Weather
   William J. Burroughs, et al
  1996 The Nature Company Guides
   ISBN: 0809493748


There is nothing so ubiquitous or so controlling as the Weather, even for city-dwellers. Is there such a thing as normal weather? How does weather happen? How do ocean & land work together? How did meteorology start & why?

Now, for me the weather is a daily presence, when sea winds bring salty mists, sunsets burnish clouds in copper, mountains shoulder their snowy epaulets, rivers flood into plains, shorelines alter after storms & the wind, sun, clouds & moon color our days & nights.

So, salivating over a glossy, colorful tome devoted to Weather comes naturally to me & gives me as much satisfaction as my books on the plants & wildlife of this area.

How Weather works, however, never crosses my mind. That's different now because this book has all sorts of explanatory diagrams of how weather works & don't doubt it, Weather is a global thing!

The team that put this book together are truly gifted & have amassed some glorious poems, pictures & images about the one subject that offends no one. Each page is sheer pleasure to peruse whether it is a photograph of a storm brewing on the African savannah or a painting of when the Thames River froze over during a little ice age or nomads cameling across a desert or creatures adapting to climates.

I have loved being able, at last, to name the kinds of clouds I see passing over head & what their formation means up at their altitudes.

I didn't know there were that many fogs & even how it developed & when I'd stood on the eastern shore of California's Bay Area to watch the fog roll in from the ocean over San Francisco I had wished I knew why it did. Now I know.

Explaining the reasons for climates & their changes brings home the reality that what happens in the Indian Ocean is all part of a pattern & rhythm as our blue marble spins around, stirring up the cocktail we call weather.

Highly recommended for folks who want to read the signs & broaden their love affair with our world.

Wonderful stuff!

More from The Nature Company Guides:
Birding; Natural Gardening; Nature Travel; The Walker's Companion; Weather; Rocks & Fossils; World Travel
(04/16/00)

Rebecca