10 Books By Women About Rocks / Geology
Putting books about rock by women in conversation
Though it has been landing through letterboxes for the last few days or so, today is finally the official publication day for Weathering. As a day itself I am quite sure it will be anticlimactic, and instead I have started to consider what my longer term hope would be for this book. And that is that this would be a book that gets passed around and grows. That it becomes a book people recommend by word-of-mouth, and gift to friends. A book people share passages from, and take away to lovely places to read in solitude. It’s not - I think - the type of book that will grab loud attention, but is a book to be appreciated in private. I could be wrong - I often am - but I think this would be a fitting life for a book I’ve written; an introvert’s book.
With the occasion in mind though - and we must celebrate milestones otherwise there is a danger that nothing ever counts for anything - then I thought it might be fun to share some other rock-related books. I gave myself a particular brief for this list of recommended reads, which is that the authors had to be/identify as women, and the books had to be non-fiction and mainly about rock. They also had to be books available for the general reader (not purely academic text books, for example). Think nature writing, popular science, smart thinking and so on. My reasons were two fold: firstly, Weathering satisfies all of these criteria and I wanted to list for you other books like mine that you might like. Secondly, I wanted to place my own humble offering in this tiny sisterhood if you will; to put them in conversation. In most of these books you can trace something more relational than heroic. Most are looking at rocks in new ways. All seek to add a new perspective on the oldest of material, in a literal sense.
Books about rocks are not common anyway, but those written by women are vanishingly rare. Most rock-related books are written by men, which is unsurprising for all the reasons that you will be well versed in, so to capture them feels especially important. As soon as you widen the remit to include activities adjacent to rock such as walking and climbing many more books abound, but for this list I wanted to move as closely as possible to the core thingness of rocks. I offer them here in no particular order, though the sifting of my unconscious may provide a governing pattern. Where there is mission creep I have acknowledged it and tried to make my justifications. I recognise there are omissions and don’t mind being reminded of them. The ‘Still to be read’ and ‘honourable nods’ at the end should not be overlooked!
Legends of the Earth, Their Geologic Origins by Dorothy B. Vitaliano
This is the oldest book on the list having published in 1974, and sits somewhere between geological text book and popular science. In it Vitaliano examines folklore and myth through a geological lens, and indeed geological phenomena through a mythic lens. What follows is a book on geomythology. It is an old book now and some of the content therefore feels dated in its science or omission, but her angle is a fascinating one and feels like it has new relevance for these times when we are becoming enamoured with myth and lore once more. I became interested in this book as I considered the geomythic stories surrounding Lud’s Church in the Peak District, (which features in Weathering) but my battered copy is never far from me now.
Stone Will Answer by Beatrice Searle
I had this beautiful book on pre-order, and it landed on my Kindle while I was in Finland in 2023. I had already submitted my own manuscript so opening this book was both exciting and nerve-wracking. What if we covered the same ground? What if there was stuff here that I wanted to reference in my own and now it’s too late? I needn’t have worried. Searle’s rock-story is a different one to mine as a stonemason, and hers is a tale of an incredible pilgrimage from Orkney to Norway on foot towing a very large, flat rock. Some of her insights echoed my own and in the end this was wildly reassuring. This woman loves rocks too, I realised devouring the book in two sittings. Stone Will Answer was one of my favourite books of last year, and it’s gorgeous in hardback and paperback (which is out now). I wholly recommend this book and the sacred adventure Searle walks us through.
Timefulness by Marcia Bjonerud
Bjornerud is a proper geologist, not a flunk-out like me. Ha! Somehow she managed to make it work and travelled the distance, and yet also managed to publish geology for the mainstream in the form of Timefulness, which is a beautiful addition to the ‘-fulness’ genre, elaborating the many ways that we can rethink our relationship with time. I first read this a while back when I too wanted to write about time-lessons from geology. Finding her work was to discover that the job had already been done and that I certainly wasn’t going to add anything further. After a period of years mourning my idea, I realised I had a different story to tell, and so began my own writing. Bjonerud’s vision of time stayed in my heart though and I was glad to include her coining of Timefulness in Weathering. She has an amazing ability to translate big ideas, and I dearly wish she had been one of my geology teachers. Very few women teach geology in the UK (or presumably in the US where she is based), so she is a gift. I am waiting patiently (and somewhat fearfully) for whatever she writes next.
A Line Above The Sky by Helen Mort
It took me a while to pick this book up because the hardback subtitle was ‘on mountains and motherhood’ and so I wrongly assumed it wasn’t for me in some way, and therefore left it on the pile for longer than I care to admit (but have admitted to Helen!) That was a mistake. In fact, this book is one of the best outdoor memoir’s I have ever read, and though it is in large part about her experience of early motherhood it is equally about the demands placed on women whatever their choices in life. The story of the author’s experience is skilfully interleaved with that of exceptional climber Alison Hargreaves and beneath that still is the landscape of the Dark Peak. Again, Helen is a climber and runner but this book is also about the siren call of the rock itself. As it turns out Helen and I share the same publisher and editor and will be in conversation together for the launch of Weathering. It was reading her book again with this in mind, that I somehow felt the uncanny, spectral presence of her in the landscape of my book, just as Alison was in hers. Helen has long been on my skyline, though mainly as a wonderful and accomplished poet, and I have brushed past her many times over the years, never quite making contact (her uncle even taught me poetry for two years!). So, it seems strange then to finally be meeting next month as if our books were actually two sides of the same coin.
Time on Rock by Anna Fleming
OK, so this is essentially a climbing book, and I am bending my own rules slightly, but it is also more than that as with the above book, which is why I picked it up as a non-climber. It is also a lyrical love story to the rock that Fleming knows and loves through her climbing, and a journey of developing connectedness to the landscapes in which she climbs. Her descriptions are both precisely observed and expansive. She journeys across the UK and in places to Europe visiting different climbs and thus different geologies and all the while we travel with her seeing the rock face through her eyes in new, culturally observed ways. This is a poetic book in the true spirit of Nan Shepherd’s work (see end) and will inspire many to approach climbing (and simply being on rock) differently I’m sure.
Lapidarium by Hettie Judah
This is more of a source book than a cover-to-cover read, and lists and photographs all sorts of rocks and minerals of significance to life and the creative arts over the centuries. It is a delicious book to hold and sniff, and I read it gradually over time just because I loved the little stories of the rocks and their characters within, as well as the glossy pictures. It is a book to have for inspiration - definitely get it in physical copy - as I’m sure I’m not the first or last person to find a sense of groundedness and simple solace in this sort of ‘encyclopaedia’ book. In fact, I wish I had it to hand right now as I embark on a new project. A delightful cabinet of curiosities that reminds me of all the ways rocks have been loved, often for aesthetic reasons, over the human ages. This book also suffers from one of the most ridiculously niche Amazon reviews I have ever read: the reviewer dropping a star because Judah didn’t include the chemical formulas of the rocks she introduced us to. I mean, come on!
Notes from Deep Time by Helen Gordon
Notes from Deep Time is a more traditional take on the geological history of the UK, only told through a keen amateur who loves the landscape and wants to go deeper. We journey through layers of time with Gordon as our guide and along the way we meet famous geologists and locations that have been influential in the geology we understand today. Condensing the History of the UK/Planet/Universe is a sub-genre and perennial fascination all of its own, and I read most of them, keen to see who can do it most succinctly and interestingly. Because even as a geologist those billions of years crammed into one chapter can get tedious. Gordon’s book is incredibly readable though and I especially loved her characterisation of geologist’s at the beginning of the book, which I referenced at the beginning of my own.
Dyke by Sabrina Imbler
This is a very short book - a chapbook really – but in it Imbler weaves a remarkable story of queer nature and magnificent metaphor. I think the blurb says it best: “through intertwined threads of autofiction, lyric science writing and the tale of a newly queer volcano, Sabrina Imbler delivers a coming out story on a geological timescale. This is a small book that tackles large, wholly human questions - what it means to live and date under white supremacy, to never know if one is loved or fetishized, how to navigate fierce desires and tectonic heartbreak through the rise and eventual eruption of a first queer love.” For me, Imbler’s prose is vivid and her ideas exciting. I would happily have read on and on but at 30 pages it was merely a hint at her glorious work. She went on to write My Life in Sea Creatures, which is on my tbr pile and with this introduction to her writing I can’t wait to get to it.
A billion black Anthropocenes or None by Kathryn Yusoff
This isn’t a book for the casual reader by any stretch of the imagination - it is dense, wordy, at times confounding - but it is an important short book on the extractive, white patriarchal nature of the Anthropocene, and is therefore essential for the reader interested in this geological epoch and the horrors exacted on the planet in this time period. I found it very hard going in places because it is unsparing and demanding in its structure and ‘prose’, but her ideas are original and incredibly illuminating and so it was worth the effort of perserverance. Yusoff is an accomplished academic and Professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University of London, and this book lays out her brilliance for all to chew over.
The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd
This is, I recognise, ever-so-slightly breaking the rules to my own game but Nan Shepherd is simply too influential to leave off the list and while she is both walking and climbing you also know she has a deep reverence for the rocky landscape of the Cairngorms. It’s a seminal piece of nature writing, which many of us would have read by now so I don’t need to say much. Suffice to say, she lead the way for many at a time where women weren’t heading into the mountains and looking at the world in this way. I first read the book many, many years ago now but it has always stayed with me as a lodestar of sorts. I have none of her skill of course, but I do find resonance in her spirit and way of seeing the world. I recommend getting a copy of each edition, especially the illustrated version from The Folio Society, which is luscious.
Still to be read & honourable nods:
Limestone Country by Fiona Sampson
This is a monograph published by Little Toller, and is badged as a love story to Limestone. It seems incredible to me that I hadn’t heard of this before, being such a limestone devotee myself, but there it goes! There are a lot of books in the world. I now have this on order after being recommended it, so I will have to report back, but Sampson is a critically acclaimed writer of many books of prose and poetry so I have no doubt it will be beautiful. I can’t wait.
Cornerstones edited by Mark Smalley
This only didn’t make the final cut because it is an edited collection of different voices, and has a male editor. However, it is a wonderful book and another gem by Little Toller. Each essay documents the writer’s love or affinity to a particular rock beginning with one of the oldest rocks in the world Lewisian Gneiss (written by Sara Maitland) and ending with Meteorites (written by Diane Johnson). All sorts of writers that I admire have essays in this collection, gathered together by Smalley who is also a producer for Radio 3 and will be interviewing me for my Weathering talk and signing in Bristol on April 18th. I impressed upon him my desire to add a piece should it ever make a reprint or paperback publication, as it’s such an enviable collection of tales from the subterranean. I actually want to pop this into the main list but that would be mission creep and I am trying (yet clearly failing) to keep this tight!
Adventures in Volcanoland by Tamsin Mather
This book isn’t released until the beginning of April but I am excited - memoir, travel and popular science. Yes please! The subtitle reads What Volcanoes Tell Us About The World and Ourselves. Up my street. Mostly, it’s my husband that fills the house with volcano books as he is a volcanologist by training (we met doing our PhDs) but this one is going to be mine first. Mather is an extremely well respected scientist at the University of Oxford so I think this will be rammed full of insight and perhaps a few people we know along the way. We’re already a pair of volcano tourists and I don’t see things improving now with the arrival of this book.
Written in Stone by Rachael de Moravia
I include this book because it sounds wonderful. A Story of Rock and of Ourselves. But it appears not to have arrived in the world yet. In some places it is listed as having been published in 2021. On Bookshop Org it is on pre-order for 2029! If and when it comes though I will be ordering it with excitement. The title and subtitle make it sound great!
Finally, it is clear that books on old Albion and the New Neolithica are having a big moment expanding the rock-category far larger than seen before in recent times. While I have read all sorts of editorial pieces from this category we might broadly call ‘lore’, I haven’t yet read anything in book form by women. If you have any suggestions please do send them over!
When I have time I would like to make a similar list of poetry books about rock, which will be fun and further my own reading in a direction I would like to take it when time allows.
oh my god !! I just discovered you tonight and as a geologist (more at heart now that I'm working in archaeology as a geophysicist) you & your work feel like an absolute gift. Thank you for sharing these recommendations - I am just about to order your book <3 women writing about rocks - my favourite things !!!
Ruth, I have just discovered you! Now I must order Weathering (and more), in fact the only book on this list I have read is Nan Shepherd’s, which I adore. I took it with me as a physical copy when we walked the Camino in Spain a few years ago, despite being cognisant of weight in my rucksack. I knew I had to have a physical book that I could read and re-read. Now it seems that I will need to get that super de luxe edition as companion! (I hope it’s not too creepy to add that my own book has Weather in the title… )