Introduction to California's Beaches and Coast (Volume 99) (California Natural History Guides)

Conversational style was an interesting read. Small format made studying the illustrations difficult. Specific GPS coordinates of interesting features would be nice.

This book fills an essential place not done by any other book I know---an informative guide to the ocean, waves, beaches, and shoreline of California's 1100-mile coast. The author knows his stuff: he's the Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at U.C. Santa Cruz, but writes in an engaging style that most tourists, home owners, or simply beach bums would probably enjoy reading. In this book, you'll learn about such things as how the California coast came to be geologically, the coastal climate (explaining such things as El Nino and "June Gloom" and why we have those almost endless summers), changing sea levels and the effects of global warming, the mechanics of waves, where beach sand comes from and goes, offshore life, and--important for local residents--the eroding coastline. There's an abundance of colorful nontechnical graphs, maps, and photos as well. If you live on or near the coast, you may be surprised how learning some important things about it enriches your experiences.

I bought it for my son to read on the plane on his vacation to Baja. He loved it and he also used it as a learning tool for teaching his daughters by making up multiple choice questions and other learning games using information from Gary Grigg's book, while they were at the beach in El Cerritoes, Baja.

Fascinating background to where we live and what has formed our environment. Interesting and readable.

This book introduces and summarizes essential information about the California coast in a readable and interesting manner. Very useful reference and book.