I finished John McPhee's The Control of Naturelast night. (I had been reading it simultaneously with Sedaris, which is why I didn't get very far very quickly in either.) It's basically three extended essays about places where man has attempted to fend off the "interference" of nature. These stories are not so much about success or failure per se, but are more ponderous about what "success" and "failure" might mean and might look like in these individual cases.

"Atchafalaya" deals with the Mississippi River in New Orleans and the massive Army Corps of Engineers effort to keep the river from doing what it should naturally do, which is to deviate from any one central channel and roam over a wide area in Louisiana. For economic reasons, this is considered unacceptable; the result, however, is massive flooding in places, the silting up of other places, and a whole lot of anxiety about the potential for the whole edifice to collapse in a "hundred-year flood".

The second story is about a lava flow that might have destroyed Iceland's best natural harbor but for an effort to cool the flow with massive water dumps. This is the real success story of the three, and the essay has a roaming tone that talks about life in that part of Iceland before and after the flow, the literally overnight creation of a 700-foot peak, what Hawaiians have taken from this Icelandic example, and a variety of other topics.

The final story, "Los Angeles Against the Mountain" held the most interest for me. The San Gabriel Mountains run along the northern edge of L.A.'s eastern projection, from Pasadena to Pomona. They have been developed extensively since World War II for good reason--houses on the hillsides can rise above the smog, the sometimes-oppressive heat, and provide some incredible views. The hillsides also, however, have this nasty habit of dropping debris onto these houses and the valley below during rainstorms and especially during rainstorms after fires have overrun the chapparral vegetation on the ground. McPhee discusses L.A.'s and individuals' attempts to stop the debris flow or at least minimize its damage; there has been a very mixed record on this, but as some point out, oftentimes houses have been destroyed only to be rebuilt via "disaster" aid, even though homeowners are told of the risks of building.

McPhee explores the geologic, the political, and the historical questions from a variety of perspectives, and he is a good guide through the terrain--a relatively unobstrusive narrator who lets the participants in these battles largely speak for themselves. This is not the most compelling book I have read on some of these issues or the best, but it does put a more human face on all sides of these questions, and there is value in that.