Walking along the beach, whether ocean, lake or river, who has not stopped to admire the evocatively patterned, shaped and multihued Beach Stones?  Free for the taking and fun to collect, beach stones are objects of beauty, contemplation and sentiment.  This exquisite 142 page volume, both a nature guide and  gorgeous art book, presents more than 200 exceptional stones from around the world and describes the fascinating natural processes that produced them.

Photographer and installation artist Josie Iselin has arranged these stones with great artistry and nature writer Margaret Carruthers yields their secrets, revealing, for instance, that a pebble from Maine was created 400 million years ago during the birth of a great mountain range.  Beachcombers everywhere will appreciate this book.