These really hinge on McPhee’s geologist-buddy, and Love was the best of the whole series.

The best part of this book are the characters as the geology descriptions bog down. But the story of those who describe and live in the area are well worth the effort.

As someone with a casual interest in geology, and a historian by trade, I confess I found the historical parts of the book (especially the teacher/mother’s vivid diary entrees, great writing!) usually more interesting than the geology. But it was still interesting to re-read after a couple decades, and it would be good to read before heading to Yellowstone, the Titans, etc.

This book hits all my favorite buttons; good geologic banter about my area, multigenerational history of the same area, a twist or two of genealogy, and all rolled into a compelling story with a renowned geologist. This was a personal favorite 10 pages in. Not bad for a book that was written almost 40 years ago in the Reagan era…

John McPhee joins geologist David Love for a tour of the Wyoming countryside.  Well at least, McPhee uses their drive along Interstate 80 as a jumping off point to spin a tale or two.  Painting on a broad canvas, he pieces together a detailed picture of Wyoming from its  rich geological history, to the hearty characters that settled there.  And the focal point for all this is David Love.  And why not?  Love's history with the area is indeed the stuff that can fill a book.
The descriptions of Love's parents (especially his dad) and how they cut their teeth in the ranching business on the unforgiving landscape proved the most entertaining for me.  The time spent looking for lost sheep, and moving herds put David Love on a path to his ultimate passion.... The geology of Wyoming.  For Love, the Wyoming landscape appeared more interesting and mysterious than anything else.  To his credit, Love is the only person to build a complete geological survey of an entire state.  Not to mention probably one of the most complex.
McPhee wraps up the book by looking at the challenges that face a place rich in resources such as coal, shale, and uranium.  As a geologist, Love reflects on the interesting role his life work plays in this regard.  For me, the story reveals two competing forces.  One being how a land like Wyoming can influence and shape a man's entire life, and conversely how that same man's life work can change our view and understanding of a complex landscape such as Wyoming.

As always a great book by McPhee

This is one of the best accounts of the tremendous geological forces at work in Wyoming, which contains examples of all the rocks from every era in the history of earth. This is part of the trilogy, including Assemblin California and Basin and Range that make up Annals of the Former World, a landmark geological series. Interwoven in this complex account is the fascinating story of David Love and his family, in itself a story worthy of a book. Love is one of the preeminent geologists of our time. In spite of the enormous complexities of geology in Wyoming, John McPhee, in his flawless style, is able to generate an explanation that is both learned and extremely readable. It's a book I intend to reread. I would caution that the version on Kindle is shoddy in many respects. Long quotations are not set out typographically and there are several repetions of passages. I encounter this a lot on Kindle is I don't know why it can't be corrected.

It took me a little while to give in to McPhee's approach to the story of Earth's history, which is narrative, storytelling; not textbook. Once he had me hooked, though, I loved this big fat book so much that when our golden retriever pup bit chunks out of a few middle pages, I cared enough to buy another copy. McPhee gives not only the geology, the rocks, tectonics, mountain-buildings and so on that those of us who see our planet as our scrapbook want to know about. He entertains with such lines as this in his description of Wyoming's climate: "If summer falls on a weekend," the locals say, "let's have a picnic." He reminds us that even when we're complacent and ignore it, the seismology of California is still dangerous.  He motivates me to visit Franklin, New Jersey, for its unique minerals. He includes human history, or at least human mythmaking, with such anecdotes as the tale of Shoshoni chief Washakie, who killed his enemy Crow chief and ate his heart; hence the the place name, "Crowheart Butte." He deserved his Pulitzer Prize.

McPhee is a wonderful observer of nature and people. I love chewing away on his long, multisyllabic sentences. I read his books alongside Google Maps. In this case, I had hiked some of the same terrain with my brother, many years ago. We knew nothing about the history or geology when we were there. This book, one of the series Annals of the Former World, made me want to grab my brother, hop in my old Datsun 2000, pile the tent and backpacks on the trunk rack as we did in 1970, and drive overnight to see the area with more informed eyes. Read the other two books in the series, they are equally fascinating.