Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future

by Lauren Redniss

Weather is the very air we breathe—it shapes our daily lives and alters the course of history. In Thunder & Lightning, Lauren Redniss tells the story of weather and humankind through the ages.

This wide-ranging work roams from the driest desert on earth to a frigid island in the Arctic, from the Biblical flood to the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Redniss visits the headquarters of the National Weather Service, recounts top-secret rainmaking operations during the Vietnam War, and examines the economic impact of disasters like Hurricane Katrina. Drawing on extensive research and countless interviews, she examines our own day and age, from our most personal decisions—Do I need an umbrella today?—to the awesome challenges we face with global climate change.

Redniss produced each element of Thunder & Lightning: the text, the artwork, the covers, and every page in between. She created many of the images using the antiquated printmaking technique copper plate photogravure etching. She even designed the book’s typeface.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Graphic Novels, History, Nature, Art, Comics

261 pages, Hardcover

First published October 27, 2015

About the author

Lauren Redniss is the author of Century Girl: 100 years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis, Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies and Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout, a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award for non fiction. Her writing and drawing has appeared in numerous publications including the New York Times, which nominated her work for the Pulitzer Prize. She was a fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars & Writers at the New York Public Library in 2008-2009, became a New York Institute for the Humanities fellow in 2010, and is currently Artist-in-Residence at the American Museum of Natural History. She teaches at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City.

Reviews

[Elizabeth A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remember reading big, brightly colored books as a kid and being completely immersed in the experience? Reading this book felt like that.

It's a little hard to describe this one. It's non-fiction, but not really a graphic novel, as there's no narrative per se. It's really a science art book. Yes, I'll go with that. The author breaks up Weather into various chapters, and includes some fascinating and quirky tidbits accompanied by folk-artsy illustrations. One chapter, titled Sky, has no words at all, just paintings.

If you are looking for an adultish scientific book on weather, this is not it, but if you are in the mood to explore the topic in a manner you did as a kid, pick this one up. It's a fun, colorful, and educational read.

[Brendan Monroe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Call me crazy, but I think the weather is absolutely fascinating. This is obscured by the fact that the weather is, rather famously, the favorite go-to topic for those who don't know what else to talk about. But such small talk, which really consists of variations on a single phrase, Some weather we're having, isn't it?, is never actually about the weather but about getting a mundane response to a very mundane comment.

It's almost a joke. You say something about the weather, and the person you're talking to gives you that eyebrows-raised, knowing glance that says, Do you really have nothing better to talk about?

Imagine if, instead, those awkward elevator conversations were actually about the weather?

"What is your opinion on geoengineering?"

"You mean whether I advocate carbon dioxide removal or the management of solar radiation?"

or

"Do you think it's ethical for governments to control the weather, as the US did in Vietnam?"

Talking about the weather really does present endless conversational possibilities, but weather talk gets a bad rap. Unless you're a meteorologist, you bring up the weather only if you don't know what to talk about or are dancing around the obvious.

"Just as I was thinking I had better try to fill in with something about the weather, she spoke." - P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters

Lauren Redniss does a fantastic job here of making the weather accessible to all. She's done her research too, and her coffee table sized book on the subject is divided into 12 chapters, ranging from "Chaos" to "Forecasting." It's illustrated, too, which is nice, even if the illustrations range somewhat in terms of quality.

This, though, is the kind of book I live for. The sort of book that provides answers and anecdotes to all your weather-related ponderings, even if not quite in the depth one might ultimately desire.

But it sure makes for excellent conversation, whether in the elevator, at the dinner table, or anywhere in between.

[Marissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is visually gorgeous with amazing artwork. I've never read anything like this before. It's less graphic novel and more sequential art with narrative nonfiction text. The stories the author chose to share demonstrating the effects of weather on life and humanity were as awesome as the artwork. I wish all science could be presented in such a fascinating way.

[Dov Zeller · Rating 5 out of 5]

A year or so ago I read Redniss's book about Marie Curie and loved it.

When I first picked up Thunder & Lightning I wasn't sure I would be as drawn to it but my ambivalent feelings about the book soon changed and I was quietly and steadily more and more charmed, worried, captivated, sad about the commotion of human selfishness. I know that all creatures are selfish. We are not alone. We can only be what we are, ourselves, we're merely mammals, critters, creatures, and part of being a living creature is eating and sleeping and trying to stay safe and comfortable, using up resources and striving to live. But the pain of terrain and climate change really took hold of me as I read the chapters on industrialization and forest fires (probably more of the chapters, too, but that is what I most recall at the moment.)

That said, this book isn't all about loss. It is broken up into chapters related to weather events and addresses a broad variety of topics & events, all related to fog, wind, storms, fires, seascapes, cityscapes, ice-scapes, flora and fauna of all kinds.

There is a touch of Maira Kalman in Redniss's books. The quiet, meditative, essay-like voice that follows a topic where it takes her. There is an almost deceptive charm, because the investigation that is happening is not light or entirely full of delight. There is a lot of delight and also a lot of something else. Wondrousness and solemn, beautiful, and at times crushing sobriety.

I love her art. Again, like Kalman, a kind of childish or whimsical (?) quality to some of it. Unlike Kalman, it's big, the book is big, the pages are big, and fantastic, intense, beautiful, instructive, sometimes stark and sometimes nearly blank in a way that makes me question what is darkness and what is light. Can a page leave one in darkness. What are all of the things that a page of a book can do and imitate and complicate and begin to unravel? Is it about the atmosphere of a page or the atmosphere of a place? Some of the pages are all black except for the chapter titles. Some are mostly made up of fog or night or fire, and we can't really see past them.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

2016: This was pretty darn brilliant. It's divided into chapters with headings like "Rain," "Dominion," or "Heat." Using this theme you learn about historical events, remote locations and scientific theory. The art style isn't my fave, but it complimented the text so well. I wish this huge hardcover was easier to read, but I'll be buying my own copy, $50 or no.

2020: reread my own copy finally. This was still excellent. Cold is my favorite section, but I love how each of them meander around their themes and discuss niche topics I never knew I wanted to know about. I also enjoyed the illustrations more this time.

[Ed Erwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little thoughts and short essays more or less related to weather, accompanied by drawings. (Specifically copper plate photogravure and photopolymer process.) Visually interesting design, but it is more than just visuals. The text held my interest, too.

Warning: Font-related ranting ahead!

The typography is unusual. In many essays lines are spaced closely together at the start, but widely spaced near the end. Weird, but OK. The author even created her own font, which is mostly OK, but the lack of good ligatures really bugged me. Specifically her "g" and "y" look horrible next to each other. The very long tail on the "y" prevents it from being placed close to any previous letter with a descender, so, for example "foggy" looks like "fogg_y". The "q" is ugly on it's own and even worse when followed by a "u". Spoiler alert, "q" is usually followed by a "u".

Rant over.

Overall, a lovely book and an interesting one. The one story that will stick with me most is probably the one about the US soldier using cloud-seeding to produce rain in Vietnam to stall the enemy and wash-away bridges. I'm not convinced that really works very well, but that soldier who seeded the clouds is a true believer, and it is an interesting story.

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a weird book. Weird and awesome!

The presentation is pretty incredible. Redniss teaches at a school for design, and man, does it show! She created a typeface for this one (like she does) that is just really pretty, and the art is super interesting and colorful and strange, and the layout is really cool and varied, with lots of text on some pages, just a line or two on others, and still others with no text at all.

And speaking of the text! It feels a little bit scattered at times, and at times I wasn't sure where she was going with the stories she was telling, but those stories were all really kind of fascinating.

To me, the whole thing almost feels more like a scrapbook about weather than anything else, I think. Just...intriguing tidbits and great drawings and an almost stream-of-consciousness feel.

So yeah. Weird and awesome.

[Zezee · Rating 5 out of 5]

As posted on Zezee with Books.

Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future is an illustrated nonfiction book about the weather that I recently read. Written and illustrated by Lauren Redniss, the book explores how weather affects nature and humanity and how humans cause changes in the weather. It was an informative, thought-provoking read that left me curious about some of the subjects, places, and people mentioned in the book.

The book is huge and thick, but that’s because of the large, beautiful illustrations that are sometimes spread across two pages. There’s a lot to read, but the amount of text isn’t overpowering since they are interspersed with illustrations and the font size allows for easy reading. (No need to strain your eyes.)


The book is divided into 12 chapters, all headed by subjects that affect or relate to weather (rain, fog, war, profit, etc.). Chapter lengths vary and some have more text than others. Actually, one of them has no words at all. Redniss not only explains the chapter’s subject, but also explains its relation to the concept of weather and presents facts and sometimes data about it. She also includes stories of people’s personal experiences, like Ben Livingston, who was a cloud physicist for the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War: “He flew dozens of cloud-seeding missions [to create rain] in Southeast Asia in 1966 and 1967.”

Of the chapters, one of my favorites was Cold because I learned about Svalbard, “a place that is entirely hostile to agriculture, inhospitable to life in almost every form” but is the “ideal spot for protecting the world’s harvest.” It houses the Global Seed Vault, which stores seeds from all over the world just in case something catastrophic happens and we have to replant every damn thing. Svalberg was nationless until 1920 when the Spitsbergen Treaty made it a territory of Norway. It’s one of the most interesting places I learned about in this book.

I also liked the chapter on Fog, partly because I love it when outside is foggy, because I learned about Cape Spear and sailors’ use of foghorns and lighthouses to navigate in thick fog. I also learned “fog is a cloud near the ground,” which is obvious now that I know, but I’ve never thought of it that way before. “Moisture from the air condenses into tiny water droplets, or ice crystals, that hover over earth’s surface.”

“In the fog we’re tense. Your senses are honed. You’re waiting and you’re looking.” — Captain David Fowler

“You get pretty itchy after a while and you start doubting yourself.” — Paul Bowering

The chapter on Wind was also interesting. Redniss talks about Diana Nyad’s impressive attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida in September 2010 when Nyad was 60 years old and also how “winds can shape the personality of a place.” Redniss includes an excerpt from Herman Hesse’s 1904 novel Peter Camenzind, in which Hesse’s protagonist describes the Fohn, “a dry, down-slope wind notorious in Central Europe.” That excerpt made me want to read Peter Camenzind and experience that wind, though I’m sure I won’t like it.

War and Profit, separate chapters but related, were also good ones. In War, we learn how the U.S. used weather to their advantage in past wars and how they manipulated it. And Profit is self-explanatory. I found that chapter interesting because of a company mentioned, Planalytics, which helps companies understand how weather affects their business. Dominion, which precedes these chapters, is a good one also, but it scared me. In it Redniss includes a discussion on an invention to manage global warming; but if misused, that invention could cause dire consequences.

Of all the chapters, I think Forecasting was my favorite because it’s almost entirely about the Old Farmer’s Almanac, which has “predicted the weather for more than 220 years.” That chapter was hilarious.

Art style:

As I said above, the illustrations are colorful and beautiful. Most are large and many spread across two pages. They are simple, but they present well the subjects and ideas Redniss decides to illustrate. They are a wonderful supplement to the book and they also help to break up the flow of text so it doesn’t seem daunting to read it. I also like how the book is packaged. The cover is eye-catching and makes people want to touch it because the illustrations on it are embossed.

Overall: ★★★★★

Thunder & Lightning was a great read. There’s loads to learn in it and the accompanying illustrations makes reading it enjoyable. The book touches on science, politics, and history and is easy to read and understand. It’s not a children’s book, but because of the illustrations and how well everything is explained, I think it is a book parents can read to their children to teach them about the weather as well as different places in the world and some history.

Another major thing I learned was why it’s quiet when it snows. Apparently,

“Falling snowflakes interfere with sound waves, limiting the distance they travel and contributing to the muffled quietude that accompanies a snowstorm.”

Also, there’s a word to describe the fresh, earthy scent in the air after it rains: petrichor. The term was coined in 1964 by mineralogists Isabel Joy Bear and R.G. Thomas.

[Robin Tierney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thunder and Lightning: Weather Past, Present and Future
by Lauren Redniss

There’s the graphic novel, and there’s graphic nonfiction like this creative and highly readable coffee-table book. It offers whimsical, sensual illustrations, many drawn on location, which combine two printmaking techniques: copperplate photogravure etchings and photopolymer process.

Other images includes Mark Catesby’s 1725 watercolor of a flamingo, the head exquisitely detailed and perfectly proportion, and P. Henderson’s American Cowslip from 1801; both images capture a sensation of strangeness and wonder, like the elements of nature.

The text is a patchwork of science, literary references, anecdotes from expert observers.

Notes from various chapters:

Chaos:
Seeds for 30,000 flowers are in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, buried in the arctic permafrost.
Freeze bodies Cryogenics unfreeze decades late treat disease new therapies.
Svalbard Global Seed Vault arctic permafrost, doomsday vault

Rain:
Chile Atacama Desert mines copper rich minerals combo volcanic activity and aridity. Rain shado blocks moisture on that east side Andes, dries your throat, El Nino rains water temp rainfall desert blooms every 7 or so years turns into flowering desert, long-legged frogs, dormant bulbs deep in soil , no oxygen, no water, can wait 3o0 years for water.

Lightning in the arsenal of Norse, Greek gods.
Ben Franklin’s lightning rod - church objected when proposed to install on steeples - to redirect God's striking bolt was considered blasphemy.
Static electricity supersized. 140,00 mph. Thunder is rapidly expanded shockwaves of heated air, up to90,000 degrees

Pea soup fog - late 1800s London crime cover.

Blind Pilot mode, senses focused, coast guard.

Trade winds: ribbons of air temper local climates and propel jet planes. The scirocco, warm wind from southeast persists 4 days blamed for the Venetian tendency towards sensuality and indolence.

Periods of hot dry Santa Anas in Cal: every booze party ends in a fight.

Doldrums bedevil sailors. Helped Diana Nyad, open water swimmers (no wind). Metronomic sensuality swimming ocean.

Winds added 10 years to Odysseus's journey.

Australian arboreal landscape, eucalyptus, flammable oils - burning trees explode as reach ignition point with sun and drought.

Storms - link to witchcraft persecutions and Hurricane Sandy 2012 homosexuality vengeance.

Weather modification:

Geoengineering CO2 removal to mitigate heat-trapping effect of CO2, run a hose into the sky. - bounce some sunlight back into space.

Rainmaking, artificial snow… apps for crowd control and war tactics.

Get clouds to rain for agriculture. And to cause landslides for warfare, block routes etc. Pilot fire flares into clouds. Rainmakers for Vietnam , Jack Anderson exposed 1971 weapon of mass destruction (also NYT Seymour Hersh about the ambiguous legal state of clouds.

Early 20th c evaporation towers marketed as rainmaking devices, seemed to work too well, flooding San Diego 1915.

Profit:
1840 Frederick Tudor saw ice thicken on Walden Pond Concord Mass., as Thoreau did at Walden...business 180 New England ice could buy in Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore, Bfrazil, New Orleans. Mechanical cooling systems 100 years off. Shipped.

Ice delicacy coveted by wealthy Mesopotamians for chilled drinks, buy snow mixed with honey and fruit on hot days Athenians. Romans cooled wine with snow carried down by mules from Mount Aetna’s mountain caves.

Disaster Capitalism: profiteering of entrepreneurs who exploited development in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Pleasure:
When rivers and canals froze over during Europe’s Little Ice Age, carnival cities sprung up on the ice. 7th c.

Ben Franklin wrote of rising early in the morning to sit naked and feel the bracing chill.

Sound moves faster in warm air. Falling snow interferes with sound waves, muffled quietude.

Rain releases oils on rocks, adds to rain-fresh smell.

Forecasting:

1953 Worcester Mass torpedo, temp has risen and then dropped steeply.
Old Farmer’s Almanac. Bible and Playboy. Magic 80% correct forecasts. Top 5 trade secrets in the US; secret formula for Coke, secret spices for KFC, secret formula used by the Old Farmer’s Almanac for its onge-range weather forecasts was number three. Held in a black box...complex analysis includes the orientation of the earth and its magnetosphere, geomagnetic axis tilt relative to the direction of the solar wind, variations in cosmic ray, lunar effect.

Meteorology fans will love this.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up purely on the basis of the title (anything that trigger's Queen's Bohemian Rhapsedy in my head is going to get my attention) not to mention the stunning and eye catching cover. And I was not disappointed in the least. Each chapter deals with a specific aspect of weather, from wind and rain to forecast and profit, bringing together some stunning artwork, fascinating stories and amazing tidbits from around the world with a poetry and sense of drama that captures how amazing our weather really is. Put it this way, I enjoyed it that much that I'll be buying my own copy.

[Tracey · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. This graphic novel is kind of a pop science/journalistic history of weather. It’s beautiful and interesting and a bit strange but totally worth checking out. I anticipated and wanted more content about climate change but otherwise this was great!

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a weird and wonderful book. Redniss explores the mysterious terrain of weather, in all its random but beautiful brutality and grace. Her art has a mostly flat, folk-art feel to it and plays an absolutely essential part in the content of Thunder & Lightning. A fascinating read that melded science with the stories of people's often first-hand accounts of different weather phenomena.

[Stephanie (aka WW) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the coolest book ever! The author weaves art (her own), facts and stories about weather into a beautiful book, which feels as good as it reads. The facts and stories are kept to the briefest few on each subject. It lends a weight to what's there that wouldn't have come through if too much was presented. Excellent.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An eccentric, wonderfully creative, multi-faceted approach to weather in all its dimensions in a visually stunning, fascinating, wide-ranging work.

[Angie Gentile-Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a cool book! Amazing artwork with engaging stories about how weather impacts humans around the world and throughout time.

[Scott Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fascinating book! I’m not sure if it is best classified as science, art, or history as it is a wonderful blend of all three. Unique, unusual, and something for everyone.

[Sophy H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was bloody brilliant.

I officially love the graphic novel genre that Lauren Redniss has presented here, the pictures are vibrant, exciting, skillful, dynamic.

The textual parts of the book are great with fascinating facts about the weather and little asides about weather-related phenomena such as the survivors group of lightning strikes and the secrets behind the Farmer's Almanac!

I really enjoyed this as a multi-media experience, letting the artwork absorb and reading the text.

Bravo Lauren Redniss.

[Lisa Horsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautifully unique way to bring science and art and story-telling together. it starts with a story about a flood and it’s effect on a cemetery in Vermont from the fallout of Hurricane Irene and ends with the history of the Farmer’s Almanac and it’s 80% tradition of accuracy. Lauren interviews people and travels places to bring accuracy to her drawings/paintings that accompany the stories. She even invented the font that looks handwritten to make the book feel more personal. Now I must purchase her Radioactive book about the Curies.

[Grace Puc · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book rocks!!! So engaging and I learned so many random cool tidbits. Very well done from beginning to end and illustrations are BEAUTIFUL.

[Len Knighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pleasant surprise! When I opened the package from ThriftBooks I was startled by the cover, the introduction to the extraordinary artwork of author Lauren Redniss. The book is a beautiful creation, not only in its writing and illustrations, but also in the layout. It is rare to find two pages identically designed. Redniss not only shares her knowledge and research with us, but, perhaps more important, her imagination.
The final chapter, on weather forecasting, affirms the difficulties of this profession. The focus is on The Old Farmers Almanac, which has been in publication since 1792. While I enjoyed reading about its history, I would have liked to have read about some of the current weather forecasting organizations such as The Weather Channel.
Those who own this book and display it on their coffee table will find conversations with guests turning from the weather to this book.

Four stars

[Savannah Paige Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another absolutely brilliant and delightful work from Redniss, who is quickly becoming my favorite science writer. At first, I found this one a bit harder to follow than Radioactive or Oak Flat, but eventually it clicked for me that this book is not so much a natural history as it is both a cultural and natural history of weather—because after all it would be misleading to try and separate the two. After realizing this key component of the book, I thoroughly enjoyed it, particularly chapters about how people have historically meddled with weather and in many cases continued to do so. Redniss’s art is absolutely amazing and only enhances what is already an incredibly enjoyable reading experience. I cannot recommend all of Lauren Redniss’s work highly enough!

[Lindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

When art and science get married, I am first in line with the confetti. That's why I want to shower Lauren Redniss' work with rose petals. Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future is full of fascinating information about weather, the font and unusual page layout are all part of the author's design and it's illustrated with hand-coloured photogravure and photopolymer prints. So gorgeous!

[Relyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a Books on the Nightstand book recommendation. I don't love that podcast, but so many people do that I decided to check out a book that came so highly recommended. I am so glad I did. I've never read a book like this. Ever. This is science and story and history and art and inspiration. It will make you wonder and question and think and maybe even change. That's a powerful book, my friend.

[Holly Troup · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.

[An Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lauren Redniss’s *Thunder & Lightning* is a stunning blend of art and science that delves into humanity’s relationship with weather in a way that feels both personal and universal. This captivating work combines vivid storytelling, meticulous research, and breathtaking visuals to explore how weather shapes our world, from its impact on history and culture to its influence on individual lives.

Each chapter focuses on a specific weather phenomenon—lightning, fog, hurricanes, drought—and tells a story that weaves scientific facts with historical anecdotes and interviews. Redniss introduces us to fascinating characters, from scientists studying the atmosphere to individuals whose lives have been dramatically affected by weather, such as a Bolivian salt farmer coping with climate change or a man struck repeatedly by lightning.

What sets *Thunder & Lightning* apart is its visual artistry. Redniss’s hand-drawn illustrations and typography are mesmerizing, enhancing the narrative and drawing readers into a sensory experience. The book feels as much like a piece of art as it does a piece of literature.

Beneath its beauty, however, lies a deeper message about humanity’s vulnerability to the natural world and the growing threat of climate change. Redniss subtly reminds us of our fragile relationship with the forces that govern our planet, urging readers to think critically about the future.

**Rating:** ★★★★★
Lauren Redniss has crafted a masterpiece that transcends genres. *Thunder & Lightning* is poetic, thought-provoking, and visually stunning—a book that engages both the mind and the heart. Whether you’re a science enthusiast, an art lover, or someone curious about the world around you, this book is an unforgettable journey through the power and wonder of weather.

[Kylee Ehmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely gorgeous. The book reads like you're following Redniss's thoughts as she muses on human's relationship to the weather, from natural disasters to the way we've exploited and enjoyed it to natural phenomenon. Some of the chapters are more compelling than the other (the Heat chapter on fires was stunning, and the sky chapter with just different illustrations of Redniss's impressions of the sky were so beautiful while the chapter on ice/cold was a bit disjointed), but every chapter is beautiful and wonderful to experience.

[Joy Raines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lauren Redniss is deserving of her "genius" grant. This book is gorgeous and thoughtful. Each chapter was eye-opening in its storytelling of weather. Weather! Weather is simply small talk or an inconvenience in our daily lives. But in this book, weather is a force to be reckoned with, it is miraculous, it is dangerous. I will be thinking about her illustrations and interviews for a very long time.

[Winter · Rating 5 out of 5]

My best friend got this for me for my birthday. I opened it and immediately loved it. You learn so much from it, about history, emotion and culture, all centred around the weather. The pictures are spectacular, like a big children's book. It's basically a book of very cool fun facts presented in a supe colourful and creative way. This is definitely a book I think anyone, of any age could enjoy as a fun read.

[AMP · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book did not fail to impress. Redniss does not just give facts about weather. She personalizes weather phenomena by sharing historical and current stories that draw her readers in. Some topics covered related to weather include meteorological warfare, culture, medical problems, man-made structures, seedbanks, biological responses, geoengineering, and business enterprise. Her ability to bring seemingly disjunct stories and tie them together seamlessly is beautiful!

[Bella · Rating 2 out of 5]

I couldn't get into this, but I totally get why others love it. It's a picture book for adults, I saw a review calling it science art. I just found some of the pictures a bit off-putting and for me the disjointed writing was confusing, but my rating reflects my experience, I do think others with an interest in this kind of graphic art would enjoy it more.