Seashore Life of the Northern Pacific Coast: An Illustrated Guide to Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia

Rating:
Summary: Not for you if you just want to know "what is this?"
Review: This book is really geared more toward the academic. I would not find it useful as a field guide, though it makes for fairly interesting biological reading. It is not laid out in a "field guide" fashion, with species listed and illustrations for each provided. It would be frustrating to take the kids to the beach at low tide and attempt to use this unless you are very well acquainted with your marine taxonomy. Most species are not identified by a common name, and the color plates and illustrations are not necessarily near the species text.
This book reads as a textbook for students rather than a useful tool for laymen who just need to know what critter they just found under a rock, and want the information before the tide comes back in.

Rating:
Summary: A great guide for someone who wants to see for themselves
Review: Though published in the early 1980s, this book does a wonderful job of introducing the active naturalist to the nearshore marine life of the Pacific Northwest. This book includes good illustrations and photographs, descriptions of where marine flora and fauna live and what they do there. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to go the seashore of the Pacific Northwest and figure out what they are looking at. Kozloff has been there and seen everything he's writing about. I use this book as my primary text when I take students to Puget Sound, Washington, for my marine ecology field course. A top notch field guide!