I really enjoyed this, despite its somewhat odd approach. This isn't really a science book, although Logan occasionally tells you about scientific details about soil science. Neither does it follow a straightforward path standard for these books, where the author travels around and learns more about his subject (although parts of the book are like that). Rather, this is a series of poetic and semi-religious meditations on ecology, celebrating the wonder inherent in the natural world. Logan attempts time and again to shift the reader's perspective to understand the complex systems that surround us, and to appreciate just how liminal biological life is in relation to deep time and the titanic forces of the earth below us and the cosmos around us. The book is composed of numerous short essays on topics related, sometimes loosely, to the soil and its active role in supporting life. Some are more successful than others, and they often leap wildly in tone and subject, but you sense throughout Logan's passion-- passion for life, for understanding, for experience, and for a quasi-mystical reverence for what science can teach us about our place in the universe. It's a captivating viewpoint because it's so different from the typical science book approach. He's not afraid to sound a little addled in extolling a more worshipful approach to nature (which, incidentally, is not explicitly tied here to any particular faith tradition). And he's also not shy about expressing some blunt opinions about the follies of man (including, puzzlingly, a screed near the end of the book against particle colliders). Although this approach runs the risk of veering into the maudlin or the crackpot, I thought Logan did a great job of reining it in just enough. He manages to give voice to an ecstatic and grateful appreciation of natural theology, without descending into daffy hippiedom. I liked this much more than I expected.