Full name: Island on Fire: The Extraordinary Story of a Forgotten Volcano That Changed the World

Authors: Alexandra Witze, Jeff Kanipe Year: 2014 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Science, Non Fiction Purchase/reserch links: Amazon Goodreads LibraryThing ISBNs: 9781605989587 1605989584

Laki is Iceland's largest volcano. 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. Similar books: Eruptions that Shook the World by Clive Oppenheimer The Code Book by Simon Singh The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert Cod by Mark Kurlansky Salt by Mark Kurlansky The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough Hackers by Steven Levy The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan The Cracking Code Book by Simon Singh The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston The Information by James Gleick Meetings with Remarkable Trees by Thomas Pakenham Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessels Coming of Age In The Milky Way by Timothy Ferris How to Make a Spaceship by Julian Guthrie Atomic Accidents by James Mahaffey Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock