The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms by Amy Stewart
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(Paperback - Reprint)
- Pub. Date: March 2005
- 240pp
- Sales Rank: 212,984
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: March 2005
- Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
- Format: Paperback, 240pp
- Sales Rank: 212,984
- ISBN-13: 9781565124684
- ISBN: 1565124685
- Edition Description: Reprint
Synopsis
“Engrossing” (The Christian Science Monitor), “fascinating” (TimeOut New York), “delightfully nuanced” (Entertainment Weekly), “terrific” (New York Newsday), “inspiring” (Bust magazine). “You know a book is good when you actually welcome one of those howling days of wind and sleet that makes going out next to impossible” (The New York Times).
The Earth Moved has moved reviewers across the country. In witty, offbeat style, Amy Stewart takes us on a subterranean adventure and introduces us to our planet’s most important gatekeeper: the humble earthworm. It’s true that the earthworm is small, spineless, and blind, but its effect on the ecosystem is profound,moving Charles Darwin to devote his last years to studying its remarkable attributes and achievements.
With the august scientist as her inspiration, Stewart investigates the earthworm’s astonishing realm, talks to oligochaetologists who have devoted their lives to unearthing the complex web of life beneath our feet, and observes the thousands of worms in her own garden. Stewart’s “ease in gliding from worms to plants to humans will remind readers of John McPhee’s essays on canoes, oranges, the geology of America” (Providence Journal). “Stewart’s book paddles along in [Rachel] Carson’s wake. Read her book and you’ll start to see how the rhododendron bed in front of your house is a kind of Mars for frontier science” (The Boston Globe).
Biography
Amy Stewart's last book, The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms, won the California Horticultural Society's Writer's Award for 2005, was a featured selection of the Discovery Channel Book Club, and was named a Best Book of the Year by the San Jose Mercury News. Her articles appear regularly in Organic Gardening and the San Francisco Chronicle. The recipient of a 2006 National Endowment of the Arts for Literature Fellowship, Stewart lives in northern California.
Customer Reviews
Misleadingby Maertel
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October 31, 2008:
What a horrific book for anyone who cares about animals and their feelings! With an early veneer of compassion, this descends into the hells of animal experimentation for which, as usual, there is no compelling reason except for pulling the wings off butterflies.
Very, very disappointing.
Worms Ruleby Anonymous
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September 01, 2006: Yet another book whose hype far outweighs its heft. But really, how exciting can a book about earthworms be? A chapter that did bring me to the edge of my seat, was one that described the search for the giant Palouse earthworm of southeastern Washington State. One hasn't been seen for twenty years and is feared to be extinct. I couldn't help thinking, 'How would they know? These things live far underground in Jimmy Hoffa territory.' The worm grows as long as three feet, and get this, to protect itself, it releases a mucus that smells like ... lilies. This Driloleirus americanus would find life easy at any graveyard with one of its functions to provide mourners with a lovely fragrance. You could almost say that visitors would be smelling the ghosts of the dead. There are hundreds of species of worms and each of them sprout the sex organs of both female and male. No wonder they are all blind. Some varieties eat table scraps, newspapers, leaves, pine needles, but never any meat or meat by-products. Some simply digest the microscopic organisms living in the soil. They have no lungs and breathe through their skins. And contrary to what I thought prior to completing this 206-paged large-fonted book, worms aren't always beneficial for all situations. In example, author Amy Stewart discovered that stowaway European worms dropped in the Minnesota forest have begun to kill new growth. This is because at night millions of worms pull into their tunnels the fallen leaves and debris that for centuries had hidden and sheltered the very young trees and shrubs from the vegetarian wildlife. Without the protection provided by the thick natural occurring debris, the ruminants consume not only all the groundcover, but all the baby trees that require decades to mature from a green-budded shoot into a young buck's rubbing post. Finally there are experiments afoot that may use millions of worms to change the sewage of our cities (of which only 5% is solid matter) into vermicompost (worm castings) that, after much sanitizing and de-stinking, can be re-used as fertilizer for growing food we eat. Anyone who delights in backyard gardening or creating first class compost will find The Earth Moved, fascinating.
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