Adam Nicolson

Few places are as familiar as the shore - and few as full of mystery and surprise.

How do sandhoppers inherit an inbuilt compass from their parents? How do crabs understand the tides? How can the death of one winkle guarantee the lives of its companions? What does a prawn know?

In The Sea is Not Made of Water, Adam Nicolson explores the natural wonders of the intertidal and our long human relationship with it. The physics of the seas, the biology of anemone and limpet, the long history of the earth, and the stories we tell of those who have lived here: all interconnect in this zone where the philosopher, scientist and poet can meet and find meaning.

In this blend of fascinating, surprising ecology and luminous human history, Adam Nicolson gives an invitation to the shoreline. Anyone who chooses can look beyond their own reflection and find the marvellous there, waiting an inch beneath their nose.

The year in the late 1790s that Coleridge, Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy spent together in the Quantock Hills, is the most famous year in English poetry. Out of it came 'The Ancient Mariner' and 'Kubla Khan' as well as Wordsworth's 'Lyrical Ballads' and the greatness of 'Tintern Abbey'. The idea that these poems came from this place, and that only by experiencing the physical circumstances of the year, in all weathers and all seasons, can the genesis of the poetry start to be understood.

Seabirds are master navigators, thriving in the most demanding environment on earth. In this masterly book, drawing on all the most recent research, Adam Nicolson follows them to the coasts and islands of Scotland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, and the Americas.

Author Adam Nicolson, grandson of poet Vita Sackville-West, traces the history of his family home: Sissinghurst. He tells of the passionate efforts to restore his family's celebrated garden, an effort that included a reinstatement of a working farm to grow food for more than 200,000 annual visitors.