The Earth Moved
On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms
By Amy Stewart
(Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Paperback, 9781565124684, 223pp.)
Publication Date: March 2005
The Earth Moved has moved reviewers across the country. In witty, offbeat style, Amy Stewart takes us on a subterranean adventure and introduces us to our planet's most important gatekeeper: the humble earthworm. It's true that the earthworm is small, spineless, and blind, but its effect on the ecosystem is profound, moving Charles Darwin to devote his last years to studying its remarkable attributes and achievements.
With the august scientist as her inspiration, Stewart investigates the earthworm's astonishing realm, talks to oligochaetologists who have devoted their lives to unearthing the complex web of life beneath our feet, and observes the thousands of worms in her own garden. Stewart's " ease in gliding from worms to plants to humans will remind readers of John McPhee's essays on canoes, oranges, the geology of America" (Providence Journal). " Stewart's book paddles along in [Rachel] Carson's wake. Read her book and you'll start to see how the rhododendron bed in front of your house is a kind of Mars for frontier science" (The Boston Globe).