While this was a thoroughly fascinating read, I found myself having to take it in snippets. More entertaining than a textbook, a little less so than some other recent nonfiction reads. Take that with a grain of salt, however, as my tastes have shifted and my mind less focused with current world events. I found myself pausing, to share interesting facts with my husband, which sparked great discussions. Definitely a worthy read for that alone,

This was a seriously interesting - and seriously freaky - book. I live in the Northeast and have never given much thought to earthquakes before since I live (I thought) in a largely earthquake-free zone... After reading Kathryn Miles fascinating new book, I realize there's no such thing - and it's a bit horrifying, as far as realizations go.

The book offers an excellent history of earthquakes around the world, as well as an exceedingly interesting introduction to geology, seismology, and other -ologies that I never gave much thought to, prior to this book. The writing is clear and engaging and the chronology is sprinkled with details and insights that keep the book resoundingly human in its focus. This is no dry instructional tome; nor is it a bit of irresponsible fear-mongering. Instead, it is a thoroughly remarkable tale of the history of our earth and its bumps, shifts, creaks, and shakes. The personal expeditions she takes in her attempt to unearth (pun intended) the details about nature-made and man-made 'quakes are fascinating - her time in mine shafts buried miles within the earth sticks out most resoundingly for me. She uses these trips to conferences and fracking sites and mines and fault lines (well-known and previously unimaginable) to explore the myriad explanations and theories behind the unbelievably large number of earthquakes and earthquake-type events that occur around the world on an increasingly common (and severe) basis. Along the way, she explores things like infrastructure, energy (production and consumption) and technology to provide a very comprehensive and interesting profile of our earth and its reactions - both to its own action and to ours on/under/in it.

This was a slow but well-worthwhile read!

I very much enjoyed reading this book. It was somewhat comforting to know that California isn't the only state that needs to worry about earthquakes. (Not really!) All the brick and un-reinforced masonry is a scary prospect for other states. Miles takes what could be a dry science book and turned it into readable stories of what could and will happen. I won't need to read another horror story for a while.

Brisk and readable. What I liked best was the scope of the book--so many books on this topic focus on a specific fault (and admittedly I tend towards the Juan de Fuca plate-cenred ones) but this gives a great overview of the scale on which the US can and has been effected by quakes.