A fascinating, if overly scientific look at tides and tidal movement. I will say, I think I discovered that I like thinking about tides theoretically rather than practically-- I found this one a bit hard to stick with.

Foreword by Peter Mathiessen, in 2014.
First chapter, Fundy, North America, with tidal mudflats and sandpipers feeding. Since this has a high range between low and high tide, engineers were considering dams to capture energy, until they were told these would silt up fast. I enjoyed the accounts of studying the sandpipers. Tides meant a lot to native fisherfolk.

Mont St Michel, France. Causeway at low tide. Since this is a historical place, the author talks about tribal studies and beliefs about the moon and its phases. Moses didn't need to part the Red Sea - there is a sandbar across at low tide, but Pharaoh's chariot wheels would have got stuck and trapped the army as water returned. And just what did everyone think caused the tides?

Quiantang bore in China. As well as much folk belief, history and modern history, the author tells us of standing on the mud watching a stacked series of waves coming fast for him....

The Royal Society and the age of scientific study begins. Newton creates laws to match observed gravity. Galileo noticed water in jugs on a boat sloshing back and forth and realised that the tides did the same.

Surfing big waves. Now we start to see the irregularities - global explorers found some places had one tide a day, others four and so on. Storm surges, tsunamis.

While the book is copiously illustated, sadly none of the photos showed properly in my e-ARC and the maps and diagrams, if they did show, stalled and dragged their way down the page screen. I had set it to the smallest resolution to speed the trip but it stalled halfway on the map of British Columbia and could not progress. I am sure the book will be fine on paper. This means I was unable to read the index and references and see how many references contained female names.

I enjoyed the style and found the book mostly easy to follow. This seems intended for adults but mature teens would be fine with the read.
I downloaded an e-ARC from Net Galley. This is an unbiased review.

Jonathan White is a sailor, surfer, writer, and active marine conservationist who takes his readers on an adventure around the world to discover the science and spirit of ocean tides.

Some of the fascinating topics covered in this book include tidal bores, tidal anomalies, the difference between spring and neap tides, the science and history of forecasting tides, resonance, geophysics, the different methods of harvesting energy from the ocean, and a rather poor attempt to describe the effects of rising tides on civilization.

The author provides a superficial explanation of tidal mechanics – I really was looking for more information on this, especially in a book subtitled “the science and spirit of the ocean”. The “spirit” part of the subtitle takes over the book in terms of personal anecdotes, “travel writing”, tangential stories and philosophical musings that didn’t particularly appeal to me.

The book was also arranged in an odd manner by explaining specific tidal anomalies before explaining tides in general. Trying to sift the interesting scientific information out of all the extraneous text didn’t help with the conveyance of information. However, the book does provide numerous black & white photographs, explanatory diagrams and sixteen colour photographs.

If you want to know more about tides and like personal, chatty stories mixed with your science, then you will probably enjoy this book. If you want more science and less “fluff”, you need to look elsewhere.

This book was fascinating. The science was understandable to a layman, I picked it up primarily to read about tidal bores. Have just learned about them, I wanted to learn more. It's amazing to me that people surf them! But overall, the book was worth reading and, I think, belongs in every collection.