Tidelands Books

Nature Guide to the Carolina Coast: Common Birds, Crabs, Shells, Fish, and Other Entities of the Coastal Environment

Peter Meyer

Amazon Price: $13.67 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Avian-Cetacean Press Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $4.95

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Incredibly accurate with astonishing photos 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

For the past four years I have had a place at the beach. Dr. Meyer's book has become our bible. Using it, shells, shorebirds and seaside flora are easily identified by my family, friends and renters. Being an amateur photographer, I am in total awe of the skill of the other physician who took the pictures.

Serviceable and Entertaining 4 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

My goal in purchasing this book, which pulls together information about birds, shells, dune plants, and fish was to be able to pack one slim volume instead of the bag of field guides I usually took to the Outer Banks. After two trips to North Carolina in the last year, I have found that I still need to carry a couple of other references because this is not comprehensive in any one of its categories--and how could it be at 148 pages? However, Meyer's guide does manage to cover many of the specimens commonly found along the Carolina coast. Furthermore, it is written in a graceful voice that keeps you reading long after you've put a name to the beastie you found on the beach. It is not childish or simple at all, but it can be used by the entire family. It stirs wonder.

Editorial Review:

An entertaining, practical, reader-friendly guide to common plants, animals, and the physical environment of the NC/SC coast. Fully illustrated -- over 100 color photographs, plus additional diagrams and drawings with in-depth information on each subject. A beachcomber's handbook, a valuable companion for seaside explorers of all ages. Scientifically accurate, yet written in language the lay public can understand.

Tideland Treasure: The Naturalist's Guide to the Beaches and Salt Marshes of Hilton Head Island and the Southeastern Coast

Todd Ballantine

Amazon Price: $12.89 List Price: $18.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University of South Carolina Press Amazon Marketplace: 52 new & used starting at $2.13

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Very enjoyable and useful resource for the Coastal Carolinas 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 12 people found this review helpful.

This book uses descriptive illustrations to add to the enjoyment of its useful information. Its particularly relevant to the Coastal Carolina region and contains interesting and helpful facts for the beachgoer. Its format serves the single page reader as well as those who enjoy larger portions. Highly Recommended

Wow 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This book gives a wide variety of all the different spots on a barrier island. we use it in enrichment class and I enjoy the book very much.

An absolute must-have 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I used this book for two summers when I lived on Hilton Head. My job was to drive people around on small boats and teach them about the natural wonders of barrier islands. Since I was a boat captain, not a naturalist, this book saved my bacon many times over. Anytime anyone asked me a question, I'd just grab the book and look it up, and I'd usually give it to them so they could look at the pictures. I recommend this book for anyone living near the coast in the Southeast. In fact, a lot of it is still relevant to folks in the Northeast. Some of the species are different, but the processes are still the same.

What's not clear from Amazon's description is that this book has a unique format. Each page was originally an article in the local paper, so you get one page of info per critter or process. The pages are works of art, hand-drawn and lettered in pen and ink. Any one of them would be worthy of framing. The language is clear and easy to understand, written for laymen but with enough info to satisfy naturalists. In fact, they're so beautiful and well-written that I'm here today to buy a copy for a professor of mine who teaches college classes on the geology and natural history of the East coast. There's nothing in this book he doesn't know or can't look up in a normal reference book. It's the artwork that really makes this book pop.

Don't hesitate to buy this--you won't be disappointed!

Editorial Review:

A naturalist's guide to the beaches and marshes of the Southeast coast, portraying the nature of the sea, beach, salt marsh, plants, and animals of the area.

The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities

Mike Tidwell

Amazon Price: $11.90 List Price: $14.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Free Press Amazon Marketplace: 497 new & used starting at $1.25

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The question on every American's mind: Can Katrina happen to me where I live?

The answer, unfortunately, is yes, yes, and again yes. If you are one of the

150 million Americans who live within 100 miles of a coastline -- and even

if you live much farther inland -- you could be inhabiting the next New

Orleans. The bad news for you is that there are even more studies full of

even more scientific data confirming this fact than the studies predicting

Katrina prior to 2005.

The issue this time is global warming. We are literally altering the sky

above us. And be assured: This is not some "junk theory" peddled by Greenpeace

extremists. No less an authority than the Bush Administration itself has

officially confirmed, on multiple occasions, that global warming is real and

is driven by our use of fossil fuels -- oil, coal, and natural gas.

Worldwide, thanks to climate change, sea level is expected to rise up to

three feet within the coming decades and extreme weather events will

significantly increase, according to the Bush Administration.

These two factors -- more intense storms and rising ocean levels -- mean we

are rapidly turning every coastal city in America into another New Orleans.

The Intertidal Wilderness: A Photographic Journey through Pacific Coast Tidepools

Anne Wertheim Rosenfeld

List Price: $45.00 By: University of California Press Amazon Marketplace: 9 new & used starting at $12.57

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Intertidal Wilderness is a stunning photographic exploration of the tidepools of the Pacific coast, from Baja California to as far north as southeast Alaska. These lush photographs capture in striking color the enormous variety of life and biological detail in the intertidal zone along one of the world's most spectacular coastlines. The interpretative text and captions describe telltale signs of ecological relationships and processes, helping the seashore explorer to appreciate ecological interactions and their consequences. The text delves into the roles of competition, predation, reproduction, natural variation in space and time, and color that characterize this vibrant ecosystem.
This revised edition has been updated throughout, incorporating new scientific information, new photographs, and a new chapter discussing the recent human impact on this threatened environment. Fusing art and science, The Intertidal Wilderness conveys the fragility, complexity, and interdependence of the plants and animals living at the interface of land and sea.
The Intertidal Wilderness vividly animates the surprisingly delicate beauty of the often violent intertidal zone, which daily withstands pounding waves at high tides as well as desiccation and exposure at low tides. With revealing photographs, engaging text, and a solid foundation in marine biology, this book will capture the imagination of the casual seashore visitor as well as the dedicated enthusiast.

Atlantic Shorelines: Natural History and Ecology

Mark D. Bertness

Amazon Price: $41.46 List Price: $45.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Princeton University Press Amazon Marketplace: 22 new & used starting at $35.99

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Editorial Review:

Atlantic Shorelines is an introduction to the natural history and ecology of shoreline communities on the East Coast of North America. Writing for a broad audience, Mark Bertness examines how distinctive communities of plants and animals are generated on rocky shores and in salt marshes, mangroves, and soft sediment beaches on Atlantic shorelines.

The book provides a comprehensive background for understanding the basic principles of intertidal ecology and the unique conditions faced by intertidal organisms. It describes the history of the Atlantic Coast, tides, and near-shore oceanographic processes that influence shoreline organisms; explains primary production in shoreline systems, intertidal food webs, and the way intertidal organisms survive; sets out the unusual reproductive challenges of living in an intertidal habitat, and the role of recruitment in shaping intertidal communities; and outlines how biological processes like competition, predation, facilitation, and ecosystem engineering generate the spatial structure of intertidal communities.

The last part of the book focuses on the ecology of the three main shoreline habitats--rocky shores, soft sediment beaches, and shorelines vegetated with salt marsh plants and mangroves--and discusses in detail conservation issues associated with each of them.

Coastal Alert: Energy Ecosystems And Offshore Oil Drilling (Island Press Critical Issues Series, No. 2)

Dwight Holing

List Price: $19.95 By: Island Press Amazon Marketplace: 11 new & used starting at $12.36

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Editorial Review:

Coastal Alert" explains how citizens can protect coastal resources from the damaging effects of offshore oil drilling.

The Coastal Zone: Past, Present, and Future

F. John Vernberg, Winona B. Vernberg

Amazon Price: $29.95 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 2 to 4 weeks By: University of South Carolina Press Amazon Marketplace: 10 new & used starting at $3.32

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Editorial Review:

CONCERNS ABOUT THE HEALTH of the environment have become firmly embedded in the public's list of vital issues confronting present and future generations. The emergence of environmental issues as a significant part of the societal agenda can be traced to the 1960s and 1970s, although threats to the world ecosystem were identified much earlier. In The Coastal Zone, John and Winona Vernberg, the preeminent scholars on the southeastern coastal environment, encourage the general public to gain a more in-depth understanding of environmental science, especially as it pertains to the future of our treasured coastal communities. Using case studies of the southeastern coast, the Vernbergs provide an overview of the ecological characteristics of the coastal zone and urge readers to become aware of environmental consequences resulting from human disturbances such as chemical and biological contamination and habitat alterations. With the rise of urbanization and an ever-increasing population, coastal communities are being subjected to intense multiple stresses resulting from conflicting demands for use of finite resources. In order to save these limited resources for the benefit of present and future generations, the Vernbergs argue that local citizens need to understand the interaction between ecological, economic, and social factors and become actively involved in determining effective resource management policies.

The Nature of Cape Cod

Beth Schwarzman

List Price: $55.00 By: UPNE Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $42.18

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Review: The Nature of Cape Cod 4 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

The new book , The Nature of Cape Cod, by seasoned geologist/naturalist and first-time author, Beth Schwarzman, is informative, beautifully finished with clear detailed maps, and has a writing style that blends important lessons on living in harmony with the natural Cape system with interesting information and facts about the Cape from its geologic beginnings at the end of the Ice Age up to the present day. This book is a welcome addition to the libraries of all who love exploring and appreciating Cape Cod.

Editorial Review:

A well-known Cape naturalist, geologist, and public educator has written the first comprehensive natural history of the area, describing life and natural processes in its varied environments, from ocean beach to cranberry bog to deep woods. The Nature of Cape Cod provides maps and narrative descriptions of 50 sites that invite exploration; it will take readers to hidden gems and reveal new aspects of favorite places. Generously illustrated with drawings and maps, the book can be used by anyone wanting to go beyond the paved roads: walkers, paddlers, and nature lovers of all sorts. It should appeal to year-round and seasonal residents alike, and also to the thousands of short-term visitors who wish they had a guide to the nature of Cape Cod.

Underwater to Get Out of the Rain: A Love Affair With the Sea

Trevor Norton

List Price: $25.00 By: Da Capo Press Amazon Marketplace: 20 new & used starting at $1.75

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The Funny, Informative Life of a Marine Biologist 5 out of 5 stars.
11 of 11 people found this review helpful.

Trevor Norton is one of those lucky men who picked up an enthusiasm when he was a boy, nurtured it through his schooling, and kept at it through a happy lifetime of academic involvement within it. In _Underwater to Get Out of the Rain: A Love Affair with the Sea_ (Da Capo), he lets us in on why he has spent as much of his life as he could under the water, and whether you want to join him there or not, he does make a convincing case for a life passionately and usefully spent. After all, how many other experts on kelp do you know who may have changed the tactics of a war? In 1982, when British troops were dispatched to the Falklands because Argentina had invaded them, Norton was called up by an official from the Ministry of Defense: "'Are you the seaweed chappie?' said a man with a pound of plums in his mouth. 'Just a wee enquiry. I've been led to believe there are exceptionally large seaweeds off the coast of the erm... Falkland Islands.'" Norton confirms this, and explains that stems of the kelp might tangle the propellers of landing craft, but that there would be less of it in sheltered coves and inlets. "Really, by Jove, is that so?" came the reply, and so perhaps kelp and Norton's advice determined the landing places. It's one of countless odd and amusing stories, dished out with plenty of fascinating marine biology, in a thoroughly readable and enchanting book.

Norton had been an unruly child, "but as I learned more about living things, I became too busy to be bad." And he used his fascination for the sea to power his academic efforts (he is now Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Liverpool). The many chapters here cover Norton's underwater life all over the world, and convey his fascination with the creatures he sees. Barnacle mating, for instance, is extraordinary: "The bold, bisexual barnacle has a prick up its sleeve; its enormous penis is three or four times taller than the shell. Out it leaps, thin and arching, and dips into an adjacent barnacle as neat as a nib into a surprised inkwell." The creatures are amazing, and so are the odd people who come into Norton's life, or historical figures who inspired him. Pages here are devoted to Ed Ricketts, the marine biologist of Cannery Row and John Steinbeck's pal. Norton describes Liverpool in the sixties, but explains, "People have often asked me what it was like to be there. If only I'd known it was going to become 'Liverpool in the sixties' I'd have paid more attention." It was where he met his wife (who has done the charming illustrations for this book): "She was obviously bright and I would like to say that I was first attracted by her intellect, but in the age of miniskirts there was so much to admire that I got distracted."

Norton realizes his own good luck in timing. "Yesterday's expedition is today's excursion and tomorrow's package tour." He has been able to see pristine reefs and to write about them, but then faces the dilemma that since complex reef ecology is damaged by human visits, to celebrate the beauty of a specific reef is to "expose it to the dangers of excessive admiration." The coral reef state park in Florida, for instance, gets thousands of visitors a day, as well as damage by pollution and careless boat usage. It isn't the only instance Norton describes of the encroachment of the modern world into the oceans. Overfishing has changed the oceans forever, with much bigger nets, spotter planes to locate schools of fish, and sonar mounted on the nets to guide the skipper in enclosing his prey. "Fish have as much chance of evading a net as a tree has of dodging the ax." Especially distressing is his description of ruin within the waters of the Philippines by such fishing techniques as dynamiting and poisoning by bleach and cyanide. This is far too lively and cheery a book, however, to be overcome by such reflections. Norton is a witty writer with a fund of good stories to tell and a delight in the surprises of the human and the marine world, a delight that any reader will enjoy.

Editorial Review:

All that we know and love of the British seaside weaves throughout this funny, nostalgic and richly told memoir. Fortune-telling gypsies found on crumbling promenades, lighthouses standing to attention, and brass bands playing in the bracing chill of a British summer.


From the Hardcover edition.

National Audubon Society Regional Guide to Atlantic and Gulf Coast: A Personal Journey (Audubon Society Nature Guides)

Steven H. Amos

List Price: $19.95 By: Knopf Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $1.64

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A font of information. The pix are very good 4 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Terrific for identifying regional plants and animals. Too heavy to carry in the field.

Very Informative... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Great field-guide. One of, if not the best. This along with the Peterson field-guide will have you correctly identifying all sorts of Atlantic and Gulf Coast seashore creatures. Very well written, containing all the facts and info you need to get going, identify, and collect the sea life you've always misidentified, and much more you never knew about.

Editorial Review:

A comprehensive field guide, fully illustrated with color photographs, to the birds, plants, fishes, insects, seashore creatures, and other natural wonders of North America's eastern shores, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico.