Spirals in Time: The Secret Life and Curious Afterlife of Seashells Paperback – 7 April 2016

I bought this book for two reasons. First, I listened to Helen Scales on the BBC talking about her book and thought what a marvellous raconteur of a marvelleous subject. Second. My wife is an ardent collector of seashells and I have been infected by her enthusiasm. She has a wonderful collection of seashells gathered mostly from the shores of the Persian Gulf at Ras al Khaimah when for fifteen years we lived in Dubai. I suspect that now such a collection would be impossible because of massive building on the shores and pollution of the sea. The book is magnificent and fulfills all my hopes. Helen Scales is an expert marine biologist and mixes jolly vigmettes with the scientific material. Even if you are not interested in seashells it's a very good read. In my next life I think I'll be a marine biologist rather than a doctor...no on-call duties.Doctor Lark

I haven't actually finished Spirals in Time yet but it is really good-oh. Interesting stuff about mouth-parts (limpets could chew holes in bulletproof jackets – if they wanted to - and Britain recently discovered its first predatory slug (in Wales – where else!)). While cone snails spit their hollowed-out teeth (loaded with deadly toxins (some of which can kill humans)) at their prey. Tusk shells, the scaphopods, are interesting and, apparently, a pain in the neck as we just don’t know enough about them to slot them into the great tree of Mollusca! I am really enjoying it. Keeps your mind ticking over at a good speed and the sort of book you need Wikipedia fired up as you read it.

Bought it as a present so never read it but it was well reviewed on the Radio.

Brilliant, fascinating and well written, an extremely readable and enjoyable exploration of the sea and the natural history of molluscs, gastropods etc. I love the passion of her writing and her knowledge of the subject - just superb!

This is easily the best book I've read so far this year. Helen Scales covers a wide range of topics as she tells us about molluscs in all their forms. How they make their shells, the patterns on them, the shellfish we eat and other uses man has made of them, their predators, how they hunt and how they will cope in the face of ocean acidification - a little talked about effect of global warming - it's endlessly fascinating.If you've ever picked up a shell on a beach and popped it into your pocket then this is for you.

I was tempted into buying this by Helen's excellent short Radio 4 excerpts, where she reads lightly-edited sections of the book to tell individual mollusc stories. To my ears she read her own words very effectively and I recommend anyone to seek out those programmes if still available. However the book is a slightly different matter, to me at least. Obviously the "stories" are the same, but there is a kind of veneer over it which distances me, whereas her own reading did not. There is a kind of unnecessary breathlessness, an over-keenness which I really did not like, this despite the fact that her readings were measured and almost sardonic. In the end, the radio broadcasts convinced me that molluscs were fascinating: the book seemed to be telling me why Helen thought they were fascinating, which is a different thing. But as they say in the States, Your Mileage May Vary (i.e. you may well disagree with me). Having removed an additional star for the fact that the colour figures are not referenced in the text (an astonishing piece of laziness on behalf of Bloomsbury) I still give it 3 stars for the sheer interest within.

Brought this after reading up about it, as a family we are facinated by seashells so bought this as a gift for my husband to read first however I've started it already, very interesting so far can't wait to find out more.

looks good not had time to read it yet