Wildlife photographers Peter and Beverly Pickford describe their visually stunning Wild Ocean, the follow-up to Wild Land, as "our appeal to you to open your heart to the sea." The book captures four years of fieldwork. The scale alternates between the dramatic and the intimate; sweeps of clouds and immense icebergs intermingle with close-up portraits of coastal and marine creatures. Birds and fish appear singly or mass in impressive formations. The colors pop in striking compositions, such as a purple basslet cutting left across brown corals. Iguanas are perfectly camouflaged on rocks in the Galápagos; king penguins carpet South Georgia Island north of Antarctica. Chapters are divided by ocean and region. Lesser-known locales include the Forgotten Islands of Indonesia and Cocos Island National Park, a protected area off of Costa Rica. The Pickfords' adventures also included an extended vigil to find a crocodile in Cuba. Heading each chapter are a few-page introduction and thumbnail images giving captions and location information so that the photographs can speak for themselves on subsequent pages. It's a spectacular tour. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader, and blogger at Bookish Beck