This book is special for many reasons, not least because it is the first recent coffee table publication on the Northern Province which covers so many areas, history, archaeology, architecture, geography, culture, biodiversity on land and sea. Here in Mannar lie the roots of our earliest civilization, marked by the copper sands of the first landing at Tamraparni and the great ancient port of Mantai now buried under silt. The book moves easily from past to present, recalling that Mannar is a strategic place, the closest point for connectivity with the neighbouring subcontinent separated by the spectacular Adam’s Bridge of islands. This is the opening of the window for migration of thousands of birds that arrive in Mannar as described by Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne.