through. And I never want to hear Heraclitus mentioned again!
December 12, 2022
Reading this book is a bit like going on a biology field trip with a philosophy professor without getting your feet wet. I was rubbish at all sciences at school and one of my memories from a biology field trip to do a beach survey of the marine life is of being in the last group to finish our survey, one of the teachers feeling sorry for us and lending us a hand, and flinging the quadrant across the sand praying it would land somewhere comprising mostly sand rather than having to identify random bits of seaweed. I regret my lacklustre efforts now and I think it would be a great thing to be at least 2% as conversant as Adam Nicolson is in the wonders of shorelife. I found this a slow read to be honest, and often had to re-read sentences/paragraphs - that's on me rather than the author, because it's really a remarkable book and delves into history and myth as well as the wonders of sandhoppers' knowledge of the tides, the anxiety of prawns and war between anemones and their clones and how all of this speaks to our lives past, present and future.
December 17, 2023
I love a nature book and this one went a step further and made it all quite philosophical! I love thinking about life and what it is and what it might mean! And yet at the same time knowing that there does not have to be a meaning. One of my favorite passages towards the end of the book describes this perfectly: “The pointlessness of making the pools - so many people asked ‘But what are they for?’ - was their value. They were for nothing. Making the pools was not the point. Being there while making them…’lingering with being’ was what was valuable, an inadvertent and marginal benefit that strikingly bears the same relationship to making something useful as the shore does to the sea itself”
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