DANCING ON THE SHORE: A CELEBRATION OF LIFE AT ANNAPOLIS BASIN. Horwood. Harold. Foreword by Parley Mowat. Toronto, McClelland & Stewart (a Douglas Gibson Book), 1987. 219pp, cloth, $19.95. ISBN 0-7710-4202-7. CIP Grades 12 and up Reviewed by Elaine Balpataky Volume 16 Number 1 1988 January Dancing on the Shore, as its title indicates, is a celebration of life. The author, originally from Newfoundland, now lives at Annapolis Basin on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, near Digby. Though recently a novelist, he has returned to writing about nature after realizing that he "would rather have written Walden than all the novels published in English in the nineteenth century." Like his earlier work, The Foxes of Beachy Cove (1967), this book is one of meditation and observation. Beginning with a natural history of the basin and an account of its earliest inhabitants, the author describes his seasonal observations of his immediate environment and uses them to reflect on the natural world and man's place in it. This reflection is in turn informed by his lifetime of reading and thinking. The result is a comprehensive philosophy which embraces time and matter. A beautifully written book, Dancing on the Shore will give the thoughtful reader much joy and a great deal of food for thought. Elaine Balpataky, Ingersoll D.C.I., Ingersoll, Ont.