Neptune's Garden: Shells A to Z (Hardback)

This is a handcrafted display of seashells found around the world. Paintings and hand-lettered text invite the reader into a world of shells, with each section opening with a letter from A-Z designed from tiny shells that follow descriptions of shells with the popular as well as the Latin names included. Science, folklore, history, myth, cooking, craft and travel all inform the individual portraits. For example, the murex shell's entry tells the history of the royal purple dye extracted from them by Mediterranean sailors in ancient times. There are recipes for delicacies such as mussel and almond soup and conch salad and instructions for crafts such as making wind chimes and stencilling a frieze of shells.