Top ten books about the planet

Nick Crane is a cartographer, explorer, writer and television presenter in the UK. In 1992–3, he walked across Europe, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea.

His latest book is Barefoot Books World Atlas.

One of Crane's top ten books about the planet, as told to the Guardian:

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Bill's a national treasure, though we've borrowed him really, because he's American. Every school library in the land ought to own a copy because this is core science at its most fun. Bill takes his readers on a journey, and we meet a lot of very strange, brilliant people like Edwin Hubble, Henri Becquerel and a chap called Einstein. The clever thing about Bill's book is that he visits many of the places he writes about. So hydrothermal explosions are explained during a trip to Yellowstone with a geologist called Doss, who rides a Harley Davidson. Why weren't my school science books like this, please sir?

Read about the other books on the list.

A Short History of Nearly Everything is one of Paul McEuen's six favorite books and Linda Greenlaw's favorite books.

--Marshal Zeringue