Four Seasons at the Shore is compelling and dramatic, the shore book of the year.” The Beachcomber

Four Seasons
at the Shore

Photographs of the Jersey Shore

Essays by Margaret Thomas Buchholz, Sandy Gingras, Larry Savadove, Rich Youmans; Prologue by John T. Cunningham

"New Jersey's shoreline gets the royal treatment in this robust collectin of color photographs."

— Publishers Weekly

11 1/4" x 10 1/4"
large format pictorial hardcover
$48.00
332 color photographs by 49 photographers

ISBN 0-945582-91-9

NEW $48.00
"HURT" BOOK $20.50
Also available as a "hurt book for $20.50 which may have some cover dings or scuffs, but inside pages are clean and unmarked.
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SPRING
SUMMER
AUTUMN
WINTER
Click on pages for sample images from one of our most beautiful books...

BOOK DESCRIPTION

For generations, people who have lived or vacationed at the New Jersey Shore have felt deeply connected to it — no matter where they live or how long it has been since they’ve had Jersey Shore sand between their toes. 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 captures the essence of the shore from Sandy Hook to Cape May and along the Delaware Bay.

Featuring the extraordinary work of more than four dozen talented photographers, this full-color pictorial hardcover both documents and celebrates the New Jersey Shore. With intimate essays about each season by noted shore writers, this 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 (Rutgers) 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, and editor of historical anthologies about the shore and author of a forthcoming book about 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, who offer an eye for the details, the colors, forms, slant of light and seascapes that all make the Jersey Shore a visual experience unique in America.

REVIEWS

"And there are some surprises: cross-country skiers gliding across snowy Ocean City and Harvey Cedars beaches; a weathered house on Island Beach State Park still in use by its lucky owner; a lopsided view from a windsurfer; and any number of deep orange sunsets reminiscent of the familiar and beautiful "Endless Summer" poster. There aren't people obviously in view throughout, though, and there's probably a good reason for this. Part of the charm of Four Seasons lies in the invitation given here to the reader of inserting himself, friends, and family into the photos, calling out from the porches of memory and imagination his own magic days at the Jersey Shore."


"Buy another coffee table just for this one. Four Seasons is a beautiful scrapbook for the people who call the beach a permanent home, and it’s a security blanket of a souvenir for visitors until they can come back. "


FROM PUBLISHERSWEEKLY

New Jersey's shoreline gets the royal treatment in this robust collection of color photographs. The book's summer section is a riot of people and color, while winter, spring and fall are more pensive. The essays — largely personal [are] still accessible to the general reader.... Quotes and poems complete this handsome volume.

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

EXCERPTS

Summertime: it’s the big mix. The heady yearn of a salt marsh low tide, one stalk of an egret, the gushy tangy spiritual wash of the ocean, the cheap innocent slap of a flip-flop. Asphalt meets suntan lotion, boardwalk and bees hum harmony. The whole world is ripening....

— Sandy Gingras, from "Summer"

But to dwellers by the sea, fall is relief, and belief. The beach no longer smells of coconut oil. It is primeval again. Looking seaward, you recognize eternity. Houses stand empty-eyed. Gulls squawk at tire tracks in the sand until they, too, are gone. The sea darkens, but the sky lifts.

— Larry Savadove, from "Autumn"

The winter beach is invigorating, visceral. If the wind — always the wind — is from the west the dunes protect me. On a sunny winter day the beach seems wider, flatter, more expansive, the sand whiter....

— Margaret Thomas Buchholz, from "Winter"

... the special power of the Shore in spring, when a walk along the beach can be a personal journey — one that for many of us has become a sustaining ritual. Soon, no doubt, I will welcome the advancing crowds, the rush of energy that summer brings to the Shore. But not now. I continue on, absorbed by this place and its elemental beauty.

— Rich Youmans, from "Spring"

CONTRIBUTORS

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Box 100, West Creek, NJ 08092
e-mail downshore@gmail.com • (609) 812-5076 fax (609) 812-5098

Copyright © 2019 Down The Shore Publishing Corp. The words "Down The Shore" and logo are a registered U.S. Trademark.