Synopses & Reviews
Cynthia Barnett is a long-time environmental and science journalist who has reported on water from the Suwannee River to Singapore. She is the author of two previous books, Mirage and Blue Revolution, a Boston Globe top 10 science book of 2011. She lives in Gainesville, Florida with her husband and children.
Synopsis
Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive.
It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source ofthe world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain.
Cynthia Barnett'sRainbegins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River.It offers a glimpse of our "founding forecaster," Thomas Jefferson, who measured every drizzle long before modern meteorology. Two centuries later, rainy skies would help inspire Morrissey s mopes and Kurt Cobain s grunge.Rainis also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the surprising story of the mackintosh raincoat, and to India, where villagers extract the scent of rain from the monsoon-drenched earth and turn it into perfume.
Now, after thousands of years spent praying for rain or worshiping it; burning witches at the stake to stop rain or sacrificing small children to bring it; mocking rain with irrigated agriculture and cities built in floodplains; even trying to blast rain out of the sky with mortars meant for war, humanity has finally managed to change the rain. Only not in ways we intended. As climate change upends rainfall patterns and unleashes increasingly severe storms and drought, Barnett shows rain to be a unifying force in a fractured world. Too much and not nearly enough, rain is a conversation we share, and this is a book for everyone who has ever experienced it.
Gold Medal Winner, Florida Book Award"
About the Author
A natural history of rain, told through a compelling, lyrical blend of science, cultural history, and human dramaIt is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report and the cause of catastrophic floods; and the source of all the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain.
Science journalist Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans to transform a fiery planet into a living one. It explains the science of it--the physics of a rainbow, the true shape of a raindrop--while weaving in the human history, from ancient rain gods and divining rods to modern flood walls and geoengineering.
Rain is not only a journey through history but also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the story of the mackintosh raincoat and its eccentric inventor and to India where villagers extract the scent of monsoon rains and turn it into perfume.
Rain is also a love story. For centuries, people have tried to summon it, the likes of Thomas Jefferson were obsessed with it, and, in these pages, Cynthia Barnett makes it almost palpable. She sees rain, from the increasingly severe storms that unleash it to the life-giving freshwater it provides, as a unifying force in our divided culture. Too much and not nearly enough, rain is a conversation we share, and this is a book for everyone who has ever experienced it.