Bestselling writer [Simon] Winchester has crafted a magnificent testament to the power of planet Earth...A master storyteller, Winchester effortlessly weaves together countless threads of interest, making a powerfully compelling narrative out of what he calls 'the most lyrical and romantic of the sciences.' -- Publishers Weekly In the early morning hours of April 18, 1906, San Francisco and a string of other towns were overcome by an earthquake registering 8.25 on the Richter scale, resulting from a rupture in the San Andreas fault. Lasting little more than a minute, the earthquake wrecked 490 blocks, toppled a total of 25,000 buildings, broke open gas mains, cut off electric power lines, and effectively destroyed the gold rush capital that had stood there for a half century. Simon Winchester has been a globe-trotting correspondent. Trained at Oxford as a geologist, he is the author of the New York Times best-sellers Krakatoa, The Map That Changed the World, and The Professor and the