WINNER PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD
A howling wind, a thunderstorm, the beating sun – the force and majesty of nature is revealed through the weather.
In Thunder & Lightning, Lauren Redniss reveals how weather shapes our world and daily lives. She takes readers on a journey from the Biblical flood to the defeat of the Spanish Armada, from the frozen archipelagos of the Arctic Ocean to the ‘absolute desert’ of Atacama, Chile, unearthing surprising stories of savagery, mystery, and wonder. Along the way, she explores the impact of weather on everything from our most personal decisions – Do I need an umbrella today? – to the awesome challenges we face with global climate change.
The result is an uncatagorizable fusion of storytelling and visual art, which grapples with weather in all its dimensions: its past and its future, its danger and its beauty, why it happens, what it feels like, what it means.
“Eerily beautiful…immersive and disorienting ….Stories that illuminate the beauty, wonder and chaos inherent in the elements.”
— The New York Times
“Redniss's work is …some of the most inventive, rigorous and beguiling published anywhere in the world.”
— The Telegraph
“Lauren Redniss’s stunning cultural history of the weather is thrillingly original…Redniss’s book reinvents graphic storytelling.”
— The Guardian
“Magical…That is what Redniss has done, shown us how human beings live with nature.”
— New York Times Book Review
“Science writer Lauren Redniss takes us on a most meditative, enchanting, and perilous journey via her prose and with her stunning artwork…Her unique gifts as a reporter, storyteller, adventurer, and artist put this book in a category by itself… I predict Thunder & Lightning will be considered a classic.”
— New York Journal of Books
“Lauren Redniss's Thunder & Lightning is such a strange and wonderful thing, the work of a first-class mind that refuses to submit to any categories or precedent. It's the way you wish science would always be taught -- with a mix of stories and facts, legend and hard science.”
— Dave Eggers
“Beautiful and totally original.”
— Elizabeth Kolbert
