W. Lowrie 2007. Fundamentals of Geophysics, 2nd ed. x + 381 pp. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Price £70.00, US $140.00 (hard covers), £35.00, US $70.00 (paperback). ISBN 9780 521 85902 8; 9780 521 67596 3 (pb).

Are textbooks in their traditional form still relevant? Increasingly feedback from students reveals that they read fewer texts and spend more time reading online material. Textbooks have to compete for attention from instantly searchable material available on a computer screen anywhere in the world at the click of a mouse. The internet makes not just one point of view or explanation but tens, hundreds or thousands available in an instant. Academic staff have seen the development of the internet but learned the material they teach from textbooks, meanwhile the students they teach have now grown up in the internet age and have little concept of life without it. The staff and the students they teach gather …