Mountains of Fire

Critics Review

• What the French adventurer Jacques Cousteau was to the hidden world under our seas, Oppenheimer is to the hidden, molten world bubbling under our feet.

  Sunday Times

• Gripping … [reads] like a thriller … Perhaps one final attribute of a volcanologist is that he should be a good storyteller. Oppenheimer is better than good. This is terrific.

  Spectator

• A fantastic account of the power and importance of volcanoes to history. Clive Oppenheimer takes us on a wonderful tour of some of the world’s best and least known volcanoes in a book that will make all readers want to become volcanologists.

  PETER FRANKOPAN

• Breathtaking. Weaving together geology, history, culture with dramatic personal adventure, Clive Oppenheimer takes us deep into the beating heart of our planet.

  ANIL SETH, author of Being You

• Elegantly weaving derring-do with insights into the mechanics of how volcanoes work … fascinating … What makes this book stand out isn’t its poetry or scientific explication, but all the ways Oppenheimer finds to connect the majestic lives of volcanoes to the ephemeral lives of people … The overall result is a scientific
  memoir that is unusually full of human feeling and myth … We can’t all travel the globe to risk our lives at the crater’s edge, but we have Oppenheimer’s prose to get us nearly there.

  New Scientist

• Beautiful. Mountains of Fire is bursting with poetry, with storytelling. Clive is one of the rarest of men driven by nomadism, courage, and curiosity. What he studies, volcanic eruptions, are in the rank of things that are mighty, grave, and great. Like a magma eruption, his wonderful prose even spills over into footnotes at the end. Normally, such notes are tucked away, because they are boring and pedantic, but here they are as readable and exciting as the book itself.

  WERNER HERZOG

• Few people have come into contact with as many fiery mountains as Dr Oppenheimer has …In Mountains of Fire he regales readers with gripping stories of his travels, as well as those of adventurers past … Mountains of Fire is a love letter to volcanoes and an investigation into all the ways that they have and continue to sustain humanity-spiritually and scientifically.

  The Economist

• Thrilling! An explosive account of the inner lives of volcanoes, and how they have touched our lives through history. Adventurous, gripping science writing at its very best.

  LEWIS DARTNELL, author of Origins

• On almost every page of his book – which is at once a history of volcanology and a memoir of Oppenheimer’s own research expeditions – there is some display of mind-boggling bravado in the face of Earth’s pyrotechnics … as Oppenheimer shows, such fascination [with volcanoes] is practically ubiquitous across every culture and epoch. Volcanoes have always been seen as numinous places, where the boundaries are blurred between the living and the dead, between material reality and the netherworld … Faced with violent geological forces beyond our control, some of us are not content merely to keep our distance from them, but instead feel compelled to fathom their mysteries … It’s an excellent thing that scientists like Oppenheimer exist to pursue such a noble cause.

  The Times

• I absolutely loved this book – it’s so full of passion, wonderment, philosophy, anthropology and most of all volcanoes! It ignited my mind and delighted my imagination. I loved the deep and poignant connections between history, meaning and people, but it’s Clive Oppenheimer’s dazzling charisma and thrilling experiences that infuse this book with an energy befitting our planet’s most powerful force.

  SARA DOSA, director of the Academy Award-nominated film Fire of Love

• [Oppenheimer] blends science, history, and cultural traditions from communities around the world to deliver a riveting account of active volcanoes. Escorting readers on an educational, often frightening, but always adventurous global tour, Oppenheimer is an uber-experienced and well-informed guide. . . Readers will marvel at Oppenheimer’s close calls, risky research, and elegant writing style that delightfully weaves his perilous excursions with exacting science and rich ethnography.

  Booklist

• An engrossing, richly detailed journey into the mysterious world of volcanos and volcano enthusiasts. Clive Oppenheimer’s passion for his subject begins in the realm of science and ends with the human soul.

  HELEN GORDON, author of Notes from Deep Time

• Witty, precise, evocative. Clive Oppenheimer is a beautiful writer and spectacular scholar. He guides us safely through the smelly, noisy blast furnaces of volcanic craters and lava flows. Mountains of Fire tells the story of a volcano doctor who measures the temperature and chemical compounds in volcanic ‘breath’ while recounting the history, adventures, and spirituality surrounding these wonders of the world.

  Terry Plank, Professor of Earth Science, Columbia University

• A global tour of some of the world’s most fascinating volcanoes … From North Korea to Antarctica to the Caribbean, he brings the reader along with extraordinary access onto the very flanks of volcanoes. Oppenheimer’s deep knowledge of these mountains of fire, combined with his eye for detail and his deep respect for those living alongside volcanoes, yields a thoroughly delightful and accessible exploration of these geological wonders.

  Alexandra Witze, author of ISLAND ON FIRE