If you’ve ever walked along a beach or rocky shore and peered, poked or wondered at the things cast upon it by the waves, this book is for you. Beaches are our windows to the ocean, and the objects we find on them tell stories about life, death and dynamic processes in the sea. Learn about how waves, currents, tides and storms affect beaches.

Find out about the many different sorts of plants, animals and algae we find living and dying on beaches, and where human-made flotsam and jetsam might come from. Discover the processes that connect coastal ecosystems around the Southern Hemisphere, and why there are so many similarities between far-distant shores. Rather than identifying living things to species level, this book will help you to understand what sorts of organisms and other objects you find on beaches, and the intriguing reasons they have come to be there.