Noah's Flood

I heard an interview with University of Washington geologist David Montgomery on the Skepticality podcast http://www.skepticality.com/.  I enjoyed the interview so much that I read his book, The Rocks Don't Lie, A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood.  Montgomery takes a global look at the historical and scientific evidence for flood stories.  His findings show that there are rational, scientific explanations for why flood stories are so uncommon in Africa and so widespread in the Middle East and Europe.  Although the scientific evidence refutes the idea of a global flood, the geologic record from around the world shows that through earth's history there occurred from time to time, great, yet localized floods that caused disasters remarkable enough to shape such stories.  These stories, passed down through generations, became powerful legends.  Many of these flood stories, including the idea of Noah's flood, motivated early geologists to investigate the geological record.  Montgomery summarizes their findings in this book. The middle chapters are probably too detailed to be interesting to the non-geologist but the introduction and final chapters are highly engaging to anyone interested in the historic and scientific interplay between science and religion.

P.S.  If anyone is ever interested in other books I am reading, see my Goodreads page.