Alex Williams's Reviews > Walking the Wrack Line: On Tidal Shifts and What Remains

Walking the Wrackline is a book of prose by Barbra Hurd, who wrote Stirring the Mud, that squishy dreamy book I loved so much last year.

Each short chapter tells a story of the magic found along the ocean shore. She writes about the microbes in ponds, intertidal zones and the spaces between grains of sand. She muses about the massive gentleness of the tide. Its a poetic description of an indescribable vibe.

She zooms in with her empathy, and shares details of what goes on inside seashells, and imagines witnessing the tide from a star fish's point of view. This book is as much about being a creative person as it is about being a sea creature. It swings back and forth between questioning the difference between making and seeking and exploring the lives of Moon Snails, jellyfish and messages in bottles.