Beaches [Hardcover]

Gideon Bosker (Author), Lena Lencek (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2000

The authors of The Beach: The History of Paradise on Earth, the best-selling history of everyone's favorite place, are back with a breathtaking visual companion. From moody, craggy coastlines to serene swathes of turquoise water and white sand, Beaches is an astounding photographic survey of the ineffable allure of paradise on earth. This spectacular collection of images from renowned photographers, including Richard Misrach, Joel Meyerowitz, and Art Wolfe, stirs the spirit, capturing the mutable beauty of sand, sea, and sky. Throughout, concise and poetic pieces of historic and scientific lore unveil little-known facts and curiosities. With an astonishing range of vision, Beaches evokes the idiosyncratic beauty of the world's most stunning coastlines.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Sand is a substance that is beautiful, mysterious, and infinitely variable, the result of process that go back into the shadowy beginnings of life. Rachel Carson

About the Author

Gideon Bosker is a writer, photographer, and devoted pop culture connoisseur who has collaborated on many fine books. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Lena Lencek has collaborated with Gideon Bosker on a wide range of projects, from Fabulous Fabrics of the 50s and Patio Daddy-O (0-8118-0871-8) to Pilgrimage: The Spirit of Place (0-8118-3473-5). They live in Portland, Oregon.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 132 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books (June 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811826503
• ISBN-13: 978-0811826501
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 9.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #486,007 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #9 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Earth Sciences > Geology > Geomorphology

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Take a Trip to the Coast, April 30, 2000

By 

S. L. Nelson (Pacifica, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beaches (Hardcover)

Forget the hazzles and stress from the day. Take a trip to the coast, to the beach, to the lake. The book is beautiful and it makes me feel like I've taken a mini vacation!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous Pictorial for Beach Lovers, December 23, 2000

By 

J. Charles Hansen (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beaches (Hardcover)

This book is filled with stunningly beautiful photos from beaches all over the world. The brief text is also interesting, but the images will make you crack this open when you want to remember the magic that happens when the ocean meets the land. I don't know exactly what is different here but the photos look especially vibrant and kind of jumped out at me.

From Antartica, to Cape Cod, to Tahiti, Indonesia and Newport Beach to name a few you'll see all the different elements of beaches around the globe. I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't love having this book around. This would also make a great gift.

I used to live in Capitola on the sand and looking through this reminded me of all the reason I love the beach. It's obvious that the authors must have the same passion. Also the book cover and pages are high quality and physically look and feel great.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond the Most Beautiful Beach Scenes You've Seen, July 4, 2001

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Beaches (Hardcover)

Review Summary: Take the most talented photographers in the world. Review thousands of their best color beach photographs. Select a few dozen. Fill in with intriguing, inspirational essays about the origin, geology, physics, terms, and biology of beaches plus describe great beach activities like surfing. The result is a stunning work that makes you wonder how come you've never seen a beach scene as beautiful as these. It's the most fun at the beach you can have without going out into the sun!

Review: "The beach, after all, is among the most challenging and rewarding of photographic subjects . . . ." The shifts between land, water, and sky are often subtle. The light has an enormous influence on the colors and the mood of the scene. Light changes swiftly. The activity of the waves changes even faster. In many cases, a photograph is capturing a unique and fleeting moment, almost like a snowflake about to melt on your hand, that could not otherwise be as fully appreciated. While the editing could have selected scenes built around the nostalgia of your own experiences at beaches, the book instead takes you around the world and to rare moments to see beaches as you will probably never see them in a lifetime, even if you visited these same sites. I was particularly impressed by the scenes of waves (which must have been taken from surf boards) and through rocks.

The editorial selection criteria were intriguing: To show "how the beach might see itself if it were to ponder its own face without the intermediary of the human eye." That concept would not have occurred to me, and I am sure I will think about all scenes in nature differently in the future as a result. I am sure you will, too. Next, the editors looked for "the most crystalline, intelligent, and evocative portrait . . . ." They also wanted the book to show a "shining range of visual sensiblities." This sense is nicely captured by looking at scenes from dawn to dusk, and from full sun to fog. Panoramas alternate with tight shots of a single element. The book is not limited to ocean beaches. Estuaries, rivers and lakes are also pictured. When in doubt, the book's editors seem to have selected the images with the highest levels of unusual color, along with stunning compositions from unusual angles.

My favorites in the book are Art Brewer's Talava Arches on Niue Island in the Cook Islands, A. Blake Gardner's shot of Padre Island National Seashore in Texas, Michael Ventura's image of Natural Arches in Bermuda, Craig Tuttle's Tide Pool at Bandon State Park and his shot of Ecola State Park both in Oregon, Ron Romanosky's beautiful Newport Beach, California, Daryl Benson's Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, Peter Lik's Australian shots of Orpheus Island in Queensland and Twelve Apostles in Victoria, and Joe Cornish's North Yorkshire Coast in England.

After you have bathed in the beauty of these rare natural wonders, I suggest you think about other rare moments that you may never experience. What are they? How can you seek them out? Can others help you? One of the great wonders of books, videos, and recordings is that they can bring us into extended communion with sights, sounds, and feelings that we have not directly experienced.

Let choosing rare, rewarding moments be a guide to your fulfillment!