550-559: Geology and Meteorology Book Haul

Lesson learned: don't underestimate your local branch library. I thought I did pretty well here.

And this doesn't even include what was too heavy to carry home! I could have chosen books about the exploration of Mars, so I guess all rocks are included, even ones on other planets. Also, water and air are big topics. Sam Kean, who wrote The Disappearing Spoon, which I kind of read last time, also wrote a book about air, which, seriously? NPR called it "breezy" (LOL), and I got enough of that before, so I passed on that one.

So, top to bottom: The Audubon Society, best known for its interest in birds, seems to make field guides for just about every natural phenomenon, 20 in all, at least two found in this section: Weather and Rocks & Minerals. Of course I wanted a full-color enumeration of the 30 pages worth of different kinds of snowstorms and ice storms found on our continent! I won't hold myself to reading the "Essays" at the beginning, but I may have to read some of the "Text Accounts' at the end, especially of  "Mixed Skies,""Optical Phenomena," and "Obstructions to Vision." Those do beg further explanation!

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky was a "Best Book of 2012" in our little library, so I guess I'm late to this party. It attracted my attention because of course in church we are always talking about salt, as in, being salt. The first few pages have already captured my attention, as the author describes the surprising behavior of a rock of salt he brought back from Spain that reacted to sun, humidity, metals... and licking. So that's why chemistry and geology are right next to each other!

Now take a deep breath before you read the full title of the last book in the pile. Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28.800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them. Donovan Hohn's subtitle reeled me in when he mentioned that he was a character in the story.... because you know I love stunt memoirs! The book is written in a companionable first-person style and seems to touch on everything from the manufacture of plastic toys to the floating garbage island in the Pacific that they end up in, with 350 pages in between and an epilogue that (finally) actually discusses Herman Melville's well-known novel of obsession with another, slightly larger and more useful, denizen of the sea. If I commit to this book, I suspect it may completely talk me out of plastic toys... at least floating ones...