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Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth
"A gleeful, poetic book…Like the best natural histories, Dirt is a kind of prayer." ― Los Angeles Times Book Review "You are about to read a lot about dirt, which no one knows very much about." So begins the cult classic that brings mystery and magic to "that stuff that won't come off your collar." John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Saint Phocas, Darwin, and Virgil parade through this thought-provoking work, taking their place next to the dung beetle, the compost heap, dowsing, historical farming, and the microscopic biota that till the soil. Whether William Bryant Logan is traversing the far reaches of the cosmos or plowing through our planet’s crust, his delightful, elegant, and surprisingly soulful meditations greatly enrich our concept of "dirt," that substance from which we all arise and to which we all must return.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
114 people are currently reading
1709 people want to read
About the author
William Bryant Logan
18 books57 followersWilliam Bryant Logan is a certified arborist and president of Urban Arborists, Inc., a Brooklyn-based tree company. Logan has won numerous Quill and Trowel Awards from the Garden Writers of America and won a 2012 Senior Scholar Award from the New York State chapter of the International Society of Arborists. He also won an NEH grant to translate Calderon de la Barca. He is on faculty at NYBG and is the author of Oak and Dirt, the latter of which was made into an award-winning documentary. The same filmmakers are currently planning a documentary made from Air. He lives in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews
March 30, 2016
This book started out extremely strong, which gave me such high hopes. For example, Logan reminded me of an awesome geology professor I had who would yell at us with great sincerity to, "Never disrespect dirt!" Logan began his book in the most incredible chapter, designed to help the reader place themselves in the universe, in the world, looking at existence through a very wide lens. He reminded the reader that dirt is older than humans, older than the very earth upon which it sits, and eve older than our vast galaxy. To support his claim, Logan traced the heavy elements that make up soil, which had to come from stars more ancient than our sun.
But then the book took a turn toward spiritualism. Connecting to the earth is essential. Having the ability to know science and connect with the earth, in ways that compel a person to take action to preserve our earthly environment is optimal. My geology professor did a great job of helping us understand our responsibility to our planet. However, the way Logan went about it seemed to veer away from the scientific and more toward the non-scientific spiritual realm. This impression was only made stronger when I watched a documentary featuring Logan and his work. It seemed to be written by the type of person who takes bits of science and uses them in pseudoscientific ways to call people to action.... which considering the fact that they got the science wrong, might be the wrong action, as well intentioned as it was.
I am going to give Logan another try with his book called Air. I heard his work got better after 1995. I remember my own transformation from a gullible well-meaning individual to scientifically literate person who no longer fell prey to every groovy sounding idea. Logan was already pretty far on his journey to understanding a lot of really amazing science. Indeed his idea that Earth's crust is a living breathing skin is spot on (really great focus!). He just needs to develop that concept without muddying the waters.
In the meantime, I suggest a better alternative to this book if you are interested in dirt, microbes, organisms, carbon and oxygen cycles, ecology/how everything is connected -- a lecture series Called Ecological Planet by Kricher:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
But then the book took a turn toward spiritualism. Connecting to the earth is essential. Having the ability to know science and connect with the earth, in ways that compel a person to take action to preserve our earthly environment is optimal. My geology professor did a great job of helping us understand our responsibility to our planet. However, the way Logan went about it seemed to veer away from the scientific and more toward the non-scientific spiritual realm. This impression was only made stronger when I watched a documentary featuring Logan and his work. It seemed to be written by the type of person who takes bits of science and uses them in pseudoscientific ways to call people to action.... which considering the fact that they got the science wrong, might be the wrong action, as well intentioned as it was.
I am going to give Logan another try with his book called Air. I heard his work got better after 1995. I remember my own transformation from a gullible well-meaning individual to scientifically literate person who no longer fell prey to every groovy sounding idea. Logan was already pretty far on his journey to understanding a lot of really amazing science. Indeed his idea that Earth's crust is a living breathing skin is spot on (really great focus!). He just needs to develop that concept without muddying the waters.
In the meantime, I suggest a better alternative to this book if you are interested in dirt, microbes, organisms, carbon and oxygen cycles, ecology/how everything is connected -- a lecture series Called Ecological Planet by Kricher:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7...
June 24, 2022
I recommend this book to everyone.
May 14, 2012
Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth is a fascinating look at one of the most basic and seemingly boring topics: dirt. As the name implies, William Bryant Logan makes the inanimate ground beneath our feet come alive with excitement as he explains the ways that soil is dynamic and ever-changing. Slow as this change might be, the world will never be the same after reading Logan’s book.
Dirt, derived from dritten, an uncouth word for manure in Old Norse, has a highly misleading and boring name in the English vocabulary. As the author tells us, dirt is not simple: it is itself alien to our solar system, only arriving on Earth some far off place in the galaxy; the Sun can only produce helium. This unique compound of materials on the surface, mostly the remains of once living plant and animal life, breaks down in to humus and is naturally churned by the Earth over centuries and millennia, returning some minerals to living plants and insects, while most is compacted to form deeper horizons or eventually rock. As rock and dirt is pushed further down, it eventually will melt in to magma, and someday will erupt with a burst, returning a plethora of minerals and new, ‘living’ material to the Earth’s surface.
Far from a textbook explanation of this process, Logan draws from a variety of sources in all disciplines who have addressed dirt in some way, with a mixture of his own personal stories thrown in. Highly personal and always entertaining, William Bryant Logan draws the reader in and subtly points out an unfortunate truth of modernity and human interaction with the Earth we walk on. No man can make a person feel such compassion for the inanimate materials we tread on every day like Logan does.
Dirt, derived from dritten, an uncouth word for manure in Old Norse, has a highly misleading and boring name in the English vocabulary. As the author tells us, dirt is not simple: it is itself alien to our solar system, only arriving on Earth some far off place in the galaxy; the Sun can only produce helium. This unique compound of materials on the surface, mostly the remains of once living plant and animal life, breaks down in to humus and is naturally churned by the Earth over centuries and millennia, returning some minerals to living plants and insects, while most is compacted to form deeper horizons or eventually rock. As rock and dirt is pushed further down, it eventually will melt in to magma, and someday will erupt with a burst, returning a plethora of minerals and new, ‘living’ material to the Earth’s surface.
Far from a textbook explanation of this process, Logan draws from a variety of sources in all disciplines who have addressed dirt in some way, with a mixture of his own personal stories thrown in. Highly personal and always entertaining, William Bryant Logan draws the reader in and subtly points out an unfortunate truth of modernity and human interaction with the Earth we walk on. No man can make a person feel such compassion for the inanimate materials we tread on every day like Logan does.
June 21, 2017
I really enjoyed this, despite its somewhat odd approach. This isn't really a science book, although Logan occasionally tells you about scientific details about soil science. Neither does it follow a straightforward path standard for these books, where the author travels around and learns more about his subject (although parts of the book are like that). Rather, this is a series of poetic and semi-religious meditations on ecology, celebrating the wonder inherent in the natural world. Logan attempts time and again to shift the reader's perspective to understand the complex systems that surround us, and to appreciate just how liminal biological life is in relation to deep time and the titanic forces of the earth below us and the cosmos around us. The book is composed of numerous short essays on topics related, sometimes loosely, to the soil and its active role in supporting life. Some are more successful than others, and they often leap wildly in tone and subject, but you sense throughout Logan's passion-- passion for life, for understanding, for experience, and for a quasi-mystical reverence for what science can teach us about our place in the universe. It's a captivating viewpoint because it's so different from the typical science book approach. He's not afraid to sound a little addled in extolling a more worshipful approach to nature (which, incidentally, is not explicitly tied here to any particular faith tradition). And he's also not shy about expressing some blunt opinions about the follies of man (including, puzzlingly, a screed near the end of the book against particle colliders). Although this approach runs the risk of veering into the maudlin or the crackpot, I thought Logan did a great job of reining it in just enough. He manages to give voice to an ecstatic and grateful appreciation of natural theology, without descending into daffy hippiedom. I liked this much more than I expected.
March 24, 2015
I vacillated a lot on my rating of this book. On the one hand, it's very well written...in an English-major kind of way. On the other hand, I found the book very slow going because I wasn't learning much...until I would suddenly hit an extremely eye-opening passage. On the third hand, I wanted to dock a star simply because there were far too many biblical bits, but I know that's just my grumpiness at work. And, on the fourth hand, what's with the infinitesimal font?
On the whole, I'd recommend Dirt for people with no background in science who want to become intrigued by soil. If you do know much science, the book might be frustrating, so look for something a little more in depth.
On the whole, I'd recommend Dirt for people with no background in science who want to become intrigued by soil. If you do know much science, the book might be frustrating, so look for something a little more in depth.
October 9, 2022
“Why is Earth’s dirt special? To a scientific mind, it is hard to admit that we don’t, and possibly can’t, know the answer. Answerless questions are the best kind. What’s more, it seems that things that can’t be figured out can still be seen to be true. Confession, not of “sin” but of ignorance, and meditation, not on some mantra but on the created, yield results that are different from analysis, and much more powerful.”
“INERT MATTER! As if there ever were such a thing. Beauty is the vocation of the world. Under the electron microscope, one can perceive the intricate harmonies of clays.n
Interesting read combining the science of dirt with philosophical ideas, and another example of the beauty in details. I was transported by some ideas and ways of seeing that were new to me. I hadn’t realized the world may be have been just black and white before plants since there was no iron pigment yet. It makes black and white photography even more meaningful, a sort of of primal recognition. The way that tombstones deteriorate also piqued my imagination, as I have no idea what stone my mother’s grave is made from and how long it will last. I have often wondered at the composition of the bottom of mountains, as it often lifts to great heights the surrounding bedrock, but the idea we are afloat, on the water table, above groundwater, literally walking on air and water, is another layer of wonder.
I confess that I do not know, and I begin to meditate upon the wonderful construction of this world. A different part of the mind seems to open. Things that once seemed trivial now assume their right importance, and coincidence reveals its purpose. “Faith,” as the early Christian says, does not mean “belief.” It means the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.
What is beauty? Beauty is a sum not reducible to its parts. It is a perception of harmony in variety. What is worship? To worship means not to figure out, not to analyze, not to pin down like a dried butterfly on a grid, but to value. Deeply to value.
The surface of the Earth was black and white then, rather like the aseptic photos of the surface of the moon. The browns, the yellows, the reds, and the oranges that we associate with soil and rocks did not exist, because all of them are the signs of oxidized iron.
Because they are porous and because water carries away their nutrients, soils eventually deteriorate. But we can make them run longer. One motive for protecting the soil is the certainty that it is fragile. It does not have the same unchanging character as a mountain or a river; it is a recent and ephemeral product. We owe it our lives and our energy, and the bodies we give back to it are not payment enough.
Generally speaking, sandstone is quickest to go, then marble and schist, then granite and gneiss, so the resistant granites occupy the mountain heights, the middling-resistant marbles the uplands and slopes, and the quick-melting sandstone the valleys. In an Edinburgh cemetery, the marble tombstones lost three and a half inches of their surface in a millennium; a granite stone lost only one tenth that amount.
In the “aeration zone” a certain percent of the channels are filled with air, the rest with water. Beneath these rests the “saturation zone,” where the groundwater fills all the channels. This zone is also called the “water table,” a poetically appropriate piece of scientific nomenclature that calls attention to a simple but often forgotten fact: We are all basically afloat.
“INERT MATTER! As if there ever were such a thing. Beauty is the vocation of the world. Under the electron microscope, one can perceive the intricate harmonies of clays.n
Interesting read combining the science of dirt with philosophical ideas, and another example of the beauty in details. I was transported by some ideas and ways of seeing that were new to me. I hadn’t realized the world may be have been just black and white before plants since there was no iron pigment yet. It makes black and white photography even more meaningful, a sort of of primal recognition. The way that tombstones deteriorate also piqued my imagination, as I have no idea what stone my mother’s grave is made from and how long it will last. I have often wondered at the composition of the bottom of mountains, as it often lifts to great heights the surrounding bedrock, but the idea we are afloat, on the water table, above groundwater, literally walking on air and water, is another layer of wonder.
I confess that I do not know, and I begin to meditate upon the wonderful construction of this world. A different part of the mind seems to open. Things that once seemed trivial now assume their right importance, and coincidence reveals its purpose. “Faith,” as the early Christian says, does not mean “belief.” It means the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.
What is beauty? Beauty is a sum not reducible to its parts. It is a perception of harmony in variety. What is worship? To worship means not to figure out, not to analyze, not to pin down like a dried butterfly on a grid, but to value. Deeply to value.
The surface of the Earth was black and white then, rather like the aseptic photos of the surface of the moon. The browns, the yellows, the reds, and the oranges that we associate with soil and rocks did not exist, because all of them are the signs of oxidized iron.
Because they are porous and because water carries away their nutrients, soils eventually deteriorate. But we can make them run longer. One motive for protecting the soil is the certainty that it is fragile. It does not have the same unchanging character as a mountain or a river; it is a recent and ephemeral product. We owe it our lives and our energy, and the bodies we give back to it are not payment enough.
Generally speaking, sandstone is quickest to go, then marble and schist, then granite and gneiss, so the resistant granites occupy the mountain heights, the middling-resistant marbles the uplands and slopes, and the quick-melting sandstone the valleys. In an Edinburgh cemetery, the marble tombstones lost three and a half inches of their surface in a millennium; a granite stone lost only one tenth that amount.
In the “aeration zone” a certain percent of the channels are filled with air, the rest with water. Beneath these rests the “saturation zone,” where the groundwater fills all the channels. This zone is also called the “water table,” a poetically appropriate piece of scientific nomenclature that calls attention to a simple but often forgotten fact: We are all basically afloat.
September 15, 2020
An elegant series of essays about all things dirt-related - except for the dust kitties under my bed.
Logan writes like a dream, and, while modestly not claiming to be an authority himself, seeks out and interviews the gurus of humus, clay, worms, and more. His knowledge of history, poetry and science literature all help him build a fascinating book.
Logan writes like a dream, and, while modestly not claiming to be an authority himself, seeks out and interviews the gurus of humus, clay, worms, and more. His knowledge of history, poetry and science literature all help him build a fascinating book.
March 30, 2021
Numinous! Joyful and reverent! The first chapter brought me to tears immediately. Planning to reread when I have the capacity. This is one of those books that has so much to give that it’ll take some rumination.
June 23, 2007
Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth is penned in the style of poetic memoir, and while a natural history of soil could easily bog a reader down with tedious minutiae and scientific jargon, Logan finds a way to make his subject matter accessible and even thrilling to the reader, connecting the science of the earth with its spiritual implications and the beauty of the relentless cycle of growth, death, and rejuvenation. Dirt is chock full of mythology, history, and poetry. Read it! It's good! It's really good!
Excerpt to lure you in:
"And the surface moves. Very slowly to our eyes, it is true, but one could imagine a being for whom each of our millenia was a second . . . Such a creature would observe the shifting and the collision of continents, the eruption of volcanoes, the appearance and disappearance of mountain ranges, the spread and retreat of ice and whole floras, and the renewal of the seafloor, as clearly as we observe that a living person's chest moves up and down, and she blinks, twitches . . . This great roiling circulation belongs to the old gods . . . Imagining the undersea mouths where the new crust spills out and where the old crust is swallowed, one thinks of the first goddess, Gaia, she who gave birth to her children only to devour them." (p.95)
Excerpt to lure you in:
"And the surface moves. Very slowly to our eyes, it is true, but one could imagine a being for whom each of our millenia was a second . . . Such a creature would observe the shifting and the collision of continents, the eruption of volcanoes, the appearance and disappearance of mountain ranges, the spread and retreat of ice and whole floras, and the renewal of the seafloor, as clearly as we observe that a living person's chest moves up and down, and she blinks, twitches . . . This great roiling circulation belongs to the old gods . . . Imagining the undersea mouths where the new crust spills out and where the old crust is swallowed, one thinks of the first goddess, Gaia, she who gave birth to her children only to devour them." (p.95)
August 16, 2025
This book manages to encapsulate the aura of soil science while unironically citing Genesis and Exodus (as literature) — very strange, but quite cool. However, I didn’t find an arc across the book. The content could be turned into a kick ass essay, but instead, it’s kind of a crazy series of ramblings. Still, I’m leaving more interested in soil science than when I started, so that’s a win.
May 11, 2022
A lovely meditation on dirt and all of the things that go into it: stardust, compost, worms, phosphorus, and saints. It wanders around and doesn’t always arrive at profound insight, but when it does, it’s thought-provoking and worthwhile.
December 8, 2017
very over the top, you could tell he knew his stuff, however, he took the time make sure you knew he did. some references we're very obscure.
June 21, 2023
Science is a form of prayer.
January 4, 2024
Good natural history with a splash of godliness
May 18, 2021
This book furthered my interest in one of life’s more important building blocks...dirt!
May 21, 2018
I never thought a book about dirt could be so poetic. Logan describes many of the topics of soil science by providing wonderful anecdotes. For example, he describes John Adams' personal love for manure. Sounds mundane, but it is anything but. It's very fascinating. Logan gets into the nitty gritty of the ground beneath our feet and turns it into something beautiful. I would recommend this book to fans of Cosmos and anyone interested in learning more about what is in their garden.
December 6, 2011
Having been raised on a farm, it was ironic to read this book and realize how little I knew about the “dirt” that nourished the wheat crops which in turn provided my parents with a living. Dirt to me was just dirt. How naive I was!
The book is a collection of essays, organized into eight categories, put together by Logan who was an environmental columnist for the New York Times. Some are whimsical and personal, others more scientific and objective. I think a summary ending best captures what he was trying to do in this book. It was to show that soil (or “dirt” as he prefers to call it) is not just an inert pile of matter, but a “transformer”, constantly changing before us, and with a long history, predating mankind. It is as worthy of appreciation as anything else and has its own beauty. Bryant quotes John Adams who wrote, “The finest productions of the Poet or the Painter, the statuary, or the Architect, when they stand in competition with the great and beautiful operations of Nature, in the Animal and Vegetable World, must be pronounced mean and despicable baubles.” Logan then gives Adams’ recipe for making manure. Soil, dirt, shit, whatever one wants to call it, is constantly in flux, either through bacterial, vegetable, and living creatures, or through the forces of wind, heat, and water.
He even goes so far as to equate God-like status to the earth. Once when he was hanging from a cliff and about to plummet to his death, he says he saw the world as it actually is, something that does not depend upon human scale. “Aquinas says that God is in the world, not as the essence of things but as their cause. That, I think, is what I saw that made it possible for me to relax more deeply than I ever had before or have since. The divine was not some Thing in which to “believe”, but living and active, not far off and deigning to descend, but the common principle of existence. It filled everything, yet could be diminished by the death of nothing.” What are humans, then, but insect-like creatures crawling upon this immense surface?
Nature loves “multiplicity, interchanges” and man’s attempts to impose his puny order and scale on it are as often as not, futile. For example, the immense Aswan dam built in Egypt prevents the age-old lower Nile from depositing its silt downstream, nourishing millions of people, and it will ultimately silt up behind the dam and make it worthless. Logan talks about the attempts to exploit the Amazon rainforest, and forms of modern agriculture which pump nitrogen into the soil to make crops grow, but neglect caring for the organic matter which is the only thing that will truly enrich the soil, creating humus, tiny clumps of matter, no two of which have the same structure (like human beings and snowflakes). Soils get old and die, just like humans, and like humans, they die sooner if they’re not taken care of.
But this book is not just a plea to practice sound ecology, important as that might be. It’s also a book about wonder in the face of the beauty and power of the earth, created billions of years ago. Take clay - it has a molecular code which is more complex than either the genetic code or human language, making it capable, even, of the beginning of organic life The Bible may be truer that it realizes in saying that man comes from the dust, from clay. “Perhaps the Genesis story can symbolize the rise of life as we experience it, from the joining of organic and inorganic realms. Wouldn’t it be strange if, in the history of the living, clay performed the function of angels?”
The book is a collection of essays, organized into eight categories, put together by Logan who was an environmental columnist for the New York Times. Some are whimsical and personal, others more scientific and objective. I think a summary ending best captures what he was trying to do in this book. It was to show that soil (or “dirt” as he prefers to call it) is not just an inert pile of matter, but a “transformer”, constantly changing before us, and with a long history, predating mankind. It is as worthy of appreciation as anything else and has its own beauty. Bryant quotes John Adams who wrote, “The finest productions of the Poet or the Painter, the statuary, or the Architect, when they stand in competition with the great and beautiful operations of Nature, in the Animal and Vegetable World, must be pronounced mean and despicable baubles.” Logan then gives Adams’ recipe for making manure. Soil, dirt, shit, whatever one wants to call it, is constantly in flux, either through bacterial, vegetable, and living creatures, or through the forces of wind, heat, and water.
He even goes so far as to equate God-like status to the earth. Once when he was hanging from a cliff and about to plummet to his death, he says he saw the world as it actually is, something that does not depend upon human scale. “Aquinas says that God is in the world, not as the essence of things but as their cause. That, I think, is what I saw that made it possible for me to relax more deeply than I ever had before or have since. The divine was not some Thing in which to “believe”, but living and active, not far off and deigning to descend, but the common principle of existence. It filled everything, yet could be diminished by the death of nothing.” What are humans, then, but insect-like creatures crawling upon this immense surface?
Nature loves “multiplicity, interchanges” and man’s attempts to impose his puny order and scale on it are as often as not, futile. For example, the immense Aswan dam built in Egypt prevents the age-old lower Nile from depositing its silt downstream, nourishing millions of people, and it will ultimately silt up behind the dam and make it worthless. Logan talks about the attempts to exploit the Amazon rainforest, and forms of modern agriculture which pump nitrogen into the soil to make crops grow, but neglect caring for the organic matter which is the only thing that will truly enrich the soil, creating humus, tiny clumps of matter, no two of which have the same structure (like human beings and snowflakes). Soils get old and die, just like humans, and like humans, they die sooner if they’re not taken care of.
But this book is not just a plea to practice sound ecology, important as that might be. It’s also a book about wonder in the face of the beauty and power of the earth, created billions of years ago. Take clay - it has a molecular code which is more complex than either the genetic code or human language, making it capable, even, of the beginning of organic life The Bible may be truer that it realizes in saying that man comes from the dust, from clay. “Perhaps the Genesis story can symbolize the rise of life as we experience it, from the joining of organic and inorganic realms. Wouldn’t it be strange if, in the history of the living, clay performed the function of angels?”
May 9, 2021
Dirt by WB Logan is a song to nature. A book that I keep close on sleepless nights.
Logan weaved science and poetry with mastery and brings you closer to the secrets of the underground. I learned a few things about the properties, history, and culture of soils, or dirt, as he emphatically calls them.
I don't agree with everything he writes, especially in relation to other fields of science, but I enjoyed everything he wrote.
Logan weaved science and poetry with mastery and brings you closer to the secrets of the underground. I learned a few things about the properties, history, and culture of soils, or dirt, as he emphatically calls them.
I don't agree with everything he writes, especially in relation to other fields of science, but I enjoyed everything he wrote.
June 6, 2010
From the standpoint of a budding soil scientist, but ever the naturalist, this book nearly bored me to tears. While it was a quick read, interesting in parts, it was also a series of non-connecting short stories about one guy's encounters with dirt, either in physical or academic form.
The topics Logan glossed over are just about everything from how soil is formed from interstellar dust (at the beginning of the planet's creation) to worms in the dirt. Most, however, were mini stories or quotes about dirt.
This book was not so academic that he didn't use the word "shit", but it did have a slight academic overview. What I'm not really all that clear about is how he associated dirt with sex so much. Seriously, I've looked at many gorgeous soil horizons, and I never found a single one of them "sexy" (p. 178). There were several references to the dirt being erotic in some sense, and often I couldn't figure out how he got that. This man loves his dirt. Possibly too much.
He also made the dirt very spiritual. I have often felt a grounded connection to the earth when I put my hands in a big pile of dirt, but never have I been able to associate it with so much Christianity. It made me wonder if he didn't seriously love his dirt too much. To each his own though.
The topics Logan glossed over are just about everything from how soil is formed from interstellar dust (at the beginning of the planet's creation) to worms in the dirt. Most, however, were mini stories or quotes about dirt.
This book was not so academic that he didn't use the word "shit", but it did have a slight academic overview. What I'm not really all that clear about is how he associated dirt with sex so much. Seriously, I've looked at many gorgeous soil horizons, and I never found a single one of them "sexy" (p. 178). There were several references to the dirt being erotic in some sense, and often I couldn't figure out how he got that. This man loves his dirt. Possibly too much.
He also made the dirt very spiritual. I have often felt a grounded connection to the earth when I put my hands in a big pile of dirt, but never have I been able to associate it with so much Christianity. It made me wonder if he didn't seriously love his dirt too much. To each his own though.
June 2, 2014
I read this book for my Natural History book club. I was excited to read a book about soil, as it's always fascinated me. I wanted to understand the complexity of soil and its history, what lives in soil, what composes soil. I found William Bryant Logan's book to be a collection of the author's experiences with different aspects of dirt, some of which were interesting. He also included some unrelated facts that were quite fascinating-- Alexander the Great's body was transported home in a vat of honey-- but he failed to see the forest for the trees. An additional criticism is his too frequent and too far-fetched connections with Catholic icons and imagery. The book I wish we had read is David R. Montgomery's book also called Dirt. A friend lent it to me when I complained about Logan's book, and it is much more what I was looking for.
June 12, 2017
I was really expecting less talking and more science. Sometimes the anti-science attitude was downright annoying. Other times, much of what he said sounded surprisingly like, oh I don't know, science? Don't get me wrong, as both a degree-holder in science (physics), and a gardener, and an amateur writer, I enjoyed the book - it's just not what I expected.
Also, I guess this was the right man to write a book like this. He certainly knows how to make and find dirty allegories. Was he a shrink of the Freudian school in another life?
Also, I guess this was the right man to write a book like this. He certainly knows how to make and find dirty allegories. Was he a shrink of the Freudian school in another life?
October 8, 2021
A fascinating tour of the earth. No, but not like that. I was expecting something more structured and science-y but instead got what felt like a collection of odes and essays about all the permutations that the ground under our feel can come in. While I would have appreciated a little more structure, instead of the loose meaningless sections the author/editor chose, I did really appreciate the personal musings and at times spiritual connection Logan made in talking about this precious stuff. It shouldn't work as well as it does.
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May 11, 2017Ever wondered what dirt was made out of? The stuff that you played in when you were a kid? What got under your nails as you dug a hole with nature's digging tools? Dirt is the book that goes into detail about the wonderful world of dirt and how crucial it is to life. After reading this you might want to go outside, kick your shoes off and feel the soil under your skin.
-Christina S.
-Christina S.
July 17, 2017
This is an odd combination of science, history, literature, personal reminiscences and religious observations, all connected in the author's mind somehow with dirt or soil. I had hoped for a layman's introduction to soil science. There was some of that, and those parts were interesting, but the author's often odd or minimally relevant personal associations were too distracting.
May 18, 2010
Thoughtful, beautiful (and informative) meditations dirt. It is a great melodious read that has stayed with me for the past seven years. His other book Oak is interesting, but not nearly as universal and powerful as this one.
July 26, 2010
A remarkable rhapsody on the life of soil. Accessible and engaging even for those who might not hasten to pick up a book about soil--beautifully, thoughtfully written. Makes you want to walk more gently and look more closely.
June 20, 2009
wonderful little book, well written and brings your attention to dirt, soil and grit in a most profound way.
May 14, 2010
I'm loving this poetic, scientific meditation on dirt.
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January 3, 2016A grand little book about the soil out of which we have all risen. Each essay/chapter is poetic, informative, and enjoyable.
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February 17, 2024This book is a mess. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the content matter is so scattered that I hardly know how to talk about it.
Logan begins his book describing how a workman had an injury, and left his pickup truck outside for months. There was some wood in the back, some paper, some fallen leaves. And plants started to grow in the bed of the pickup truck. Because organic matter breaks down, and creates something that supports plant life. I would probably call that compost, but we could also call it dirt.
What is dirt? There is no definition. We hardly know what it is, but Logan loves it with something approaching religious adoration.
He includes stories from history and legend. The story of Phocas the Gardener tells about a saint who knew he was about to be executed, so he first dug a hole in his garden, so he could be killed there, and his dead body could fertilize his plants. John Adams wrote with pride about his manure and compost piles.
He does some journalistic stuff, visiting a municipal composting site, and tramping out in the field with soil scientists. He does some citizen science, having his friends send him baggies of dirt from different places, and planting seeds in them to see which grew best.
He reminisces about events from his own life. He helps his father dig a whole to plant a shrub, and breaks open a water pipe. He watches his wife shower with well water on a hilltop in Spain. He has a spiritual experience while rock climbing.
He writes about humus, clay, silt. He writes about things that aren’t technically dirt: plate tectonics, and earthquakes, and rocks, and digging holes, and how water flows, and what’s inside the earth.
One description of this book that called it a collection of essays. That makes sense to me, because you expect some cohesion or progression of topic to the chapters of a single book, and if there was one here, I couldn’t make it out. But if you like nature, you’ll probably like this book.
The subtitle is “The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth.” What is ecstatic is Logan himself, in his lyrical praise of this mysterious and miraculous thing he calls dirt. Here is an example of that:
“Soil is all of the Earth that is really ours. The seasons, with their heat and their cold, make the soil. The storms make the soil, with water, the most powerful substance on Earth. The winds make the soil, spreading dust across thousands of miles. The tides make the soil, stirring the river deltas and their fertile slimes. And above all, the trees and the plants, the dead and the digested, the eaters and the eaten, make the soil.”
Logan begins his book describing how a workman had an injury, and left his pickup truck outside for months. There was some wood in the back, some paper, some fallen leaves. And plants started to grow in the bed of the pickup truck. Because organic matter breaks down, and creates something that supports plant life. I would probably call that compost, but we could also call it dirt.
What is dirt? There is no definition. We hardly know what it is, but Logan loves it with something approaching religious adoration.
He includes stories from history and legend. The story of Phocas the Gardener tells about a saint who knew he was about to be executed, so he first dug a hole in his garden, so he could be killed there, and his dead body could fertilize his plants. John Adams wrote with pride about his manure and compost piles.
He does some journalistic stuff, visiting a municipal composting site, and tramping out in the field with soil scientists. He does some citizen science, having his friends send him baggies of dirt from different places, and planting seeds in them to see which grew best.
He reminisces about events from his own life. He helps his father dig a whole to plant a shrub, and breaks open a water pipe. He watches his wife shower with well water on a hilltop in Spain. He has a spiritual experience while rock climbing.
He writes about humus, clay, silt. He writes about things that aren’t technically dirt: plate tectonics, and earthquakes, and rocks, and digging holes, and how water flows, and what’s inside the earth.
One description of this book that called it a collection of essays. That makes sense to me, because you expect some cohesion or progression of topic to the chapters of a single book, and if there was one here, I couldn’t make it out. But if you like nature, you’ll probably like this book.
The subtitle is “The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth.” What is ecstatic is Logan himself, in his lyrical praise of this mysterious and miraculous thing he calls dirt. Here is an example of that:
“Soil is all of the Earth that is really ours. The seasons, with their heat and their cold, make the soil. The storms make the soil, with water, the most powerful substance on Earth. The winds make the soil, spreading dust across thousands of miles. The tides make the soil, stirring the river deltas and their fertile slimes. And above all, the trees and the plants, the dead and the digested, the eaters and the eaten, make the soil.”
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