New Book for Curious Beachcombers!

Ever been browsing in your favorite bookstore and find a book that you just HAD TO HAVE RIGHT NOW?

Today I was in the local Barnes & Noble, looking over the Florida books and planning my next kayak trip and just generally looking to see if anything new has come out. I was about to leave when my eyes landed on a very colorful book placed way down on the bottom shelf. Florida's Living Beaches: A Guide for the Curious Beachcomber, by Blair and Dawn Witherington is an absolute must-have for beachcombers.

Do you take your kids to the beach, and every 30 seconds they are running up to you with a new shell or strange piece of flotsam or jetsam they've found, saying "Hey Mom, hey Dad, what's this?" Well now you can just hand them this book and say "look it up and let me know what you find out!"

It has a color photo of everything. A total of 985 color images, 431 maps, and descriptive accounts of 822 items that you may encounter on the Florida beaches or in the nearby waters.

Here's a partial list of what you will find in the book:
Beach physical features (dunes, sea foam, tides, waves, currents, weather, red tide)
Beach Animals (sponges, jellies, hydroids, anemones, corals, shells, crabs, fish, birds, mammals, tunicates)
Beach Plants
Beach rocks and minerals
Manmade stuff that washes up (sound boring? It isn't, trust me)

Blair is a research scientist with the FWC Fish & Wildlife Research Institute and Dawn is a graphic design artist and scientific illustrator. They really know their stuff.

I paid $21.95 for the book and it was a real bargain, with all those color photos. It is in 6 X 9 format with 326 glossy color pages. Too big to stick in your pocket, but just right to put in your beach bag or backpack. It's a softcover, but the cover is extra thick and glossy with French flaps. Mine is going to get some serious use, I can tell you that for sure.

It is available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, the Pineapple Press website, and many other online and offline book stores.

The book is not a complete and exhaustive scientific catalogue of every species that you could encounter. Such a book would be too large and heavy. It does have nearly everything you will encounter.

Don't go to the beach without it.