Clouding the issue
Nov. 12th, 2006 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
todayiamadaisyI have begun a Procrastination Project, meaning that whenever I'm in the mood to put off doing something, I'll always have something to do instead; namely, putting tags on all my old LJ entries. So far I'm up to July 2004, so I think this promises to be a long-term project. I don't normally go back and look at my old entries; I remember a few of them, but certainly not all. One thing that surprised, reading April, May and June 2004, was that I rarely mention books unless it's to say I didn't like them. Lest I be mistaken for some sort of book curmudgeon, today I'm going to write about the book I've just finished reading and that I enjoyed tremendously, and that book is The Cloudspotter's Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney.
This is a non-fiction, popular science book (about clouds, oddly enough). Before reading it, I knew enough about clouds to tell a cumulus from a cumulonimbus, but now! Well, now I know my cumulus humilis from my cumulus mediocris radiatus, and what a sundog is, and why children should be punished if they draw teardrop-shaped rain, and that's just for starters. So, it's a fascinating book, at times laugh-out-loud funny, and just a little bit disturbing, both in the chapters about global warming and weather manipulation and also for just how enthusiastic Pretor-Pinney is about clouds (he has even gone so far as to start a Cloud Appreciation Society).
Anyway, I highly recommend it.
This is a non-fiction, popular science book (about clouds, oddly enough). Before reading it, I knew enough about clouds to tell a cumulus from a cumulonimbus, but now! Well, now I know my cumulus humilis from my cumulus mediocris radiatus, and what a sundog is, and why children should be punished if they draw teardrop-shaped rain, and that's just for starters. So, it's a fascinating book, at times laugh-out-loud funny, and just a little bit disturbing, both in the chapters about global warming and weather manipulation and also for just how enthusiastic Pretor-Pinney is about clouds (he has even gone so far as to start a Cloud Appreciation Society).
Anyway, I highly recommend it.
