#150
Title: Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 (P.S.)
Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Year: 2005
Genre: Southeast Asia, History, Science
416 pages
I like Winchester, and I like volcanoes and other geological formations, but this did not quite cohere in a compelling way. It's hard to say why, since I enjoyed the history, first-person accounts, digressions into topics such as transcontinental communication, and discussion of subduction zones. However, I was never gripped by the narrative. Maybe this edition's very small print contributed to the problem, but I felt like I was slogging along. This is puzzling since Winchester's ostensibly less gripping topics, such as The Map That Changed the World, held my attention just fine. I'll try again in a while with A Crack in the Edge of the World, which is about The San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
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