Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens

An Amazon Best Book of March 2016: In 1980, more than a thousand feet disappeared from the top of Mt. St Helens in a moment of stunning power, decapitating the mountain and leveling miles of old growth forest in a shockwave of boiling ash. 57 lives we lost within minutes, and yet the disaster didn't come without warning: the prior two months saw the volcano awaken in a series of earthquakes, ash plumes, and a massive, growing bulge on the north face looming ominously over Spirit Lake and the valleys below. Why was anyone there at all? Steve Olson's Eruption examines the forces at work--volcanic, economic, political, and historical--to tell a story at both geologic and human scales, documenting in thrilling fashion the demise of an iconic landscape as well as those who witnessed it: who they were, why they were there, and what they experienced when the earth opened and the sky fell. --Jon Foro