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Parts of this book had the potential to be boring, particularly some of geological data, but the material is presented in such an engaging manner as to hold the reader's interest throughout. Hell, I even found the acknowledgements interesting! All you will ever need to know about the eruption of Krakatoa contained in one easy volume!
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Simon Winchester is truly a first-rate writer with a distinctive style. He comes across as kind of a Victorian professor, a tone which is perfect for some of his other works such as “The Professor and the Madman” and his history of the Oxford English Dictionary. However, I don’t think his style works for the subject matter at hand here. I doubt there is another recent work of natural history which contains more instances of the words “splendid” and “delightful.” Winchester never met a tangent th
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Jun 23, 2008
Madeleine
marked it as tbr-longlist

Aug 21, 2008
Kiri
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review of another edition
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z-read-2000-2009

Jun 30, 2010
Deedee
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Gaijinmama
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Oana
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Janet Whalen
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Jonathan
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Oct 17, 2017
Sk888888
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review of another edition
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Sep 26, 2017
Kara
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Mar 20, 2019
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Nov 12, 2021
Kirsten Barber
marked it as to-read-soon

Jan 23, 2022
Brenda
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Lorri
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