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In Turning to Stone , Marcia Bjornerud invites you into a geo-centric perspective, in which rocks are raconteurs, companions, mentors, oracles, and sources of solace. She dispels the notion that rocks simply are and instead help you to see them as living entities with biographies that intersect with our own. Contrary to their reputation, rocks are alert, responsive, and communicative. Their long and complex lives represent an alien kind of animacy in which matter is forever in the process of transformation, simultaneously impermanent and eternal. Rocks are the forcefield in which we live, the infrastructure of our existence. They are also shape shifters and fortune tellers. Once one becomes attuned to the dialects of rocks, it is obvious that the earth is speaking to us all the time.
About the author
MARCIA BJORNERUD is Professor of Geosciences at LawrenceUniversity, researching the physics of earthquakes and mountainbuilding. She is a two-time Fulbright Senior Scholar as well as aFellow of the Geological Society of America and the WisconsinAcademy of Sciences, Arts & Letters.
Bjornerud is a contributing writer to the New Yorker, Wall StreetJournal, Wired and Los Angeles Times, and the author of Readingthe Rocks, Timefulness and Geopedia. Timefulness was longlisted forthe 2019 PEN/E. O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing,and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize forScience & Technology and the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science.Turning to Stone was awarded the 2025 John Burroughs Medal fordistinguished natural history writing.
