Becalmed on David Abulafia's books about the sea and drifting away from Dante (see previous blogs), I was rescued by a chance encounter with Simon Winchester's Krakatoa, an excellent book that would actually justify some of the hyperbole sprinkled over the covers of The Great Sea and The Boundless Sea.
Winchester's subject matter helps of course... the most cataclysmic explosion known in modern times... the total self-destruction of an island of six cubic miles... a sound that could be heard 3,000 miles away... and deadly tsunamis with waves up to 135ft high...
But it is his journalistic approach to all that led up to the traumatic event of 1883, the very human details of what happened, and the life-changing aftermath that makes this such a fantastic read.
Above all, Krakatoa is an illustration of the immense intelligence of the planet, the fact that human existence hangs by a thread, and the reassurance that nature and its life forces will always be unstoppable.
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