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Earth’s Restless Surface (Natural History Museum/ Stationery Office,
£5.95, ISBN 0 11 310056 6) is a lavishly illustrated, informative,
expensive, awkwardly shaped, 60-page companion to a Natural History Museum
exhibition. It is beautifully produced, with exemplary photographs and diagrams
revealing the long-term turmoil that our planet is constantly
suffering—even if on a human timescale it looks reasonably settled and
permanent. The text has been edited to satisfying clarity and there is a useful
glossary and an index for instant illumination on any particular subject in this
broad field.