Assembling California, John McPhee
Assembling California, John McPhee
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Assembling California

Author: John McPhee

Narrator: Nelson Runger

Unabridged: 9 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 04/29/2011

Synopsis

At various times in a span of fifteen years, John McPhee made geological field surveys in the company of Eldridge Moores, a tectonicist at the University of California at Davis. The result of these trips is Assembling California, a cross-section in human and geologic time, from Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada through the golden foothills of the Mother Lode and across the Great Central Valley to the wine country of the Coast Ranges, the rock of San Francisco, and the San Andreas family of faults. The two disparate time scales occasionally intersect—in the gold disruptions of the nineteenth century no less than in the earthquakes of the twentieth—and always with relevance to a newly understood geologic history in which half a dozen large and separate pieces of country are seen to have drifted in from far and near to coalesce as California. McPhee and Moores also journeyed to remote mountains of Arizona and to Cyprus and northern Greece, where rock of the deep-ocean floor has been transported into continental settings, as it has in California. Global in scope and a delight to read, Assembling California is a sweeping narrative of maps in motion, of evolving and dissolving lands.

“A delicious field manual on the creation of the Golden State going back a few hundred million years.”—Peter Stack, The San Francisco Chronicle

About John McPhee

John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge University. His writing career began at Time magazine and led to his long association with The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965. Also in 1965, he published his first book, A Sense of Where You Are, and in the years since, he has written over thirty books, including Oranges, Coming into the Country, The Control of Nature, The Founding Fish, Uncommon Carriers, and Silk Parachute. Encounters with the Archdruid and The Curve of Binding Energy were nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science. McPhee received the Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 1977. In 1999, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Reviews

Goodreads review by P. on October 06, 2017

I'm fascinated with scientific topics that are written is if they weren't. This is particularly commendable when the writer is a scientist first and foremost. Three that spring immediatley to mind: Aldo Leopold (probably my favorite non-fiction book ever is the Sand County Almanac), Rachel Carson, a......more

Goodreads review by Lana on May 18, 2009

Assembling California was written for laymen (laypeople?), but I beg to differ. Chock full of geology terms, it needs both a glossary and an index. I gave it a high rating, though, because it is fascinating. If you live in the Bay Area, and are at all interested in your surroundings, read it. Take i......more

Goodreads review by Rebecca on December 05, 2024

I kept thinking to myself that this book is way more interesting than it should be. Absolutely excellent—this reinforced my belief in the craft of writing. I will happily read any book I find by John McPhee.......more

Goodreads review by Jenny on June 20, 2016

It took me ages to read this. So much geology! More than I'd signed on for - but it was fascinating. The style helped. It was beautifully written. A ramble through California's geological landscape with occasional jaunts elsewhere.......more

Goodreads review by Richard on February 16, 2023

There is a ton of information in this book about the geology of California, much that was new to me and far more than I will retain. Mr. McPhee covers the formation and change over geologic time of the Sierras, the Central Valley, the Coast Range, the San Andreas Fault and more. He also covers gold......more

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