The Best Books About Or Featuring Earthquakes

“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!

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Top 13 Earthquake Books

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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

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#	Book	Author	Lists
(Titles Appear On 1 List each)
14	1906	James Dalessandro	Goodreads 1
15	1984	George Orwell	Goodreads 2
16	1001 Questions Answered About Earthquakes, Avalanches, Floods and Other Natural Disasters	Barbara Tufty	USGS
17	15: Fifteen Seconds: The Great California Earthquake of 1989	Tides Foundation	USGS
18	2:46: Aftershocks: Stories from the Japan Earthquake	Various	USGS
19	A History of Silence: a memoir	Lloyd Jones	Goodreads 2
20	A Wrinkle in the Skin	John Christopher	Goodreads 1
21	After Disasters	Viet Dinh	Goodreads 2
22	After the Earth Quakes: Elastic Rebound on an Urban Planet	Susan E. Hough, Roger Bilham	USGS
23	Aftershock (Aftershock, #1)	Jill Sorenson	Goodreads 1
24	Alaska Earthquake: Where Were You? compiled	Joy Griffin	USGS
25	All Fall Down (Supervolcano, #2)	Harry Turtledove	Goodreads 1
26	Annals of the Former World	John McPhee	LA Times
27	Applied Geography: Principles and Practice: an Introduction to Useful Research in Physical, Environmental and Human Geography	Michael Pacione	Questia
28	Ask the Dust	John Fante	LA Times
29	Assembling California	John McPhee	USGS
30	Basic Earthquake Engineering	Halûk Sucuoğlu and Sinan Akkar	San Foundry
31	Basin and Range	John McPhee	USGS
32	Because We Are	Ted Oswald	Goodreads 2
33	Blood Mines	Lynelle Clark	Goodreads 2
34	Blood Red Road	Moira Young	Goodreads 2
35	Cascadia’s Fault: The Coming Earthquake and Tsunami That Could Devastate North America	Jerry Thompson	Goodreads 2
36	Catching Fire	Suzanne Collins	Goodreads 2
37	Choosing Light: When an Earthquake Buried Me and My Family for 5 Days, I Learned to Fully Live	Viral Dalal	Goodreads 2
38	City of Heroes: The Great Charleston Earthquake of 1886	Richard N. Côté	USGS
39	Community Reconstruction after an Earthquake: Dialectical Sociology in Action	Ino Rossi	Questia
40	Control of Nature	John McPhee	USGS
41	Design for Earthquakes	James Ambrose, Dimitry Vergun	Alibris
42	Design of Earthquake Resistant Structures: Basic Theory of Seismic Stability	S V Polyakov	San Foundry
43	Design of Modern Highrise…	Hiroyuki Aoyama (Editor)	Alibris
44	Earth-quake Resistant Design of Structures	S K Duggal	San Foundry
45	Earthquake	Milly Lee and illustrated by Yangsook Choi	The Miss Rumphius Effect
46	Earthquake Architecture: New…	Belen Garcia (Editor),William Bain (Translator)	Alibris
47	Earthquake Design Practice…	Edmund Dwight Booth	Alibris
48	Earthquake Engineering:…	Nazzal Armouti	Alibris
49	Earthquake Fears, Predictions, and Preparations in Mid-America	John E. Farley	Questia
50	Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures	Aggarwal P	San Foundry
51	Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures	Shashikant K Duggal	San Foundry
52	Earthquake Resistant Design…	Dr. David J Dowrick	Alibris
53	Earthquake- Resistant Structures: Design, Assessment and Rehabilitation	Moustafa	San Foundry
54	Earthquake-Resistant Design of Building Structures	Dr Vinod Hosur	San Foundry
55	Earthquake-Resistant Design with Rubber	James M Kelly	San Foundry
56	Earthquake-Resistant Structures: Design and Analytical Aspects	Bruno Crump	San Foundry
57	Earthquakes	Franklyn Branley and illustrated by Megan Lloyd	The Miss Rumphius Effect
58	Earthquakes	Michael Woods and Mary Woods	The Miss Rumphius Effect
59	Earthquakes	Seymour Simon	The Miss Rumphius Effect
60	Earthquakes and Earth Structure	John H. Hodgson	USGS
61	Earthquakes and Geological Discovery	Bruce A. Bolt	USGS
62	Earthquakes and Volcanoes	Robert Muir Wood	USGS
63	Earthquakes and Volcanoes: Readings from Scientific American, introductions	Bruce A. Bolt	USGS
64	Earthquakes: Earth’s Mightiest Moments	David Harrison and illustrated by Cheryl Nathan	The Miss Rumphius Effect
65	Earthquakes: Science & Society	David S. Brumbaugh	USGS
66	Earthshake: Poems From the Ground Up	Lisa Westberg Peters and illustrated by Cathie Felstead	The Miss Rumphius Effect
67	Eruption (Supervolcano, #1)	Harry Turtledove	Goodreads 1
68	Escaping The Giant Wave	Peg Kehret	Goodreads 2
69	Fahrenheit 451	Ray Bradbury	Goodreads 2
70	Field Guide to the San Andreas Fault	David K. Lynch	USGS
71	Finding Fault in California	Susan Elizabeth Hough	USGS
72	Fire and Fog (Fremont Jones, #2)	Dianne Day	Goodreads 1
73	Five Fires: Race, Catastrophe, and the Shaping of California	David Wyatt	LA Times
74	Full-Rip 9.0: The Next Big Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest	Sandi Doughton	Goodreads 2
75	Fundamentals of Earthquake…	Ellis L Krinitzsky, James P Gould	Alibris
76	Furnace of Creation, Cradle of Destruction: A Journey to the Birthplace of Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis	Roy Chester	Questia
77	Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone	Richard Lloyd Parry	Goodreads 2
78	Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell	Goodreads 2
79	H is for Hawk	Helen Macdonald	Goodreads 2
80	How I Live Now	Meg Rosoff	Goodreads 2
81	How Mountains Are Made	Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld and illustrated by James Graham Hale	The Miss Rumphius Effect
82	If You Lived at the Time of the Great San Francisco Earthquake	Ellen Devine and illustrated by Pat Grant Porter	The Miss Rumphius Effect
83	Illusions of Safety: Culture and Earthquake Hazard Response in California and Japan	Risa Palm; John Carroll	Questia
84	In Darkness	Nick Lake	Goodreads 1
85	In Suspect Terrain	John McPhee	USGS
86	International Handbook of…	Mario Paz	Alibris
87	Jane Eyre	Charlotte Brontë	Goodreads 2
88	Janice VanCleave’s Earthquakes: Mind-boggling Experiments You Can Turn Into Science Fair Projects	Janice VanCleave and illustrated by Ray Burns	The Miss Rumphius Effect
89	Jump Into Science: Earthquakes	Ellen Prager and illustrated by Susan Greenstein	The Miss Rumphius Effect
90	Just Listen	Sarah Dessen	Goodreads 2
91	Magnitude 8: Earthquakes and Life Along the San Andreas Fault	Philip Fradkin	USGS
92	Making Buildings Safer for…	A S Nowak, T V Galambos	Alibris
93	Megaquake: How Japan and the World Should Respond	Tetsuo Takashima; Robert D. Eldridge; Robert D. Eldridge	Questia
94	Monster in a Box	Spalding Gray	LA Times
95	Monsters of Men	Patrick Ness	Goodreads 2
96	Music of the Earth: Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Other Geological Wonders	Ron L. Morton	Questia
97	Nature of the Stratigraphical Record	Derek V.	USGS
98	Night of the Howling Dogs	Graham Salisbury	Goodreads 2
99	One Amazing Thing	Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni	Goodreads 2
100	PaperQuake: A Puzzle	Kathryn Reiss	Goodreads 1
101	Powers of Nature	National Geographic, Special Publications Division	USGS
102	Quake	Lou Cadle	Goodreads 1
103	Quake	Rudolph Wurlitzer	LA Times
104	Quake!	Joe Cottonwood	Goodreads 1
105	Rising from the Plains	John McPhee	USGS
106	Roadside Geology author varies	book	USGS
107	San Francisco is Burning: The Untold Story of the 1906 Earthquake and Fires	Dennis Smith	USGS
108	Saving Cascadia	John J. Nance	Goodreads 1
109	Seismic and Wind Forces:…	Alan Williams	Alibris
110	Seismic Design of Buildings…	Alan Williams	Alibris
111	Seismic Design of Reinforced…	Jack Moehle	Alibris
112	Seismic Design of Reinforced…	Robert E Englekirk	Alibris
113	Seismic design of reinforced…	Thomas Paulay, M J N Priestley	Alibris
114	Seismic Design of Steel…	Victor Gioncu, Federico Mazzolani	Alibris
115	Seismic Design Solved Problems	Majid Baradar, Pe	Alibris
116	Seismic Isolation for…	Andrew Charleson, Adriana Guisasola	Alibris
117	Serafina’s Promise	Ann E. Burg	Goodreads 2
118	Shaken	Eric Walters	Goodreads 1
119	Shaken to the Core	Jae	Goodreads 1
120	Sicily in Shadow and in Sun: The Earthquake and the American Relief Work	Maud Howe; John Elliott	Questia
121	Simplified Building Design…	James E Ambrose	Alibris
122	Sisterland	Curtis Sittenfeld	Goodreads 2
123	Slide	Gerald A. Browne	Goodreads 1
124	Slow Apocalypse	John Varley	Goodreads 1
125	Smart Structures: Innovative…	Franklin Y Cheng, Hongping Jiang	Alibris
126	Stolen: A Letter to My Captor	Lucy Christopher	Goodreads 2
127	Tall Story	Candy Gourlay	Goodreads 2
128	The Ask and the Answer	Patrick Ness	Goodreads 2
129	The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us	Lucy Jones	Goodreads 2
130	The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea	Johanna Craven	Goodreads 1
131	The Earth Dragon Awakes: The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906	Laurence Yep	The Miss Rumphius Effect
132	The Earth in turmoil; earthquakes, volcanoes, and their impact on humankind	Kerry Sieh	USGS
133	The Earth Machine: The Science of a Dynamic Planet	Edmond A. Mathez; James D. Webster	Questia
134	The Earth-Shaking Facts About Earthquakes with Max Axiom	Katherine Krohn and illustrated by Tod Smith and Al Milgrom	The Miss Rumphius Effect
135	The Earthquake in Chile	Heinrich von Kleist	LA Times
136	The Earthquake Machine	Mary Pauline Lowry	Goodreads 1
137	The Fifth Season	N.K. Jemisin	Goodreads 2
138	The Flutter of an Eyelid	Myron Brinig	LA Times
139	The Folklore of Earthquakes	Carey McWilliams	LA Times
140	The Geology of Earthquakes	Robert S Yeats, Kerry Sieh, Clarence R. Allen	USGS
141	The Hammer of Eden	Ken Follett	Goodreads 2
142	The Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins	Goodreads 2
143	The Knife of Never Letting Go	Patrick Ness	Goodreads 2
144	The Last Day: Wrath, Ruin, and Reason in the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1755	Nicholas Shrady	USGS
145	The Lisbon Earthquake	T. D. Kendrick	Questia
146	The Million Death Quake: The Science of Predicting Earth’s Deadliest Natural Disaster	Roger Musson	Goodreads 2
147	The Northridge Earthquake: Vulnerability and Disaster	Robert Bolin; Lois Stanford	Questia
148	The Obelisk Gate	N.K. Jemisin	Goodreads 2
149	The Orphan Tsunami of 1700	Brian F. Atwater	USGS
150	The Queen of Subtleties: A Novel of Anne Boleyn	Suzannah Dunn	Goodreads 2
151	The Renegades (Michael Parson & Sophia Gold, #3)	Tom Young	Goodreads 1
152	The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906	Marc Tyler Nobleman	The Miss Rumphius Effect
153	The San Francisco Earthquake, 1906	Lauren Tarshis	Goodreads 2
154	The Seismic Design Handbook	Farzad Naeim (Editor)	Alibris
155	The Walk	Lee Goldberg	Goodreads 1
156	Things That Happened Before the Earthquake	Chiara Barzini	Goodreads 2
157	This Dynamic Earth: The Story of Plate Tectonics	Jacquelyne Kious, Robert I. Tilling	USGS
158	Time for Kids: Earthquakes!	the Editors of Time for Kids	The Miss Rumphius Effect
159	Time of Fog and Fire (Molly Murphy Mysteries, #16)	Rhys Bowen	Goodreads 1
160	Time’s Arrow, Time’s Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time (Jerusalem-Harvard Lectures)	Stephen J. Gould	USGS
161	Tsunami	Tetsuo Takashima	Goodreads 1
162	Volcanic and Tectonic Hazard…	Charles B Connor (Editor),Neil A Chapman (Editor)	Alibris
163	Volcanoes and Earthquakes	Susanna van Rose	Goodreads 2
164	When the Earth Moves: Rogue Earthquakes, Tremors, and Aftershocks	Patricia Barnes-Svarney	USGS
165	When the Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquakes	Jay Feldman	Goodreads 2
166	Why the Earth Quakes: The Story of Earthquakes & Volcanoes	Matthys Levy, Mario Salvadori	USGS
167	Wind and Earthquake Resistant…	Bungale S Taranath	Alibris
168	Without Warning (Shaken, #1)	K.G. MacGregor	Goodreads 1
169	Witness to Disaster: Earthquakes	Judy Fradin	The Miss Rumphius Effect
170	Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History	Stephen J. Gould	USGS
171	Дом с мезонином	Anton Chekhov	Goodreads 2

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9 Best Books Featuring Earthquakes Sources/Lists

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Source	Article
Alibris	Best Selling Earthquake resistant design Books
Goodreads 1	Best earthquake fiction
Goodreads 2	Popular Earthquakes Books
LA Times	9 earthquake books revisited
Questia	Earthquakes
San Foundry	Best Reference Books – Design of Earthquake Resistant Structures
Science Mag	A pair of books explores American earthquakes, past and future
The Miss Rumphius Effect	Thematic Book List – Earthquakes
USGS	Recommended Reading for the Changing Earth