Philip L. Fradkin

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Magnitude 8: Earthquakes and Life Along the San Andreas Fault

I came to this book and the two that followed it by a natural progression.

I am curious about my surroundings, and I have lived adjacent to the San Andreas Fault for the last thirty years, alternating within a few miles between the Pacific tectonic plate and the North American plate. As a journalist and resident of California since 1960, I am quite familiar with disasters, having observed all types and having been a victim of fires and floods. I wrote in The Seven States of California that there were three ways to deal with such disasters: leave the state, take up religion, or live one day at a time, the last being my personal preference.

So I set out to explore the splitting of the earth's crust, my designated batter for exploring the effect of nature on humans, first in a general overview and California-centered book, Magnitude 8, then in a wilderness setting, Wildest Alaska., and finally in an urban setting The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906. In this manner my Earthquake Trilogy unfolded.


The Backstories of Selected Works

Nonfiction
Wallace Stegner and the American West
The definitive life of the West's outstanding writer, teacher of writers, and conservationist.
A River No More: The Colorado River and the West
The use and abuse of the West's lifeblood, water.
Fallout: An American Nuclear Tragedy
Radioactive fallout from the Nevada Test Site caused innocent people to die.
Magnitude 8: Earthquakes and Life Along the San Andreas Fault (Volume I in the Earthquake Trilogy)
A history and description of earthquakes in general, the San Andreas Fault in particular, and a discussion of the adequacy of the science of seismology.
Wildest Alaska: Journeys of Great Peril in Lituya Bay (Volume II in the Earthquake Trilogy)
Giant waves, five hundred feet higher than the Empire State Building, sweep a remote Alaska Bay.



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