Reading the rocks and rivers

If you enjoyed this month's book, Strata by Laura Poppick, then I thought I'd share a few other titles that bring some similar perspectives to life.

First up, an honorable mention for Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came To Life (Random House, 2024), Ferris Jabr's book arguing for a new Gaia theory of a connected planet, and our pick for July 2024. Back then I said that it artfully juggled many things at once; working from the grandest scales to the smallest, and from the prosaic to the poetic.

"It's a plaintive and sometimes saddening cry for us to look at our home in a different way, yet it's hopeful and optimistic and grand, too. Ferris combines poetic portraits of the ordinary and approachable—a lyrical description of his backyard garden, say—with a thrilling look at some of the most awe-inspiring sights in the natural world."

I stand by that assessment, and we still have a few copies for sale.

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Meanwhile if you liked those big, sweeping arguments, then you might enjoy David Montgomery's Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (University of California Press, 2007).

The provocative viewpoint that Montgomery puts forward is that soil is one of our most important natural resources, and that the collapse of most societies has actually come about because they fail to cultivate enough of it. It's an interesting argument, and he talks a lot about the composition and use of earth, but Dirt is a far more academic text than Strata, and feels a little repetitive nearly 20 years on.

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Enjoyed Strata's portraits of the way water and earth interact? Did the chapters on ice and water give you a taste for more? Perhaps you might like The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi (WW Norton, 2025) by Boyce Upholt.

This history of America's most iconic waterway has some geologic moments, but is mainly focused on how people have tried to wrestle the vast and twisting Mississippi to their own ends. I thought it was a solid read, though not spectacular, but there was some exciting and illuminating passages. As somebody without much connection to the river itself I was a little adrift in places, but it gave me a new perspective.

And here's one relevant title that I haven't read yet, but that I do have in the stack: last year's Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks by Marcia Bjornerud (Flat Iron, 2024). Like Poppick, Bjornerud has spent a lot of time studying the earth—she's a professor at Lawrence University, and an expert on how mountains get built—and my undeveloped take is that this might be a tremendous expansion on the meditative examination of rocks that I mentioned last week.

It was the winner of the 2025 John Burroughs Medal for Natural History Writing (previous recipients include Robin Wall Kimmerer and Carl Safina) and the reviews are good: Sierra Magazine said it is "a love letter to the foundations of our planet" that "invites us to understand Earth's creativity, its rituals and idiosyncrasies."

I suspect there's a lot to like in there.

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Before I sign off, a quick reminder that in just a few days we'll be joined by Laura Poppick for a live conversation about Strata. We'll be on Zoom on Thursday August 21 at 3pm Eastern, 12pm Pacific, to talk about the book, its contents, and how it came around. Don't worry if you haven't finished reading it—this is a reading club, not a series of homework assignments—if you are interested to hear what Laura has to say, it would be great to see you there.

Calendar invites will go out tomorrow to all paying club members, and I'll send an email with the Zoom link 24 hours in advance.

Until next time.

Bobbie