Four Seasons at the Shore: Photographs of the Jersey Shore Book

For generations, people who have lived or vacationed at the New Jersey Shore have felt deeply connected to it - no matter where they live now, or how long it has been since they've had Jersey Shore sand between their toes. The evocative pictorial book Four Seasons at the Shore - while not offering sand for the toes - immerses the reader in this coast. From the ocean to the bay, from the sand dunes to the salt marsh, from boardwalks to the amusements and arcades, this book of 332 photographs and five essays capture the essence of the Shore from Sandy Hook to Cape May and along the Delaware Bay.

Featuring extraordinary work from more than four dozen talented photographers, this full-color hardcover documents and celebrates the shore. With intimate essays about each season by noted shore writers, the book is an appreciation and a tribute to this beloved coastline.

As John T. Cunningham - the dean of authors about New Jersey - writes in his Prologue, it is the sensual shore that is revealed to us in this book: "Anyone seeking enduring links to this stretch of seacoast finds them only when the senses come into full play."

Four other writers share their personal interpretation of the Jersey Shore in each season. Rich Youmans, co-author of Down the Jersey Shore and editor of poetry and literary anthologies of this coast, gives us spring - punctuated with visits to Shore towns, north to south. Sandy Gingras, author and creator of the "How to Live" series of books, including How to Live at the Beach, writes poetically about the embrace of summer. Autumn at the beach is described by Larry Savadove, co-author of Great Storms of the Jersey Shore, and the novel, The Oyster Singer. Margaret Thomas Buchholz, the other co-author of Great Storms, editor of historical anthologies about the Shore and author of New Jersey Shipwrecks, lets us feel winter in the bungalow near Barnegat Bay where she grew up.

The 332 color images in the book are by professional photographers and dedicated amateurs. They offer an eye for the details, the colors, forms, slant of light, and seascapes that combine to make the Jersey Shore a visual experience unique in America.