Book description
'Astounding ... To call this a "history" does not do justice to Helen Gordon's ambition'
Simon Ings, Daily Telegraph
'Awe-inspiring ... She has imbued geological tales with a beauty and humanity'
Shaoni Bhattacharya-Woodward, Mail on Sunday
The story of the Earth is written into our landscape: it's there in the…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Notes from Deep Time as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This book expanded how I thought about time and about the landscape we take for granted.
It opened up the prehistoric world from a contemporary perspective, showing how a sense of deep geological time can help us understand our own place in the world better today.
Gordon explains why categories of things can be useful in deepening our understanding of a place: as she says, ‘a named landscape thickens.’
I also found this book so useful in working out how to cram 100,000 years of history into one volume for my book!
From Charlotte's list on the British landscape.
This is an exemplar of modern science writing, weaving together a travelogue of visits to locations of scientific importance with musings on the significance of Earth history. Gordon has just the right touch of wonder as she peers at frozen records of past climates in an ice-core collection in Copenhagen, and as she scrambles along the Scottish cliffs where 18th-century geologist James Hutton began to recognize the many billions of years of Earth history. She pauses, observes, and brings her reader into a deeper awareness of the landscapes around them.
From Alexandra's list on on deep time.
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