Rock Pool by Heather Buttivant – May Book of the Month

For many people, the pocket universes held inside tide pools are a source of intrigue and wonder. Their inhabitants are brightly coloured, spiny or shelled, or with smooth, slick skin, clinging to stones or tucked away under rocky overhangs. In her new book Rock Pool: Extraordinary Encounters Between the Tides, writer, educator and naturalist Heather Buttivant explores life in the inter-tidal zone with intimate photographs and engaging prose.

As a Cornish native, Heather has long felt the pull of the tide. Her childhood fascination with the sea and its inhabitants has led to a career in environmentalism and wildlife education, and Heather’s desire to share this passion shines through in Rock Pool. By focusing on twenty-four of the ordinary and extraordinary creatures who call the tide pools home, she presents an engaging look at a world that sits so close to our own but whose rules and inhabitants are totally alien.

Heather’s blog Cornish Rock Pools won the 2017 BBC Wildlife Magazine Blog of the Year Award for its blend of the factual and the personal, and her book is equally entrancing. Rock Pool is also a thing of objective beauty – a lush hardcover with bright photographs and charming chapter-heading illustrations of each creature.

Rock Pool: Extraordinary Encounters Between the Tides will be a delight to existing rock poolers, and will no doubt inspire a new raft of fans.