A review by hilaritas
The Sea Inside by Philip Hoare

4.0

This is a beautiful book but very difficult to categorize. I guess it's a travel book because it deals with many places both near and far from the author's home, but it reaches those places only in a haphazard way. The book treats of various disparate topics, from Maori in 19th century Britain, to the way that chemical plants fit a coastal landscape, to swimming with whales, to elegiac accounts of albatrosses and other birds who spend their lives on the wing. Overall the tone is both poetic and melancholic. I read Hoare's earlier work on whales and this one compares favorably. A wonderful mix of literary and nature writing.