A Book for the Beach: Strands by Jean Sprackland

This volume of 'discoveries on the beach' is a beautiful trove of unsettling news from the threatened seashore

It is wonderful to read a book about beaches on the beach, although this is not for those who prefer to keep their heads in the sand. Jean Sprackland is a fine poet and her revelatory book, although scattered with poetry, is written in transparent, undeceived prose. It strikes a careful balance between marvelling at the shore (the estuarial beaches of Ainsdale Sands between Blackpool and Liverpool) and monitoring a terrifying fall from grace. It considers our modern spoiling of the waters and the cavalier way in which we take coastal wonders for granted as though confident the sea could never really suffer.

The book is, at every turn, minutely researched. There is an astonishing account of the leaking of anti-depressants: "Doctors issue 30m prescriptions a year for Prozac and other anti-depressants classed as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Fluoxetine, the active ingredient in these drugs, has been leaking into oceans and rivers for years, but the extraordinarily steep rise in prescription means that levels are rocketing." And then things get surreal as she describes a shrimp population in decline because, on anti-depressants, they become reckless, swimming into the sun and getting killed. All this will make readers step into the sea with firmly sealed lips.

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