Earth
An Intimate History

Is it possible for a book to be utterly fascinating and yet, at the same time, a perfect cure for insomnia? I never would have thought so, until I read this one. That does sound horribly contradictory, and yet it is true. Reading this book, I found myself drawn in by the power of Fortey's words and t......more

About a month ago, I was looking through the courses I had to choose from as an Environmental Science major, making up a short list for class sign-up in September. The options were evenly divided between Biology and Geology classes, and I was leaning heavily toward the former; geology seemed quite d......more

I am not very fond of geology, but the beautiful poetic style of Richard Fortey's prose makes this book a joy to read. For example, he writes, "The cycles of the earth--the generation and destruction of plates--probably happened andante cantabile rather than largo." Fortey interleaves poetry among his......more

Fortey's love of geology really comes through in this work. It was both fascinating and insightful. The pictures were great, the timeline was not linear so it really kept a good pacing. It kind of meandered around topics and points of interest on the earths crust similar to how your mind would analy......more

The Earth is a big, fat (480 page) book about geology. Richard Fortey writes extremely well and it’s an impressive attempt to make a fairly dense subject exciting. I have to admit though I nearly didn’t finish it; by about halfway though I’d had about as much as I could take of schist, gneiss, nappes......more