Lots of rocks, yeah!

Basin and Range
by John McPhee

A classic, of course, and beautifully written to boot. But it's the sort of thing I'd be better off reading on paper. I tried the audiobook and listened while jogging--every time I noticed a flock of ducks in the pond or a new planting of flowers, I lost track of a few million years and had to skip back. Not that it's not gripping, but it's dense. In a good way.

My only complaint is that he seems to think that listing off names that mean nothing to the reader is somehow elucidative. Or poetic.  I've seen other writers do it, even my beloved Terry Tempest Williams, and I always find it boring. What's the point of listing of names of geologists with only the context of "they were all part of the development of James Hutton's theories. I won't remember them. If he wants to give them credit for their work, he could put them in a footnote.

Listing of geologic eras, again without context, is just listing of random words. He might as well say, "fish; tree roots; cryptography; Mercedes; chewing gum; currency; nuclear physics."  That would mean as much as "Cenozoic, Paleozoic, Triassic, Deuteronomy, Genesis...oops. You see what I mean?