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Island on Fire
- The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World
- Narrated by: John Lescault
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
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Publisher's summary
Can a single explosion change the course of history? An eruption at the end of the 18th century led to years of climate change while igniting famine, disease, and even perhaps revolution.
Laki is Iceland's largest volcano - and its most fearsome. Its eruption in 1783 is one of history's great untold natural disasters. Spewing out sun-blocking ash and then a poisonous fog for eight long months, the effects of the eruption lingered across the world for years. It caused the deaths of people as far away as the Nile and created catastrophic conditions throughout Europe.
Island on Fire is the story not only of a single eruption but the people whose lives it changed, the dawn of modern volcanology, as well as the history - and potential - of other super-volcanoes like Laki around the world. And perhaps most pertinently, in the wake of the eruption of another Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, which closed European air space in 2010, acclaimed science writers Witze and Kanipe look at what might transpire should Laki erupt again in our lifetime.
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San Francisco Earthquake that leveled a city symbolic of America's relentless western expansion. Simon Winchester has also fashioned an enthralling and informative informative look at the tumultuous subterranean world that produces earthquakes, the planet's most sudden and destructive force. In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of towns to its north-northwest and the south-southeast were overcome by an enormous shaking that was compounded by the violent shocks of an earthquake, registering 8.25 on the Richter scale.
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7 Hours and 45 minutes . . .
- By Tim on 12-09-05
By: Simon Winchester
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The Great Warming
- Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations
- By: Brian Fagan
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The history of the Great Warming of a half millennium ago suggests that we may yet be underestimating the power of climate change to disrupt our lives todayand our vulnerability to drought, writes Fagan, is the silent elephant in the room.
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Good book but unpracticed, disjointed narration.
- By Paul on 09-12-10
By: Brian Fagan
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The Peshtigo Fire of 1871
- A Captivating Guide to the Deadliest Wildfire in the History of the United States of America That Occurred in Northeastern Wisconsin
- By: Captivating History
- Narrated by: Jason Zenobia
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s likely true that most people picking up this book have never even heard of a place called Peshtigo. This is hardly surprising. This little town on the shores of Lake Michigan is hardly a remarkable place in the modern day. Its residents number less than 4,000, and there’s nothing particularly special about it at first glance. But one does have to look twice at its motto. “A city rebuilt from the ashes.” Peshtigo may be just another small Wisconsin town today, but 150 years ago, it really was nothing but ashes.
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Great story...even with the usual America bashing
- By Pat Newell on 07-12-21
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The Ice at the End of the World
- An Epic Journey into Greenland's Buried Past and Our Perilous Future
- By: Jon Gertner
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders, Jon Gertner
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Ice at the End of the World, Jon Gertner explains how Greenland has evolved from one of earth’s last frontiers to its largest scientific laboratory. The history of Greenland’s ice begins with the explorers who arrived here at the turn of the 20th century. Their original goal was to conquer Greenland’s seemingly infinite interior. Yet their efforts eventually gave way to scientists who built lonely encampments out on the ice and began drilling - one mile, two miles down.Their aim was to pull up ice cores that could reveal the deepest mysteries of earth’s past.
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Adventure, Science, Advocacy
- By EM Goodkind on 09-08-19
By: Jon Gertner
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Mountains of the Mind
- Adventures in Reaching the Summit
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: James A. Gillies
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Combining accounts of legendary mountain ascents with vivid descriptions of his own forays into wild, high landscapes, Robert Macfarlane reveals how the mystery of the world's highest places has come to grip the Western imagination - and perennially draws legions of adventurers up the most perilous slopes. His story begins three centuries ago, when mountains were feared as the forbidding abodes of dragons and other mysterious beasts.
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Pretentious Narrator
- By karla arens on 09-07-20
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Don't Know Much About Geography: Revised and Updated Edition
- Everything You Need to Know About the World But Never Learned, Revised and Updated
- By: Kenneth C. Davis
- Narrated by: Kenneth C. Davis, Joe Ochman, Mark Bramhall, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don't Know Much About® History, Don't Know Much About the Civil War and Don't Know Much About the Bible, turns his inimitable wit and wide-ranging knowledge to the subject of geography, and proves once and for all that there is a lot more to it than labeling countries on a map. From often amusing perceptions people have had through the ages about the world and the universe to the changing map of today, Davis shows how geography is really a great crossroad of many fields: biology, meteorology, astronomy, history, economics, and even politics.
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Errors
- By The Product Owner on 08-29-15
By: Kenneth C. Davis
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The Wild Places
- By: Robert Macfarlane
- Narrated by: Simon Bubb
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Are there any genuinely wild places left in Britain and Ireland? Or have we tarmacked, farmed and built ourselves out of wildness? In his vital, bewitching, inspiring classic, Robert Macfarlane sets out in search of the wildness that remains.
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Magical
- By Jennifer on 01-27-22
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When Humans Nearly Vanished
- The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano
- By: Donald R. Prothero
- Narrated by: Qarie Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Some 73,000 years ago, the Mount Toba supervolcano in toda's Indonesia erupted, releasing the energy of a million tons of explosives. So much ash and debris was injected into the stratosphere that it partially blocked the sun's radiation and caused global temperatures to drop for a decade. In this book, Donald R. Prothero presents the controversial argument that the Toba catastrophe nearly wiped out the human race, leaving only about a thousand to ten thousand breeding pairs of humans worldwide.
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A very special book
- By Scott Fitzsimmons on 02-02-19
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Wilderness Essays
- By: John Muir
- Narrated by: Steven Brand
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Part of John Muir's appeal to modern audiences is that he not only explored the American West and wrote about its beauties but also fought for their preservation. His successes dot the landscape and are evident in all the natural features that bear his name: forests, lakes, trails, and glaciers. Here collected are some of Muir's finest wilderness essays, ranging in subject matter from Alaska to Yellowstone, from Oregon to the High Sierra.
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Beautiful writing, but fairly shallow narrative
- By Lauren on 07-26-20
By: John Muir
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Origins
- How Earth's History Shaped Human History
- By: Lewis Dartnell
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming. Mountainous terrain led to the development of democracy in Greece. Atmospheric circulation patterns later on shaped the progression of global exploration, colonization, and trade. Even today, voting behavior in the southeast United States ultimately follows the underlying pattern of 75 million-year-old sediments from an ancient sea.
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GREAT Book with a Narrator Who's Falling Asleep
- By aaron on 08-02-20
By: Lewis Dartnell
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Desert Notebooks
- A Road Map for the End of Time
- By: Ben Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.
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Not about the desert, Not about Joshua Tree
- By Steve on 07-12-20
By: Ben Ehrenreich
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What listeners say about Island on Fire
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Customer 99999
- 06-09-24
grim
Depressing and in places horrificly graphic. Not a light listen, for children, or anyone at bedtime,
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- Catherine Puma
- 01-23-22
Interesting and Pertinent Topic!
Alexandra Witze and Jeff Kanipe highlight the historical affects of Iceland's Laki volcanic eruption of 1783 and how it significantly influenced the field of volcanology. They do a good job of describing the science of volcanoes and what we understand about eruption events while walking us through what many people experienced because of Laki in 1783-1784. This is a good book to read about volcanoes from the vantage point of an under-discussed eruption from the land of ice and fire.
The book then shifts to incorporate our understanding of Iceland's 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption. Because the Laki eruption was larger in magnitude and severity than the Eyjafjallajökull eruption of living memory, they make a good argument for how much more devastating a modern Laki-level eruption would be by comparing the two incidents. The air travel groundings and supply chain disruptions definitely rang true because of what we're going through with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some sections weren't the best, however, which is why I only give this book 4/5 stars. They seem to jump around from topic to topic, which may be because this book has two authors. Better editing to stitch topics together and write better transition passages could have remedied these hiccups.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading about volcanoes, volcanology, science, geology, science history, Iceland, and Icelandic history. It's my dream to visit Iceland someday, but I hadn't read much of its history other than "The Sagas of Icelanders" by Ornolfur Thorsson, so I'm glad I picked this up.
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- nerdymko
- 02-09-21
Good, but I wasn’t blown away
If you were into this kind of thing, a pretty specific volcano, it does a pretty good job of explaining the historic impact of Iceland’s volcanoes. I’ve definitely read more riveting books, but I’ve definitely quit way more. I guess it says some thing that I finished an obscure nonfiction book about a volcano in Iceland. No regrets here but it probably won’t be a second listen.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Texas Mama
- 06-02-23
Wonderful blend of history and science
This is a fascinating book from beginning to end. The volcanologist authors take the 1783 eruption of Laki as an entry point into a broad sweep of the history and science of volcanoes. The central Icelandic story was at turns charming, riveting and poignant, and comparing the structure and threats of volcanoes around the world was fascinating.
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- wyosavvy
- 09-19-23
Fascinating history of Icelandic volcanoes
Super book, easy to understand. Makes me want to book a trip to Iceland and visit some of these sights.
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- DiverseInterests
- 06-04-21
Interesting and engrossing Volcano info centered on Iceland
This was very interesting info on several historic volcanic eruptions / the way they developed and unfolded (esp Iceland’s Laki) and the horrific effects on people, livestock and landscapes often thousands of miles away from the actual volcanoes.
Ramifications for the impact of a future mega volcano on today’s more densely populated and international transport dependent is astounding and frightening!
Interesting in the Covid pandemic era was the author’s discussion about the run in N95 masks and panic buying that would occur should the world know about an impending mega eruption. Similar to what we experienced in 2020. Very prescient!
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- S.B.Hanson
- 12-13-21
Full of facts interestedly told
A very enjoyable book. Well read. It revealed volcano information new to me and beyond lava flow and pyroclastic gas. The stories of the aftermath of large volcanic action were horrific and heartbreaking. Really a great book.
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- Lynn
- 12-20-22
So Interesting
Volcano fan here. This book uniquely focuses on the activities of specific volcanoes. it also explains the physics and other processes in easily understood language. Very informative and -gulp - entertaining?
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- Dmitry Yakhnis
- 03-01-23
Couldn’t get through it
I tried to listen to the audiobook but I couldn’t stay with it. In the end, I couldn’t stick to the subject and lost interest.
I’m sure that other people will find it more interesting.
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- Mark
- 07-29-24
a great book
this is a very good book and a great listen
I may actually listen to it again, it was that good
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