I will never look at earthworms the same again! All I ever knew about them was if you saw one in your garden, then the soil was good and healthy, so I loved and protected them.

I give this book a five star, even though she touches on some things I have a hard time believing in, which she really could have just left out of the book. I feel she over reaches in stating that the Europeans brought the earthworm here on ships, and that wagon wheels carried them westward for the earthworm to build all of this wonderful farm land here in America, as if it was fact. Today, we now know there were Indians, Native Americans, here long before the Europeans arrived. They were already naturally farming the good land with all its soil creatures habitable for their particular areas, and I'm sure that would include earthworms as well. They respected the land, unlike humans today. We think we know better than nature and God himself. Regardless, the land didn't create itself when Europeans got here...how ridiculous! But, I do love her passion regarding nature and her writing! I learned so much about worms and their function in their life, and mine. If there was ever a book to read about earthworms, this would be it. You will be encouraged to start your own little mini earthworm farm.

Stewart clearly has studied Darwin's research on earthworms back in the late 1800's, and specifically his work in his book, "The Formation of Vegetable Mould", published in 1881.

Darwin was one of the first to study worms and their behavior. He created the perfect environment for them and would observe them after dark. Nightcrawler worms make permanent bed tunnels in the soil, allowing oxygen and water to enter deep into the soil. He saw that they pulled and stacked their food of twigs, leaves, and other tiny earth debri to the entrance of their tunnels. Reasons are still unknown for this action, but they were found to be choosy about what and even how they pulled things into their burrows, insinuating that they do have a bit of decision-making skills...and a mouth, to feed off rotting debri and a bit of soil as it burrows through.

When time to excrete, they poke the tail end out of their tunnel and excrete at the surface next to the burrow. This is one reason why, when gardening, it is best not to till or even really dig the soil so as not to destroy earthworms and the complex food web that lies underneath the soil.

Earthworms carry over 50 different species of bacteria in the gut, and research has found that they can cleanup polluted soil. They excrete usable calcium, along with bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, things all plants need for health. So, when adding a shovelful of wormcastings to your garden bed, you are "inoculating the earth with a concentrated population of invisible beings that...will shift the balance in the soil". This is an excellent way to introduce, yet, another tool to your natural gardening regime. And because earthworms seem to absorb and handle large amounts of pollution, scientists are now researching on how to efficiently use them as clean-up workers on a large scale. At least they were back in 2005, maybe they have made huge progress by now.

Research on just how beneficial the relationship between soil-dwelling creatures and plants is ongoing and very limited for obvious reasons. Worms do not function in light and laboratories, and they are more difficult to locate and study underground. But, to-date, in 2005 since the publishing of this book, they have discovered at least over 4,500 species of earthworms around the world. ( )

What becomes very clear while reading this book is just how fascinating earthworms are, which in turn makes for a fascinating book. The author spends too much time discussing her own garden for my taste. But other than that, a very compelling read. ( )

Absolutely fascinating!

It was interesting the reactions I got when I told friends I was reading a book about worms. They tended to include a sideeye look, a judgmental, "WHY?", and a sneer of disgust. Whatever. I read this fascinating book and learned a lot and they didn't. Neener neener neener.

This is the first Amy Stewart book I've read though I own her others. She's kind of a Mary Roach for gardeners and nature enthusiasts, and I'll definitely be breezing through the rest of her backlist. She has an informative yet informal writing style interspersed with personal anecdotes that suited me perfectly.

Before reading this, I had never really given worms much thought. They were there. I didn't really care for them because they were wriggly things that I tried not to step on after a rain. I had no idea there were so many types of them, or that there were multi-foot long worms that lived deep underground! (Though I do think I saw one of those once after a rain. I have a very vivid memory of a very very long worm dying on the asphalt after one truly awful rainstorm. It was at least two or three feet long, and little-kid me was both fascinated and repulsed.)

Stewart leads the reader on a merry journey, from the fact that worm scientists tend to be hobbyists because they can't get funding for their work, to the extremely helpful nature of worms to improve the health of plants and gardens, to the threat of worms as invasives in a forest, to finally the possibility of worms as the savior of our pollutant and sewage waste problem.

I adored this to bits. And now I really want a worm bin. Alas, condo living without any outdoor balcony, porch, or yard would make that very difficult. I'll stick a pin into that idea, though, for some hypothetical future living situation. ( )

Readable without being overly substantial, The Earth Moved is a chatty introduction to the world of earthworms. The time I spent reading this short book probably surpassed all the time I've spent in my life before now contemplating earthworms—I'm neither biologist, gardener, nor composter—and I admit that I picked this book up in the library more out of idle curiosity than any real interest in the ecological roles of earthworms. Amy Stewart's enthusiasm for her worms is endearing, and there are some interesting facts here (there are worms in Australia that grow to more than a metre in length! earthworms hate wasabi!), but I didn't finish this book filled with a sudden enthusiasm to go out and buy a worm farm. ( )

Yep. Earthworms. Unsung heroes.

Amy Stewart has become one of the few authors I'd wait in line for a signature for - have I mentioned that before? She makes a great spokesperson for these unfairly maligned little earth movers. In a chatty but informative style she covers the earthworms' role in history, agriculture, backyard gardening, forestry and even sewage treatment and soil reclamation.

Did you know that Australia has an earthworm that grows over 3 feet long, and when it moves around under the earth, farmers can hear a gurgling sound? They're native to a farming area called Gippsland, here in Victoria, so of course I want to go and stand in the middle of a pasture like an idiot in hopes of hearing them gurgle along beneath me, while trying not to think of the movie Tremors.

There's no denying this is not a book for everyone. But gardeners, environmentalists, and armchair scientists will all find something interesting and fascinating here. ( )