Earthquakes: 2006 Centennial Update

Refer to my reviews of Shearer's and Aki's books. The difficulty level of this book is about 2 out of 5. Bolt also has an introductory book "Earthquakes and Geological Discovery" from Scientific American Library which is a quick introduction to earthquakes. Two books: Stein and Wysession and by Lay and Wallace are very good. Ratings of about 4 out of 5 difficulty. I would really like to have Simon's book on reading data from seismographs, 1981, but it is out of print.

Bruce Bolt's magnificant book covering the broad multi disciplinary field of seismology, earthquake engineering and preparedness. If you are concerned about earthquakes, read it.

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"Earthquakes" by Bruce Bolt has been the classic textbook for many years for a non-technical discussion. The fifith edition properly orders the material, and tosses out some outdated material, on earthquake prediction and reservoir-induced seismicity, for example.This book is California-centric, Bob Yeats has a more Pacific Northwest-centric "Living with earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest", Brumbaugh's "Earthquakes - Science and Society" is more rudimentary in both graphics and prose, and Yanev's "Peace of mind in earthquake country" is more engineering oriented and has been out of print. Susan Hough's "Earthshaking Science" is better written but with far fewer graphics.It is fairly clear, contains colorful stories from Bruce's decades as Director of the Berkeley Seismological Station, and has a firm scientific grounding. Reading it is no walk in the park, as befits a subject of moderate complexity, but neither is it a dark and stormy night. The accompanying web notes are sketchy, and I just noted some stale links.This edition seems nearly identical to the regular 5th addition  Earthquakes , except for 12 extra pages on the 1906 earthquake and slight updating of the internet references and a $13 higher price tag, which seems steep for a paperback. I suspect a Google search would be more fruitful than using web links from 1995.The 12 pages are notable for claiming to be written on the Centennial of the 1906 earthquake, although Prof Bolt passed away in 2005, and for arguing against the current estimated death toll in the 1906 earthquake of 3000+, plus a few interesting stories. Prof Bolt apparently lends more credence to a death toll of a few hundred, as was estimated prior to about 1980.

very comprehensive look at the mechanics and effects of worldwide earthquakes. Easy to understand, and very readable.