The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World
*Starred Review* Fracking is a colloquialism that has entered everyday conversation only in the last dozen years, as the drilling operation it refers to, fracturing underground shale deposits to extract oil and gas, has literally and figuratively burst onto the American energy-production landscape.  Tagging along with it are all the ideas the word evokes, both good and bad, from energy independence to possible contamination of underground water aquifers. Gold, an award-winning senior energy reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has the ideal background for creating an engrossing history of fracking, while weighing its benefits against its potential hazards.  He describes the scene at a typical fracking operation in North Dakota near a well  surrounded by water tanks and monitoring hardware.  He profiles Aubrey McLendon, one of fracking’s most enthusiastic champions, whose star fell quickly when he mismanaged company funds.  Gold also adds a more personal touch to his report when he describes the unpleasant impact drilling companies had on his parents when they sold the mining rights to their rural Pennsylvania property.  Combining lucid explanations of fracking’s technical aspects with the practice’s more dramatic backstory, Gold’s  work is a tour de force of contemporary journalism that will captivate anyone concerned with the future of energy consumption and our rapidly changing climate. --Carl Hays