Ian Sansom

The endless fascination of volcanoes

Tamsin Mather is the latest highly articulate volcanologist to combine vivid personal experience with thoughtful scientific explanation

Villarrica, also known as Rucapillán, ‘the house of the spirits’, is one of Chile’s most active volcanoes – and Tamsin Mather’s favourite. [Getty Images] 
issue 11 May 2024

  • Adventures in Volcanoland: What Volcanoes Tell us About the World and Ourselves

    Tamsin Mather

    Abacus, pp. 368, £19

Volcanoes, volcanoes, volcanoes. You wait years for a good book or a film about volcanoes to come along and then they blow up all at once. In 2022, Sara Dosa’s incredible, unmissable – incroyable! incontournable! – documentary about the eccentric French filmmakers and volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft, Fire of Love, was nominated for an Oscar.

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