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WE ARE surrounded by waves. They pass through us, they allow us to hear and see, they move us and we could not live without them. They are everywhere, yet most we do not even notice.

Gavin Pretor-Pinney did something wonderful with his first book, The Cloudspotter’s Guide, creating a community of cloud obsessives. Can he do the same with this more nebulous subject? While clouds were easy to get started on – just lie back and observe – waves are a bit harder. We think we know about waves, but the beach is just the beginning.

A measure of the success of this quietly informative book is how readily the information is absorbed while you are busy having fun. Stories and science meld, and Pretor-Pinney manages to effortlessly segue from whip-cracking cowboys to Einstein and photons and on to the art of bodysurfing Hawaii’s north shore. I sense a wave community forming.