Assembling California, John McPhee (3.5)
This is my first John McPhee book and I can say the author
does not talk down to his audience. If anything, I would have enjoyed a Geology
textbook or glossary next to me for the majority of the book. Written in 1993,
this is the fourth in a series of books that follow McPhee as he pairs with
geologists to understand the history of our land formations. In this section,
he focuses on California’s various famous geographies from the gold rush to
wine country to the central valley to the San Andreas group of faults. He
diverts to the Greek island of Cyprus and the Himalayas, but mainly stays
within our California borders. I got lost during some of the heavy geology
discussions, but was mesmerized by the last chapter – a step-by-step
description of the Loma Prieta earthquake from start to finish meshing what was
going on to those of us above ground to what was happening miles below the
surface. For someone who experienced it firsthand, I appreciated the look back
at how it happened.
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