The average Australian has conducted a lifelong love affair with the beach and the ocean shores, bays, dunes, lagoons and rivers of the coast. Until now, however, no one has attempted to match the ancient sensual and artistic preoccupation with the sea to the intuitive appreciation of the coast felt by modern beachgoers. In this illustrious international selection, Robert Drewe has drawn together twenty-five of the finest contemporary writers whose stories represent the most stimulating, startling, humorous and deeply moving writing about the beach.