Harry Mount

Lava Palaver

Vesuvius: The Most Famous Volcano in the World

By

Profile Books 246pp £15.99 order from our bookshop

This summer, Mount Etna erupted dramatically enough for sunbathers on Sicilian beaches to turn their gaze from each other’s bottoms to the smoking cone, at least for a second or two. Still, though, Etna’s eruption got minimal news coverage. If Vesuvius erupted, the foreign correspondent pack would be booking themselves on the Roma–Napoli express train prontissimo.

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