Annals of the Former World
John McPhee's omnibus account of the geology of North America, built from two decades of field trips he took with working geologists along roughly the fortieth parallel — the line of Interstate 80, from New York City to San Francisco. It gathers four previously published books with one new closing essay, moving between roadcut geology, the history of the science, and biographical portraits of the geologists who guided him.
A book about the shape of rock, printed with almost no maps or diagrams. One reader's wish: "that I'd read it as it had been written, in installments. That I had a graphical explanation of most of the explanations." With nothing to look at, everything rides on the vocabulary, and another reviewer found that "the book often spent too much time using words it hadn't defined and too little time telling stories about processes." Readers stall there: one quit at 60 percent, "just too exhausted to keep going." One who went the distance reports, "After reading 660 pages on the geology of North America, my ignorance of the subject is undiminished."
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
