by Cynthia Barnett
Crown Publishers * April 21, 2015
Pages: 368 * Price: $25.00
ISBN: 978-0-8041-3709-6*
ebook: 978-0-8041-3710-2
www.CrownPublishing.com * CynthiaBarnett.net
“A seamless blending of personal narrative with scientific and cultural explanations...Fans of Mary Roach will recognize a similar ease of style and interjection of wit…Accessible to every reader, from the environmental scientist to the parent choosing whether their child needs to wear a raincoat that day.”
—Library Journal, starred review
Like the air we breathe and the earth we walk, rain is elemental. We accept it as part of everyday life—celebrating showers on sultry afternoons and during droughts, lamenting downpours on morning commutes and wedding days. But how much have you really thought about rain? How it shaped our landscapes, civilizations, and religions, or influenced music, literature, and even apparel? Award-winning environmental journalist Cynthia Barnett has devoted years to this powerful and enigmatic force in our world. In RAIN: A Natural and Cultural History, she offers readers a lush profile of Earth’s unsung hero.
RAIN opens with the torrents that filled the oceans four billion years ago and builds to the storms of climate change. Barnett shows us that much of what we think we know about rain is wrong, beginning with the shape of a raindrop: Rain does not fall in the teardrops we always depict, but just the reverse, in tiny parachutes. She explores rain’s force in the evolution of civilizations and cultures, and weaves its history with unexpected stories, from the origins of meteorology to the rain obsessions of our “Founding Forecaster” Thomas Jefferson. She takes readers around the world: To Glasgow, Scotland, birthplace of the Mackintosh raincoat; Seattle and Manchester, England, where she finds rain’s influence on grunge and indie pop; to Kannauj, India, where villagers extract the scent of monsoon rain from the Earth and turn it into a rich perfume.
About the Author
Cynthia Barnett is a long-time environmental journalist who has reported on water from the Suwannee River to Singapore. She is the author of Mirage, which won the gold medal for best nonfiction in the Florida Book Awards, and Blue Revolution, named by the Boston Globe as one of the top 10 science books of 2011. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, with her husband and their two children. Visit her at cynthiabarnett.net. Click here to purchase the book.
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