A classic ( )

27. The Edge of the Sea by Rachel Carson
reader: Kaiulani Lee
OPD: 1955
format: 8:45 audible audiobook (288 pages in the original edition)
acquired: from Audible included listened: Apr 10-29
rating: 3½ ?
genre/style: Nature theme: Random audio
locations: The North American Atlantic coast
about the author: 1907 –1964, born on a family farm near Springdale, Pennsylvania. Carson was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose influential book Silent Spring (1962) and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.

This was Carson's 3rd book. Early on she writes:

"There is a common thread that links these scenes and memories—the spectacle of life in all its varied manifestations as it has appeared, evolved, and sometimes died out. Underlying the beauty of the spectacle there is meaning and significance. It is the elusiveness of that meaning that haunts us, that sends us again and again into the natural world where the key to the riddle is hidden."

And she follows up, searching for that riddle with extensive detail. Here she combs the North American Atlantic cost, from Canada and New England's rocks and large tides to Florida's keys and the Ten Thousand Islands behind them. From barnacles (which I learned are arthropods, like lobsters and crabs, and not bivalves) to algae, seaweed, snails and worms. She zooms in again and again, pulling out the microscope at times, checking the different tidal zones and pools and niches.

I liked [The Sea Around Us] much more than this one. I just found that she asked a lot of me here, a casual listener. It was tough on my little attention span, focusing on animal after animal. Perhaps better a book to dip into, instead of march through. There is a lot of info within.

2023
https://www.librarything.com/topic/348551#8135955 ( )

green

Wonderful written. The book is mostly a catalog of beach animals, but sill a page turner. ( )

In “The Edge of the Sea,” Rachel Carson writes with a beautiful clarity about our very human attraction to the seashore and the deeper understanding we can find there.

My full review here: https://slownaturefastcity.com/2016/06/12/edge-of-the-sea/ ( )