“The Curious World of Seaweed.”

As you dive deeper into understanding nature, there are no doubt thousands of books that you will leaf through that will be, at there core, a collection of drawings, photographs, scientific names and “quick facts” on the items you may find. While these books are helpful in some forms of identification and base knowledge of the area you are looking to explore, they can leave you hanging on the small details.

Then there are books that take a subject so seemingly mundane and break it down in a way that only the truly obsessed might put together. These are magical books that will move you from casual knowledgeable observer to the person who knows way to many little facts about what ever you might be interested in. Josie Islelin has done this in the most wonderful way with “The Curious World of Seaweed.”

In this book, Josie breaks down the intricacies of 16 of the plants living in our oceans. It is packed with detailed facts about not only the name and family of the plant, but the science behind each species, how it and where it grows and stories about how it was discovered. Where most books give you a simple description, the author gives us written details about the specimens that you may not notice at first glance, but you would find as you inspect the plant more closely. To top this off, following the scientific customs of the past ocean fona researchers, the book includes what seems to be hundreds of detailed flat bed scanned photographs of each plant. This brings out the true structures and amazing colors of the plants discussed and will leave you with no doubt about which plant you are seeing as you forage your way through the inter-tidal zones.

The hardcover of this beautiful book can be found on Amazon at around $25.00 at the time of written this review.