About the Book
The island of Britain has over 10,000 miles of coastline, steeped in history and constantly shifting, changing, adapting and providing. The Restless Coast is a moving and beautiful account of a journey around it, during which the author travels its length to discover its challenges and opportunities, and to talk to the people trying to protect it. At once delightful travelogue and passionate defence, The Restless Coast shines a powerful spotlight into the thin line that surrounds us, and defines our status as islanders. Overarching the journey is the extraordinary natural history of the coastline, together with the story of how man has imprinted himself on its very geology and shape for countless centuries. Into the account, Roger Morgan-Grenville threads the modern challenges that the shoreline faces, and the people who are trying to protect it. At once informative, angry and funny, The Restless Coast is a very personal love letter to our island edge. AUTHOR: Roger Morgan-Grenville is a writer, speaker and campaigner on nature and biodiversity, especially in the United Kingdom. In his lifetime, we have effectively lost half of what we had. "We have a giant and uncomfortable opportunity staring us in the face right now. At the same time that biodiversity loss is even more likely to harm us than climate change, it is also generally far easier to restore. Therefore I try to write with a mixture of hope and realism, and of science and anecdote, always conscious that our stories are human ones. We got the place into this mess, and it is only us and our combined efforts that will bring us back out again; we won't mend nature by simply hating the species that has brought it to this point. And there is no situation that is so serious that there isn't room for gentle humor." He also campaign actively to restore the Eurasian Curlew, Britain's biggest wader, to a healthy population, and to bring Natural History back as a permanent feature of our children's education, and not just the privileged ones.
About the Author :
Roger Morgan-Grenville was a soldier from 1978-86. In 2007, he helped to set up the charity Help for Heroes, and in 2020 he was a founding member of the conservation charity, Curlew Action. His earlier titles, Liquid Gold, Shearwater, Taking Stock and Across a Waking Land are also published by Icon. He lives in West Sussex.
Review :
Beautifully written - a great read.
You can almost taste the salt-spray on Roger Morgan-Grenville's words as he simultaneously circumnavigates our coastline and our attitudes to nature in this confident, perceptive and immensely readable book. A journey that - one way or another - we are all on.
Beautiful and important, by reading The Restless Coast, we too can collect a pocket full of shells, wisdom and love for our precious island shores. A superb read!
The Restless Coast is a wonderful book, an open-hearted merging of astute journalism, gritty endeavour and intelligent, informed wit. Roger approaches every issue with a true love of nature and of people, peeling away the layers of complexity to reveal the heart of salmon farming, plastic pollution, overfishing, tidal barrages and the many other twenty-first century problems that are inexorably changing the very nature of our island. Roger has a restless desire to find the truth about the coastline of Britain, and he has admirably achieved what he set out to do.
Roger Morgan-Grenville is a nature writer par excellence. His love of nature shines through every page of this book. For this author nature is not simply a means to an end to be exploited or economic growth, nature is life itself. The Restless Coast is a testimony of the intrinsic value of nature. Read it, you may fall in love with the incredible coastline of Britain, as I have!
A wonderful and inspiring book, tuned, especially, to the voices, communities and livelihoods of those who live and work around the coast. Reading it I came away with a much clearer understanding of the issues the coast faces, an admiration for those working to protect it, and, above all, an appreciation of how precious this habitat is.
From the gasping exhaustion of salmon rivers to crumbling cliffscapes where entire villages slide into the waves, from faded seaside resorts to seabird cities, Roger Morgan-Grenville takes it all in. His invigorating account of a coast-hugging walk is probingly inquisitive and ever alert, mapping out the scale of human profligacy, not least the prevalence of plastic everywhere while also meeting folk who try to safeguard nature despite a systemic lack of care. As with his other books, he makes for a very amiable companion, whether stopping for a pint on the gentrified banks of the Thames or enjoying the simple pleasures of beach-side ice-cream. A tremendous achievement and so very, very timely.
This book is a great read and it brings together places, people and issues ... I may not read a better book this year.
Our coast, ragingly beautiful and calmly bounteous, but increasingly de-natured has long needed a human voice. Someone capable of writing the message in the bottle to wake the world. That message is The Restless Coast, and Roger Morgan-Grenville is the merman. Pray, pray to the god of the sea that politicians read it.
Whether we realise it or not, we're all influenced by the ebb and flow of coastal life around us - and this book will help us understand just how important our coasts are.
A delightful and insightful read. As an incurable lover of the shoreline, this book brought out the wanderlust in me. It had me pulling on my boots, sensing the sea breeze, touching the waves, and hearing the story in the miles that rolled by. All without leaving my armchair. It reminded me that the coast has an undeniable draw for the human spirit. It gave a celebratory front row seat over the waterfront that has provided fascination for a lifetime.
Morgan-Grenville is clear-eyed, but not pessimistic ... he's a good listener and communicates hard truths
We feel we have walked the journey along with him, and for that we can be full of gratitude. This is a wondrous thrill of a book.
