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| |  | Health, Mind & Body | Home » » » A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 | | | | | | | Description: | | Unleashed by ancient geologic forces, a magnitude 8.25 earthquake rocked San Francisco in the early hours of April 18, 1906. Less than a minute later, the city lay in ruins. Bestselling author Simon Winchester brings his inimitable storytelling abilities to this extraordinary event, exploring the legendary earthquake and fires that spread horror across San Francisco and northern California in 1906 as well as its startling impact on American history and, just as important, what science has recently revealed about the fascinating subterranean processes that produced it—and almost certainly will cause it to strike again. | | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Simon Winchester | | Hardcover:
| 480 pages | | Publisher:
| HarperCollins | | Publication Date:
| October 01, 2005 | | Package Length:
| 9.0 inches | | Package Width:
| 6.2 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.2 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.7 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 109 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Mr. Sally Field's Wonderful Book (with Acknowledgements!!!)Jan 14, 2010
"This has got to go...I'm not running a Hall of Fame, Book Blunders Division. Xerox the maps & then pulp... his "Krakatoa" was wonderful..."The Professor & The Madman" was great - This is crap! What the HELL happened?!"
This was written on the title page while in flight from Newark to Los Angeles. But I couldn't wait. This expensive, hard-cover horror - written on appallingly cheap paper - was then heaved with gusto into a garbage can next to the boarding gate, about three minutes after we landed.
Irreversibly verbose & redundant, the "tone" of the writing was also bugging me. "I've 'heard' this somewhere before...but where?"
About page 50, after slogging through endless paragraphs, I already knew this book was a goner. So, for a change of pace, I looked at the Acknowledgements.
"With Gratitude." And he wasn't kidding. Thirty-five individuals were profusely thanked by Mr. Sally Field before the answer to my question finally appeared:
"By chance, I found that my apartment in San Francisco was just one floor above the flat belonging to California's most renowned living historian & author, Kevin Starr."
Mr. Starr is the author of "California, A History" - a work so relentlessly boring that the first word of my review was "Snoooooooooze."
Book notes: "I knew the 'tone' of this book sounded distressingly familiar!"
Also from the review of "California": "I could have done without [Starr] using - without the decency of acknowledgement - in his preface, Winston Churchill's rhetorical technique: 'Where did it come from - this nation-state, this world commonwealth, this California?' "
Churchill, now deceased & thus presumably at a great distance, had influenced Starr.
Starr, in turn & now in close physical proximity to Winchester, must have witnessed an author obsessed with the abandonment of all restraint & infused with an inexplicable enthusiasm for the writing found in excruciating advertising copy.
Since the Amazon review posting oddly does not accept either underlined or italicized words, Winchester's effusive words of zirconic praise are first listed en masse, for emphasis:
"Most renowned [Starr]... that most legendary... most earnest & sincere... a most intelligent & attentive... delightful... universally helpful... enthusiastically sharing... enormously helpful... particularly sympathetic... immensely helpful... universally helpful... peerless [&] enormously proud... enormous thanks... infectious enthusiasm."
And the same, in context:
It could not have been a coincidence that "that most legendary of editors, Larry Ashmead" - Winchester's 19th or 29th nominee for Best Supporting Gratitee - elected to retire "during the writing of" the manuscript (a decision that may have been solely based on having read the first rough draft of "A Crack In The World").
Prior to "most legendary," his "most earnest & sincere thanks" were extended to "a most intelligent & attentive group of students," after which a "delightful" university official was lauded.
This was trumped by the salute to various geologists who were "universally helpful...enthusiastically sharing...enormously helpful" & "particularly sympathetic."
City officials were "immensely helpful." An entire book store staff was "universally helpful."
And even a "peerless" & "enormously proud" restaurant waiter & serious memorabilia collector was unashamedly showered with the author's "enormous thanks" for his "infectious enthusiasm."
Mr. Winchester himself is so infectiously overwrought that it turns out that he needs the services of, & acknowledged - not one, but two literary agents, Mr. Matson & Mr. Hamilton.
But this unimpeded orgy of gratitude then ended strangely, with a stunted & maladroit attempt to express his affection for his girlfriend.
(Whom he labeled as his "companion." Is there a less romantic word?)
"...A thousand thanks, my dearest Elaine. You've been an absolute brick."
I hope that when she read this, she tossed one at him. Attentively.
 Geology, history, and personal ramblingsDec 28, 2009
Winchester writes about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. He began with some accounts of the quake, launches into some geology, and begins describing a trip he made to California. Yawn. For all of this, his writing style seems overly dramatic. Then he spent a few chapters giving a good little geology lesson. If not for his dramatic voice, this would have been dull indeed. Instead it was quite interesting. He follows that with a history of California and the SF area. Eventually he gets to the event in question.
I'd compare Winchester's approach to David McCullough's in "The Johnstown Flood." He moves through the destruction, looking at it from a distance, and then darts in for anecdotes.
From "A Crack in the Edge of the World" you get a riveting retelling of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, a geology lesson, and a quick tour of the history of the American West.
1 of 5 found the following review helpful:
The crack in my sidewalkOct 23, 2009
As I was walking down the street, the most amazing thought crossed my mind while dazing down at a crack in the sidewalk. This was after I had departed from the home of a Mr. Johnson, who by all accounts is the smartest man in town. His theories on subjects as wide as the Grand Canyon have continually left me perplexed. It is his theory of human psychology as it relates to ego is what struck me as I stared down at the crack. Within that crack is another reality, thought I, one in which small invisible worlds exist and one in which myriad drives and desires compete. But I digress since in actuality I am writing a review of a said book, entitled in English A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. This said book, written in the year we call 2007, is what one might call misleading or perhaps overloaded with non-linearity and ramblings beyond comprehension. One might even wonder what this book is really about. But what are books really about anyway? As I remember on my last journey to San Francisco, driving down a long and winding road that passed Mt. Diablo. A mountain that stands high above the crack in the eart, a place where the winds blow off of the Pacific in wild bursts. I was camping, my tent was shimmering in the wind. Oh, the joy. And what did I remember? I forget and you, my friend, can forget this very annoying book.
 A MOST readable study on earthquakes -- San Francisco & relates!Sep 23, 2009
Simon Winchester has given birth to another true winner! His detailed and fascinating on-site research at dozens of related venues and his creative approach to telling his story make this an extremely readable and very clearly presented education on everything related to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Easy to read -- unforgettable!
A Crack in the Edge of the WorldSep 09, 2009
Winhester has done it again..a very well written and engrossing tale of the 1906 San Francsco earthquake. Even though I am a native of the SF Bay area and have some knowledge of the event, Winchester's account revealed so much that I did not know. It is a complete tale of more than geology. The social, political, economic and historical consequences of the event are covered in detail and themselves are as interesting as the geology. Highly recommended as a tale of not only an historic natural disaster, but of how humans react to it.
Also recommended is Winchester's "Krakatoa"; you will learn a lot of history that is relevent still today.
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