From Amazon.com: "Castles built on sand are doomed, they say. But in our hunger for an ocean view from the living-room window, we keep building things we expect to last on beaches that never stay still. In Against the Tide, Cornelia Dean, science editor of The New York Times, outlines the global coastal management crisis and all the elaborate engineering methods developed to stave off erosion — revetments, sand-trapping devices, seawalls, groins and jetties, even artificial seaweed beds."

Blakeslee: "Writing a book with Rama is an exercise in delight. He is one of the most original people I've ever met, full of fascinating ideas, oddball but brilliant experiments and deep insights into the nature of the human brain. This book is first about phantom limbs — what they are, how to manipulate them, and finally, how to make them go away."

Blakeslee: "Judy and I wrote this book in response to the enthusiastic reception of Second Chances. The publisher said, 'Well, you've told us about divorce and hinted at why marriages fail. Can you tell us why marriages work? What make for a good marriage?' We were intrigued and began looking into the question by interviewing scores of couples. Eventually (after five drafts) we arrived at a typology for the good marriage, told through first person stories."