A review by alexrafinski
The Sea is Not Made of Water: Life Between the Tides, by Adam Nicolson

informative reflective slow-paced

3.75

The first half of this book was as I expected - the author explains how he created some rock pools and describes the creatures that arrive in them and gives us some insights into scientific studies that suggest that many of these creatures have lives that are far more complex (and perhaps closer to our own) than most people believe.  There were one or two philosophical paragraphs in each chapter that often bordered on the pretentious (in my opinion), but otherwise these were informative and enjoyable chapters.  The second half of the book often seemed to bear no relation to the title of the book at all.  Some chapters (e.g. rock) were clearly related to the seashore, but others didn't seem to be - one chapter covers the poverty and famine experienced by people living in the west of Scotland in the 17/1800s but other than the fact some of them used seaweed as a fertiliser, this didn't seem relevant to the topic of the book.  There are also wholly philosophical chapters towards the end - phrases like "allowing no penetration of the You into the I, can only be a form of non-being, a gravity-less floating in an atomised and disconnected universe" just don't make sense to me.