A Crack In The Edge Of The World

Download or read book A Crack in the Edge of the World written by Simon Winchester and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2006-10-10 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Summary of Simon Winchester's A Crack in the Edge of the World written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-05-22T22:59:00Z with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The earthquake in Ecuador in 1906 was the most powerful ever recorded by the machines of man. It destroyed the island port of Tumaco, and killed as many as 2,000 people. #2 There were several large earthquakes in the Caribbean in the 1970s, and they did not kill anyone. But they did trigger a burst of smaller earthquakes, which went on for two or three weeks. The island of St Lucia was designated an earthquake-prone territory. #3 The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1906 was the most severe in Europe for 300 years. The villages of Bosco Trecase, San Giuseppe, Ottajano, Poggiomarino, and Somma were all covered in several feet of ash, and some had to be hastily abandoned. #4 The most active year of the twentieth century was 1906, which was characterized by a series of earthquakes in major cities. The year was also the most seismically dangerous of the century.

Download or read book A Crack in the Edge of the World written by Simon Winchester and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The international bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa vividly brings to life the 1906San 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. The quake resulted from a rupture in a part of the San Andreas fault, which lies underneath the earth's surface along the northern coast of California. Lasting little more than a minute, the earthquake wrecked 490 blocks, toppled a total of 25,000 buildings, broke open gas mains, cut off electric power lines throughout the Bay area, and effectively destroyed the gold rush capital that had stood there for a half century. Perhaps more significant than the tremors and rumbling, which affected a swatch of California more than 200 miles long, were the fires that took over the city for three days, leaving chaos and horror in its wake. The human tragedy included the deaths of upwards of 700 people, with more than 250,000 left homeless. It was perhaps the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. Simon Winchester brings his inimitable storytelling abilities -- as well as his unique understanding of geology -- to this extraordinary event, exploring not only what happened in northern California in 1906 but what we have learned since about the geological underpinnings that caused the earthquake in the first place. But his achievement is even greater: he positions the quake's significance along the earth's geological timeline and shows the effect it had on the rest of twentieth-century California and American history. A Crack in the Edge of the World is the definitive account of the San Francisco earthquake. It is also a fascinating exploration of a legendary event that changed the way we look at the planet on which we live.

Download or read book Living at the Edge of the World written by Tina S. and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2015-08-18 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Tina S. meets April, a teenage runaway, she thinks she's found her best friend. She leaves behind her dysfunctional family to join April in the tunnels of Grand Central Station amidst the homeless and drug addicted. Soon she's bingeing on crack--just like April--and stealing, scamming and panhandling to support her habit and to survive on the streets. In her own words, she describes her descent into crack addiction, being raped in the tunnels, her several arrests and jail terms and her grief and guilt over the death of April, whom she'd come to love. Finally faced with the reality that she might not make it through one more day, Tina takes her first difficult steps towards a normal life. With the help of a homeless advocate and his wife, a gay uncle dying of AIDS, and the woman who was to become her co-author on this book, Tina turns her life around and makes her way back to the world of the living.

Download or read book The Edge of Disaster written by Stephen Flynn and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-02-20 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do we remain unprepared for the next terrorist attack or natural disaster? Where are we most vulnerable? How have we allowed our government to be so negligent? Who will keep you and your family safe? Is America living on borrowed time? How can we become a more resilient nation? Americans are in denial when it comes to facing up to how vulnerable our nation is to disaster, be it terrorist attack or act of God. We have learned little from the cataclysms of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. When it comes to catastrophe, America is living on borrowed time–and squandering it. In this new book, leading security expert Stephen Flynn issues a call to action, demanding that we wake up and prepare immediately for a safer future. The truth is acts of terror cannot always be prevented, and nature continues to show its fury in frighteningly unpredictable ways. Resiliency, argues Flynn, must now become our national motto. With chilling frankness and clarity, Flynn paints an all too real scenario of the threats we face within our own borders. A terrorist attack on a tanker carrying liquefied natural gas into Boston Harbor could kill thousands and leave millions more of New Englanders without power or heat. The destruction of a ship with a cargo of oil in Long Beach, California, could bring the West Coast economy to its knees and endanger the surrounding population. But even these all-too-plausible terrorist scenarios pale in comparison to the potential destruction wrought by a major earthquake or hurricane. Our growing exposure to man-made and natural perils is largely rooted in our own negligence, as we take for granted the infrastructure handed down to us by earlier generations. Once the envy of the world, this infrastructure is now crumbling. After decades of neglect, our public health system leaves us at the mercy of microbes that could kill millions in the next flu pandemic. Flash flooding could wipe out a fifty-year-old dam north of Phoenix, placing thousands of homes and lives at risk. The next San Francisco earthquake could destroy century-old levees, contaminating the freshwater supply that most of California relies on for survival. It doesn’t have to be this way. The Edge of Disaster tells us what we can do about it, as individuals and as a society. We can–and, Flynn argues, we must–construct a more resilient nation. With the wounds of recent national tragedies still unhealed, the time to act is now. Flynn argues that by tackling head-on, eyes open the perils that lie before us, we can remain true to our most important and endearing national trait: our sense of optimism about the future and our conviction that we can change it for the better for ourselves–and our children.

Download or read book The Center of the World, the Edge of the World written by Frederick L. Brown and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Phone Box at the Edge of the World written by Laura Imai-Messina and published by Bonnier Zaffre Ltd.. This book was released on 2020-06-25 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Absolutely breathtaking' Christy Lefteri, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo. We all have something to tell those we have lost . . . On a windy hill in Japan, in a garden overlooking the sea stands a disused phone box. For years, people have travelled to visit the phone box, to pick up the receiver and speak into the wind: to pass their messages to loved ones no longer with us. When Yui loses her mother and daughter in the tsunami, she is plunged into despair and wonders how she will ever carry on. One day she hears of the phone box, and decides to make her own pilgrimage there, to speak once more to the people she loved the most. But when you have lost everything, the right words can be the hardest thing to find . . . Then she meets Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped talking in the wake of their loss. What happens next will warm your heart, even when it feels as though it is breaking... The Phone Box at the Edge of the World is an unforgettable story of the depths of grief, the lightness of love and the human longing to keep the people who are no longer with us close to our hearts. Everyone is talking about The Phone Box at the Edge of the World 'A moving and uplifting anatomisation of grief and the small miraculous moments that persuade people to start looking forward again' Sunday Times 'Strangely beautiful, uplifting and memorable, it's a book to savour' Choice, Book of the Month 'A poignant, atmospheric novel dealing with love, coming to terms with loss and the restoration of one's self' Daily Mail 'A story about the dogged survival of hope when all else is lost . . . A striking haiku of the human heart' The Times 'Beautiful. A message of hope for anyone who is lost, frightened or grieving' Clare Mackintosh, Sunday Times bestselling author of After the End 'Incredibly moving. It will break your heart and soothe your soul' Stacey Halls, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Familiars 'Mesmerising . . . beautiful . . . a joy to read' Joanna Glen, Costa shortlisted author of The Other Half of Augusta Hope 'Spare and poetic, this beautiful book is both a small, quiet love story and a vast expansive meditation on grieving and loss' Heat 'A perfect poignant read' Woman & Home