Rain, Cynthia Barnett
Rain, Cynthia Barnett
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Rain
A Natural and Cultural History

Author: Cynthia Barnett

Narrator: Christina Traister

Unabridged: 11 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/21/2015


Synopsis

A natural history of rain, told through a lyrical blend of science, cultural history, and human dramaIt is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of all the world's water. Yet this is the first audiobook to tell the story of rain.Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins 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 colored rains—with the human story of our attempts 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. Rain is 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 an audiobook for everyone who has ever experienced it.

About Cynthia Barnett

Cynthia Barnett is a longtime environmental 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. Visit her website at cynthiabarnett.net.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Melora on May 12, 2016

This could be a dry subject (ha ha!) but Barnett's wide scope and engaging storytelling bring the wonder, mystery, and profound importance of of this seemingly ordinary phenomenon to life. Considering rain from the perspective of history, science, music, literature, politics, etc., Barnett explores......more

Goodreads review by Laura on February 10, 2015

I just love books like this. Truly a fascinating topic when you think about it. Rain really plays such a huge part of so many aspects of our lives. Beautiful and well researched book. I enjoyed it so very much. I think I may actually reread it then gift it to another rain lover :)......more