“What are the best books about or featuring Earthquakes?” We looked at 171 of the top Earthquake books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

The top 13 titles, all appearing on 2 or more “Best Earthquake” book lists, are ranked below by how many lists they appear on. The remaining 150+ titles, as well as the lists we used are in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.

For more destructive earth books take a look at our Best Volcano Book List!

Happy Scrolling!

Top 13 Earthquake Books

13 .) 8.4 by Peter Hernon

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 1
• Goodreads 2

A massive earthquake in America’s heartland causes massive destruction and a launches an equally epic struggle to save the survivors

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12 .) A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 by Simon Winchester

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 2
• USGS

Unleashed by ancient geologic forces, a magnitude 8.25 earthquake rocked San Francisco in the early hours of April 18, 1906. Less than a minute later, the city lay in ruins. Bestselling author Simon Winchester brings his inimitable storytelling abilities to this extraordinary event, exploring the legendary earthquake and fires that spread horror across San Francisco and northern California in 1906 as well as its startling impact on American history and, just as important, what science has recently revealed about the fascinating subterranean processes that produced it—and almost certainly will cause it to strike again.

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11 .) After the Quake by Haruki Murakami

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 2
• LA Times

An electronics salesman who has been deserted by his wife agrees to deliver an enigmatic package— and is rewarded with a glimpse of his true nature. A man who views himself as the son of God pursues a stranger who may be his human father. A mild-mannered collection agent receives a visit from a giant talking frog who enlists his help in saving Tokyo from destruction. The six stories in this collection come from the deep and mysterious place where the human meets the inhuman—and are further proof that Murakami is one of the most visionary writers at work today.

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10 .) Earthquake at Dawn by Kristiana Gregory

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 1
• Goodreads 2

“It’s April 18, 1906, and a powerful earthquake has just rocked San Francisco. Photographer Edith Irvine and her assistant, Daisy Valentine, survive the tragedy. Armed with Edith’s camera, the two women set out to document the devastation–even as buildings crumble around them and soldiers promise to shoot anyone trying to photograph the crippled city.
Based on the real-life experience of photographer Edith Irvine, this harrowing tale of bravery and survival includes many of Irvine’s now-famous photographs.”

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9 .) Earthquake-Resistant Structures: Design, Build, and Retrofit by Mohiuddin Ali Khan

Lists It Appears On:

• Alibris
• San Foundry

Earthquake engineering is the ultimate challenge for structural engineers. Even if natural phenomena involve great uncertainties, structural engineers need to design buildings, bridges, and dams capable of resisting the destructive forces produced by them. These disasters have created a new awareness about the disaster preparedness and mitigation. Before a building, utility system, or transportation structure is built, engineers spend a great deal of time analyzing those structures to make sure they will perform reliably under seismic and other loads. The purpose of this book is to provide structural engineers with tools and information to improve current building and bridge design and construction practices and enhance their sustainability during and after seismic events. In this book, Khan explains the latest theory, design applications and Code Provisions. Earthquake-Resistant Structures features seismic design and retrofitting techniques for low and high raise buildings, single and multi-span bridges, dams and nuclear facilities. The author also compares and contrasts various seismic resistant techniques in USA, Russia, Japan, Turkey, India, China, New Zealand, and Pakistan.

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8 .) Earthquakes by Bruce A. Bolt

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 2
• USGS

This is a concise overview of the history of earthquakes and seismology, including topics such as geologic faults, intensity patterns, plate tectonics, side effects of earthquakes (such as tsunamis), and protection of people and property. The book contains descriptions of the 1995 Sakhalin and 1997 Assisi earthquakes, and others such as Northridge, California (1994), Kobe, Japan (1995), Chi Chi, Taiwan (1999) and Denali, Alaska (2003). The sequence of chapters has been re-organized for the fifth edition to better facilitate learning the broad concepts before the detail. New exercises and web references have also been added to give students the opportunity to think and use data the way field seismologists do.

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7 .) Predicting the Unpredictable: The Tumultuous Science of Earthquake Prediction by Susan Hough

Lists It Appears On:

• Questia
• USGS

“An earthquake can strike without warning and wreak horrific destruction and death, whether it’s the cataclysmic 2008 Sichuan quake in China that killed tens of thousands or a future great earthquake on the San Andreas Fault in California, which scientists know is inevitable. Yet despite rapid advances in earthquake science, seismologists still can’t predict when the Big One will hit. Predicting the Unpredictable is the first book to explain why, exploring the fact and fiction behind the science–and pseudoscience–of earthquake prediction.

Susan Hough traces the continuing quest by seismologists to forecast the time, location, and magnitude of future quakes–a quest fraught with controversies, spectacular failures, and occasional apparent successes. She brings readers into the laboratory and out into the field with the pioneers who have sought to develop reliable methods based on observable phenomena such as small earthquake patterns and electromagnetic signals. Hough describes attempts that have raised hopes only to collapse under scrutiny, as well as approaches that seem to hold future promise. She recounts stories of strange occurrences preceding massive quakes, such as changes in well water levels and mysterious ground fogs. She also ventures to the fringes of pseudoscience to consider ideas outside the scientific mainstream, from the enduring belief that animals can sense impending earthquakes to amateur YouTube videos purporting to show earthquake lights prior to large quakes.”

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6 .) Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake by Kathryn Miles

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 2
• Science Mag

“Earthquakes. You need to worry about them only if you’re in San Francisco, right? Wrong. We have been making enormous changes to subterranean America, and Mother Earth, as always, has been making some of her own. . . . The consequences for our real estate, our civil engineering, and our communities will be huge because they will include earthquakes most of us do not expect and cannot imagine—at least not without reading Quakeland. Kathryn Miles descends into mines in the Northwest, dissects Mississippi levee engineering studies, uncovers the horrific risks of an earthquake in the Northeast, and interviews the seismologists, structual engineers, and emergency managers around the country who are addressing this ground shaking threat.

As Miles relates, the era of human-induced earthquakes began in 1962 in Colorado after millions of gallons of chemical-weapon waste was pumped underground in the Rockies. More than 1,500 quakes over the following seven years resulted. The Department of Energy plans to dump spent nuclear rods in the same way. Evidence of fracking’s seismological impact continues to mount. . . . Humans as well as fault lines built our “quakeland”.”

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5 .) Richter 10 by Arthur C. Clarke

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 1
• Goodreads 2

Thirty years after the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake killed his family, Lewis Crane has become the world’s top seismologist, determined to protect people from his parent’s fate. But in a world controlled by Chinese corporations and split by racist and religious strife, many don’t want him to succeed.

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4 .) Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 1
• Goodreads 2

The critically acclaimed second novel from the author of `The Corrections’. `Strong Motion’ is the brilliant, bold second novel from the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of `The Corrections’ and `Freedom’. Louis Holland arrives in Boston in a spring of strange happenings – earthquakes strike the city, and the first one kills his grandmother. During a bitter feud over the inheritance Louis falls in love with Renee Seitchek, a passionate and brilliant seismologist, whose discoveries about the origin of the earthquakes complicate everything. Potent and vivid, `Strong Motion’ is a complex story of change from the forceful imagination of Jonathan Franzen.

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3 .) The Great Quake: How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet by Henry Fountain

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 2
• Science Mag

“At 5:36 p.m. on March 27, 1964, a magnitude 9.2. earthquake – the second most powerful in world history – struck the young state of Alaska. The violent shaking, followed by massive tsunamis, devastated the southern half of the state and killed more than 130 people. A day later, George Plafker, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, arrived to investigate. His fascinating scientific detective work in the months that followed helped confirm the then-controversial theory of plate tectonics.

In a compelling tale about the almost unimaginable brute force of nature, New York Times science journalist Henry Fountain combines history and science to bring the quake and its aftermath to life in vivid detail. With deep, on-the-ground reporting from Alaska, often in the company of George Plafker, Fountain shows how the earthquake left its mark on the land and its people — and on science.”

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2 .) The Rift by Walter Jon Williams

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 1
• Goodreads 2

“And then the earth shrugs–8.9 on the Richter scale in the world’s biggest earthquake since 1755. It hits New Madrid, Missouri, a sleepy town on the Mississippi. Seismologists had predicted the disaster . . . but no one listened. Within minutes, there is nothing but chaos and ruin as America’s heartland falls into the nightmare known as the Rift–a fault line in the earth that wrenchingly exposes the fractures in American society itself. As a strange white mist smelling of sulfur rises from the crevassed ground, the real terror begins for the survivors, including a teenager separated from his mother, an African-American engineer searching for his daughter, a TV preacher whose visions of hell have become all too real, and a sheriff cum Ku Klux Klansman who seeks racial vengeance in the midst of disaster.

It can happen. And sooner or later, it will.”

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1 .) Earthquake in the Early Morning by Mary Pope Osborne

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads 2
• The Miss Rumphius Effect
• Goodreads 1

“An adventure that will shake you up! That’s what Jack and Annie get when the Magic Tree House whisks them back to California in 1906. As soon as they arrive, the famous San Francisco earthquake hits the city. Can Jack and Annie save the day? Or will San Francisco be destroyed first?

Did you know that there’s a Magic Tree House book for every kid?”

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The 150+ Additional Best Books About Earthquakes

9 Best Books Featuring Earthquakes Sources/Lists