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His Matecumbe is a lightweight compared with earlier works.
You all remember James Michener, the celebrated author of bestselling doorstops. Once he found the magic formula - around the time he published Hawaii in 1959 - he eased into a pattern: Every other year he published a massive book with a one-word title (Iberia, Centennial, Chesapeake, etc.) that somehow tied geology to the parade of humanity.
It went like this: Begin with creation of universe; discuss rocks and their formation; 200 pages later, tell us about people living on...