Customer Reviews

Sand: The Never-Ending Story

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Some books on scientific topics make the cosmic seem mundane. This book does exactly the opposite; it takes the "mundane" and makes it cosmic. We are so familiar with sand, from beach to building site, that we easily underestimate what a remarkable substance it is (the one exception might be chef Anthony Bourdain who reminds us that all food tastes better when eaten with sand between your toes - although I think he was talking about beaches rather than building sites). Enter author Michael Welland who reveals to the reader that we really can "see the world in a grain of sand." Not only in single grains either, but also in the remarkable behavior of sand bodies in a river, on the beach, or in a desert (apparently, strange noises are produced by shifting desert sands, but nobody knows how these sounds are produced). Most remarkably, Welland shows us how sand is not restricted to Earth, but how it occurs on other worlds with a very different composition to ours. Welland made me realize that sand must be present in some form or other on other on the surface of all planets and satellites, whether in this solar system or another. As I said: cosmic.
If you like the works of Carl Sagan, Stephen J. Gould, Richard Fortey or Brian Greene, you will thoroughly enjoy this book. Highly recommended.

Startling! That's the word that comes immediately to mind when thinking of this book. I was startled into laughter three times before I reached page 13 and startled by snippets of information provided in the same 13 pages. With no real science background and my only flirtation with geology being Roadside Geology of Colorado, I'm not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn't this highly entertaining and very readable book. I thought I knew something about sand since I grew up with a beach as part of my front yard, but I soon realized that I knew almost nothing about sand. For example, there are pictures in this book of some of the organisms that live in beach sand. My reaction? Oooh, yuck. No more walking on beaches for me. However, when I got to the chapter on desert sands, including some of the denizens of deserts, I decided beach sand isn't so bad after all.

This book is jam-packed with fascinating information. By the end of the book, I felt that Sand, the book, had filled every nook and cranny of my life, as sand, the substance, has a tendency to do. I would pick up a piece of information from Sand, only to find it emphasized by something else in my life. A case in point is sand forensics. I had never heard of the concept, which was surprising considering how many mysteries I have read and watched over the years. Mr. Welland gives a fascinating example of sand forensics in his book, and lo and behold, the next mystery I pick up (the fourth Lee Child) has the FBI determining where the kidnapper's truck had originated and where it had traveled based on the sand and mud clinging to the bottom of the truck. Sand forensics. Mr. Welland also lists many examples of sand referenced in literature. I had never been particularly aware of this and thought he must have been really searching for these references to have found so many. Except that I was reading Mark Twain's biography at the time and guess what? In chapter six, Mr. Clemens refers to life as being like sand, soon washing away. Okay, I guess I wasn't noticing all these references to sand in literature after all. But when I visited Camano Island in Washington (state) and saw two whales, inexplicably close to shore where I had seen nothing but sand only hours before during low tide, I could not understand what the whales were doing. The water roiled all around them but they couldn't have been in more than four feet of water. The next morning I picked up Sand to continue and the very next paragraph was about gray whales in the water off the coast of Washington scraping their bellies through sand to create sand flurries from which they could feed on ghost shrimp. Unbelievable! But I knew I was in real trouble when I took a cup from the middle of my huge box of Cheer, watched the sides cascade down to the middle, and thought to myself, "Avalanche!".

Other intriguing things about Sand? It reads like an exotic travelogue of places I have never heard of before as well as some that I am familiar with. Fascinating. Also, Mr. Welland occasionally gives his geology human characteristics, which makes the book more compelling in my view. Here's an example from page 248 of his book. "As from time immemorial, while the mountains rose, the elements chastised them for doing so, eating into the newly exposed rocks, eroding and destroying them." What a picture! He also personalizes the book in places. I loved his reference to Bernie, the taxi driver, who I am now anxious to meet, and his mention of his own love of wine, often grown in sand, to name a few instances. The book also piqued my curiosity to the point that I actually looked up a reference in his book, fortunately footnoted, so that I could easily get more information on the subject, in this case, hot air balloons floated over the Pacific to the US carrying explosives from Japan during World War II. And for those of us who saw Master and Commander and wondered how long that huge hourglass took to pour from one side to the other while on watch (I assumed it took an hour; hence the name hourglass), they will find the answer in this remarkable book. Finally, his understated but pointed remarks throughout the book on what humans are doing to their environment were both scary and refreshing. Scary because it makes it sound as if even sand, at least as we know it, may not after all be a never-ending story, and refreshing because the way he makes his remarks is believable rather than soapbox oratory, which most of us have learned to distrust.

This book is definitely one to put on your re-read shelves. Even reading it slowly, I'm sure I missed more than I retained, and I don't plan to take sand for granted ever again. One of the references in the first thirteen pages that made me laugh was the one about sand smuggling, but by the end of the book, I understood so much more about sand that I no longer felt the idea was laughable when it was re-introduced.

I read over three hundred books a year, mostly fiction. Last year, for the first time in my life, someone asked me what my favorite book of that year was. I had to think for about thirty seconds to answer, "Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose". If someone asks me that same question this year, I won't have to think for one second to answer, "Sand, the Never-Ending Story by Michael Welland". Oddly enough, they are both non-fiction. Go figure.

Sand: The Never-Ending Story
Mr. Welland's writing tugs you along with the same spirit my son
takes on when showing me remarkable things, one after another.
But Welland adds enough sense, context, and references to slow
things down enough to feel able to be absorbed in the amazement
rather than feeling rushed through to the next and the next. He has
drawn lines in the sand connecting geology with computing, evolution,
art, play, construction, and on many other beaches we humans find
ourselves wiggling our toes in. He could use a few charts for visual
reference, for example to visually represent the time scales and eras
from Earths' birth to the present. But otherwise, a great read and gift.

This book is not for everyone; however, if you are the least bit interested in Earth process, I highly recommend Sand: The Never-Ending Story. It is written in a lovely narrative style and is a great read.

Much like Salt: A World Historyby Mark Kuransky, "Sand: he Never-Ending Story" tells us more than we ever imagined could be known about sand, quartz, one of the most common elements on Earth - and, as it turns out, other planets as well.

Welland begins with the creation of sand, which can occur as the result of several mechanisms, the most common of which is the weathering of rock. He goes on to introduce us to the varieties of sand - who would have thought there were so many "flavors"? And then on to its many different behaviors.

In only a bit more than 300 pages, Welland takes us around the world and through billions of years of history. This is a spellbinding book, but also difficult to read in just a few sittings. The difficulty has nothing to do with Welland's writing style, which is excellent, but simply the enormous scope of the material. From the rate of erosion of the Appachlachian Mountains to the sand created by the impact of the dinosaur killing meteor 65 million years ago to the desert glass used to craft baubles for Egypt's pharaohs, there is much to ponder here.

Sand is everywhere around us, whether in the sand compressed into the sandstone of the old buildings we walk by or mixed into the slurry thst becomes the concrete of so many buildings and roads. And all of it has a story which Welland effectively tells.

There is so much here in so few pages. I'd love to go on, repeating one anecdote, one fact after another from "Sand: The Never-Ending Story", but I would be spoiling it for you.

This is s wonderful book for anyone with an interest in science or a curiosity about the planet they live on (and our neighbors). It is also the kind of book that might spark an interest in science in the fortunate teenager who reads it.

A marvelous excursion into the most humble, yet the most durable, parts of our environment: sand.

Jerry

As a sand collector by avocation and a materials engineer by profession, I found this book fascinating on several levels. Not only does it contain useful scientific content and definitions, but it also presents a mixture of interesting historical references to expand the reader's awareness of the role of sand in history and everyday life. The reason I didn't give the book a full five stars was that, as a collector, I wanted to see more microscope images. There were some color plates showing close-ups, but would have liked to see more examples of the tremendous variety of sand's colors and shapes. The book tends to treat sand more on a global level in terms of its properties, movements, and its role in shaping the earth. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad I bought the book and intend to refer to it often as a general and easy-reading reference. And by all means, buy one for your favorite arenophile!

This book is fascinating. It includes facts such as the rate at which sand is created. But it goes beyond those facts. The book discusses the almost incomprehensible numbers of sand grains and just how big those numbers actually are. The photographs are also excellent. I highly recommend this book.

This is a fantastic book that puts one of the most unassuming but ubiquitous members of the natural world, sand, under the microscope and in doing so, illustrates huge truths about our planet and ourselves. Written with deep scientific knowledge but an engaging, lyrical style, it's a profound read that touches upon almost every aspect of geology, from weathering to planet formation, from the formation of dunes and beaches to the quirky characters that investigated sand behavior across the years, from art to industry.

The only part of the book that seemed flat was the A - Z description of the many uses, and benefits of sand. All engaging, but given the great effort to weave the story along like drifting dunes, this section seemed out of place.

A minor quibble.

Highly recommend this book and for double the impact, read it at the beach. We were at Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast and armed with the insights from Sand: The Never-ending Story, the interplay of the sediment-laden tides, engines of change, and the drift of fine sand over the beach driven by strong winds, took on a special significance.

The epilogue, about the Libyan desert glass, was especially interesting. Would love to see a book just about that!

Who would have ever guessed learning about sand would be, not only educational, but actually *interesting?* I never would have guessed!

It's true, at least, according to Sand: The Never-Ending Story. The writer is definitely a notch above the rest.

Most of us think about sand near beaches, but this book actually mentions sand near buildings and other areas we don't normally think about.

Who would ever think that a 300 page book about sand could be interesting?!
Wonderfully written. Author writes like a poet about science. I pulled
this book off the "new" shelf in the library and could not put it down.