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Richard Fortey’s wonderful The Earth (Harper Perennial, £9.99) is now in paperback. Ted Nield reviewed it for Â鶹´«Ã½ saying, “Books with a title this ambitious generally do not live up to their billing. This one does.” Fortey takes us around the world, showing that it is “forever in transit”. The evidence he gives us ranges from the glassy strands that form as gases burst through molten lava to rocks thrown up from Earth’s core. Those delicate filaments, known as “Pele’s hair” in Hawaii, are clues to the volcanic action that shaped the Hawaiian islands. Even a single crystal in a mineral or rock can…