SENTINELS OF OUR SHORES: The Story of Lighthouses, Lightships and Buoys

A little history, a lot of lighthouses, a few specifics on construction, operation and signals, several stories -- it all adds up to a sampling, satisfactory for browsing but fragile as a source of information. The many lighthouses featured (and pictured in sketches taken from Coast Guard photos) are grouped to represent a diversity of types and a diversity of sites but the two attributes are not distinct; neither do we learn the same particulars about each (i.e. when built, how, etc). The result is an aggregation of singular structures -- but even their singularity is sometimes unexplained: how, for instance, did the Biloxi Light Station come to be between two main highways? The section on lights and their distinctive characteristics is illuminating, that on buoys no guide to their use in navigation. Life in a station today is touched on lightly. But it's a beginning, re the Great Lakes as well as the coasts, and the several stories of crisis (including the rescue of the little red lighthouse) are effectively condensed.