Sand: The Never-Ending Story is not a big book, but it's huge in scope despite the seeming simplicity of its title. Sand goes into geology, of course—sand is the iconic sediment at the heart of the rock cycle, eponym of sandstone, builder of beaches and the stuff of dunes. But sand behaves in ways that interest physicists, manufacturers, artists and children too. And sand gives writers a copious supply of metaphor. Michael Welland's book covers all that territory and more, but it's also a big sandbox of wonderful trivia. Here's a longer review.
Welland has been doing a virtual book tour to accompany the release of Sand in paperback. As part of that, we had a nice conversation in the Geology Forum.
University of California Press
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