Mike Brown & Barbara Humberstone (Eds). Seascapes: Shaped by the Sea. Ashgate, 2015.

After working with Mike Brown on his previous book A Pedagogy of Place, which he wrote with Brian Wattchow, I jumped at the chance to be involved with this project. This time he and his co-editor Barbara Humberstone commissioned eleven chapters from academic writers who had varying experiences of and about the sea. The authors include surfers, swimmers, sailors and kayakers. Once again, my job was to proof read and copy edit their chapters and those written by Mike and Barbara themselves. The publisher’s specifications were clear and concise (this is not always the case!) and it turned into a really pleasant experience for me, particularly as I have a close affinity with the sea, having grown up near an iconic surfing beach on the south-east coast of Africa and having lived on the North Island of New Zealand, where one is never far from the sea. The accounts in this book are auto-ethnographic. It is an academic resource grounded in theory and is also a thoroughly enjoyable read for the lay person, with its multiple voices about lived experiences in and on the sea. I highly recommend it (not just because I worked on it!)