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Hey, I'm Flora Lichten, and you're listening to Science Friday.

When we commune with nature, I think most of us turn towards the living, a walk in the woods

with big trees, chirping birds, blooming

flowers, humming insects. But my next guest says, don't overlook the inanimate. Don't sleep

on rocks. Dr. Angina Katwa is an earth scientist, but her love for rocks isn't just scientific.

It's spiritual, poetic, and lyrical, which she writes

about in her new book, The Whispers of Rock, the Stories that Stone tells about our world and our

lives. Anjana, welcome to Science Friday. Oh, thank you for having me, Flora. I'm so excited to talk to you

today to learn all the things that I, you know, have been

overlooking about rocks. Where did this love story begin for you? Oh, it began as long time ago

when I was about 13 years old. I was a teenager and my parents are from Nairobi in Kenya.

And whilst on a holiday there, we stopped off at this quite incredible place

called the Shetani Lava Flows, which is now in the Savo West National Park in southeast in Kenya.

And I grew up in a town just on the outskirts of London, a place called Slough. And it's not a place where

you tend to go to see nature. Let's just say that. It's very, very urban.

And walking across this incredible African savannah, it was covered in this jagged black rock.

...