Book Review!!

Book Review:

 

When I read of the Cloud Appreciation Society, and Gavin Pretor-Pinney’s book The Cloudspotter’s Guide, The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds, I wanted to read it.  Then, I found out if I reviewed the book on my blog, I could have a free copy.  Who could resist?  I would have bought it, and now, I encourage you to do so.

 

When it arrived, I was surprised, because though it is not billed as such, I was expecting a large, loose, flowing book with pictures and space.  This book is compact, dense with information, and fascinating.  Everything is here, literature, poetry, anecdotes, facts, history, explanation, and humor.  The author loves clouds, and I do, too, and I am now looking at them differently, and more completely.   I see how blessed I am to live where there is tremendous variety in clouds and fog, and yesterday, I saw fog created, new, like volcano steam.  I’m not sure I would have observed the formation so closely, if I wasn’t immersed in new ways of viewing clouds. 

 

I see now that the book is compact to fit into a backpack or knapsack.  There is more information than I can remember, and I am content to carry it with me, and open it, when the mood invites,  to see where I am taken.   Like now, I open to “ALTOCUMULUS, The layers of bread rolls in the sky.”   Who could resist a chapter title like that?  I’m salivating already. 

 

Gavin says that the best way to find shapes in clouds is “to look up, empty your mind, and let them find you.”   This book is an invitation.  Enter, find, and be found.

 

Check out www.cloudappreciationsociety.org and join the club, with Gavin’s book as guide.