|
| 
| Author: Simon Winchester
Publisher: HarperCollins
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $2.70
You Save: $25.25 (90%)
New (15) Used (21) Collectible (2) from $2.28
Avg. Customer Rating:  93 reviews
Sales Rank: 29033
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 480
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.2 x 1.2
Dewey Decimal Number: 979.461051
ASIN: B000PD3MH0
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New!
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Simon Winchster misses the mark May 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Simon Winchester has written many good books. This is not one of them.
This is the fourth book by him I have read and it is by far the worst. His attempt to describe what happened in San Francisco in 1906 is long on non-connected rambling facts and short on a story. The first 175 pages are spent describing plate tectonics and his own personal travels across the US and the world. What is meant to be an informative introduction into the science of Geology turns into a poorly organized, unnecessarily long rambling with little connection to the story. The book is replete with single appearances of characters and events which have no barring on what happened in 1906, and whose only purpose is to show how much Mr. Winchester knows. This is a major problem which will will plague the book - a lack of focus.
This book was written without a unifying theme or subject, which is odd, since a very obviously subject exists: The City of San Francisco. Mr. Winchester instead makes himself the center of the story and focuses on his own journey rather than the events of 1906. At page 175, Mr. Winchester finally starts talking about the character and spirt of the city, and we see glimpses of a story being pulled together, only to let it slip away about 50 pages later. The 80 page chapter on the earthquake and fire was a compilation of 40 different stories that had no connection, except for their physical connection on the page.
The worst part of the book is unfortunately not the ramblings with copious footnotes and references, but Mr. Winchester's selective conclusions and commentary. On page 302 he claims the fire caused San Francisco to lose its dominance on the West Coast after the disaster of 1906 and "the city never regained its status, nor will it ever." Mr. Winchester makes only one passing reference to beat generation writers in the 1950's as the only event of cultural or financial significance to take place in San Francisco in the past 100 years. Not one mention was made about SF's contribution to the high tech industries, investment banking, or the arts. LA is apparently the capital of the west in his estimation. Apparently he is not aware that SF still attracts the ambitious and driven, as it did in 1849, unlike LA which only seems to attract crime and bad schools.
The book subtitle is "The Great American Earthquake" but he failed to mention its impact on the rest of the country (outside of the Pentecostal movement in LA, which I am still having difficulty understanding the connection). He fails to note that the burning of San Francisco indirectly resulted in the creation of Seattle. He describes (ad nauseum) his visit up to Alaska stopping in Skagway and Whitehorse, but failed to mention their significance in the second biggest gold rush in North America, the Yukon Gold Rush. Rather than comment on the parallels of the two biggest events that caused the most mass migration in modern history in the US, he instead uses this moment to spout off on the Wal-Mart which opened here and how the "Brutes of Bentonville" have "set me fretting about the state of the world even more than usual." (pg. 343)
Mr. Winchester has written some marvelous books which both educate and tell a good story. This one is packed with scientific information which sadly does not contribute to a story which does not materialize.
 Excellent, important-- and rambling April 30, 2008
Simon Winchester is one of those rare people who become fascinated not only by a story, but by all possible aspects of the story. At its best, this can produce a fascinating, entertaining survey that makes you want to dive into the story the way he did. At its worst, it can produce a discursive, almost disjointed, ramble through the story that makes you long for an editor. This book is somewhere in between those two extremes.
Winchester uses a single event, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, as the focal point where his investigations of geology, geography, economics, politics, entertainment, fashion, and history converge. It is absolutely fascinating material, and his style is perfect for its examination: conversational-- almost chatty-- but nonetheless academically rigorous.
The irritating thing about the book is that as Winchester is examining all of the threads in his story, he continually approaches then draws back, somewhat like a fly fisherman flicking his bait out. Eventually, we get to the actual earthquake, but it is a long and winding journey.
The book is important because it makes clear that we-- and especially those of us in the western US-- are literally living on borrowed time. Eventually, there will be one or more unimaginable tectonic or volcanic catastrophes. Of course, there is literally nothing we can do, other than leave-- maybe right now.
In summary, I liked this book a lot, and I think it's an important book. However, reading it can be something of a chore.
 Earthquakes. March 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
An excellent read about the world's earthquakes. Winchester does an excellent in this and his other similar books.
 Shaken, not stirred February 29, 2008
A friendly and place-sensitive story, rather more loosely framed around the San Francisco earthquake than the title and the dust jacket suggest. There are many, many detours down California roads and other byways. Most of them are enjoyable to those who get a kick out of California geography and history (any Kevin Starr fans out there?). The geological lessons are clear and engaging, and I'm thankful.
Three things mar it: sloppiness in details, personal meandering, and overreaching. By sloppiness I mean things like confusing Azusa with Azusa Street (a misstated connection that Winchester uses to riff on the rise of Pentecostal Christianity), repeatedly messing up the names of missions (Mission San Jose is not in San Jose, as the most cursory research points out) and compass points (Lancaster is north of Los Angeles, not "east of the easternmost suburbs") and an utterly puzzling way of bollixing up large figures: Alaska as 600,000 acres?!(It's supposed to be square miles). Perhaps his map was tilted and his calculator set to a different unit of measurement.
By meandering I mean putting in too much about his road trips (the campsite raccoons that begged for food, the anticlimactic visit to the Meteor Crater, the truck-stop waitress with the alluring, uh, pie).
And finally, he has a habit of stringing too many dubious capital-C conclusions out of the quake. Such as: Los Angeles beat San Francisco to greatness because of the quake? Well, not entirely. LA had other massive natural advantages, not least of which were multiples more space to grow and better rail links. The Pentecostal revival that was kindled in inner-city LA was already getting pretty hot by the time of the quake, and the quake wasn't that big in its growth. Pat Robertson may be the Pentecostals' fault, but he's not San Andreas's (ha). A digression on Angel Island and Chinese immigrants ... well ... interesting, good for a few graphs on post-quake records reconstruction, but not as a chapter that limps into view after the main event itself, purporting to describe the entire Chinese-American character.
But these were irritants, honestly. The overall story is California cities and their (at the moment) suspended death sentence. Clearly, coolly, vividly expressed in Winchester's telling. The killer San Andreas snakes past just a few miles west of where I sit now, slithering alongside my evening commute home. I've been casting nervous glances in its direction all week.
God Made a Wise Crack February 3, 2008
Simon Winchester has written a book for geology hobbyists, thrill-seekers and fortune-tellers.
The first part is heavy into the cracks God put in the world and becomes quite scientific regarding tectonics--the study of how the big plates on the world's surface move and destroy cities.
The second part details the destruction of San Francisco in 1906. This part has anecdotes, insurance scams and brave people. It also shines a light on ineffective city management and eager-beaver businessmen that wanted to rush the rebuilding of the city, losing a chance to make the architecture amazing.
The last part looks to the future of earthquakes and volcanos, predicting some pretty horrific events in California, Alaska and Yellowstone. Yes, Yellowstone is overdue for a huge volcanic eruption that might just destroy the western states as we know them.
The last two parts of the book will enthrall everyone. The first might just be a little too scientific for the average reader.
Larry Rochelle, author of TEN MILE CREEK and BURNT COFFEE.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
