Reading the Glass: A Sailor's Stories of Weather
Elliot Rappaport
Mar 2023 · Sceptre · Narrated by Greg Tremblay
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9 hr 49 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook
A fascinating insight into the science of weather and the strange, wild and wonderful world of life at sea.
What's in a cloud? What separates a tropical storm from a winter blizzard? And what exactly is El Niño? Elliot Rappaport, a professional captain of traditional sailing ships, has spent three decades at sea, where understanding weather could be the difference between life and death. In Reading the Glass, he offers a sailor's-eye view of the moving parts of our atmosphere and unveils the larger patterns it holds: global winds, storms, air masses, jet streams, and the longer arc of our climate.
Told through a series of tall ship voyages, Rappaport's narrative takes listeners from the icy seas of Greenland to the Roaring Forties, places where one can experience all four seasons in an hour. He navigates the turbulent waters of the Strait of Gibraltar, en route to storied port cities of the Mediterranean. In the vast tropical Pacific, he crosses the equator, where heat, moisture, and unsettled winds churn out powerful squalls, and drops anchor in isolated ports of call. He explores wide swathes of ocean to explain how the trade winds have carried ships westward for centuries, and how ancient Polynesian explorers pushed back the other way.
Written in stunning prose, brimming with wisdom, curiosity, and humour, Reading the Glass brilliantly blends science and memoir to reveal how weather has shaped our oceans, our history, and ourselves.
(P) 2023 Penguin Audio
What's in a cloud? What separates a tropical storm from a winter blizzard? And what exactly is El Niño? Elliot Rappaport, a professional captain of traditional sailing ships, has spent three decades at sea, where understanding weather could be the difference between life and death. In Reading the Glass, he offers a sailor's-eye view of the moving parts of our atmosphere and unveils the larger patterns it holds: global winds, storms, air masses, jet streams, and the longer arc of our climate.
Told through a series of tall ship voyages, Rappaport's narrative takes listeners from the icy seas of Greenland to the Roaring Forties, places where one can experience all four seasons in an hour. He navigates the turbulent waters of the Strait of Gibraltar, en route to storied port cities of the Mediterranean. In the vast tropical Pacific, he crosses the equator, where heat, moisture, and unsettled winds churn out powerful squalls, and drops anchor in isolated ports of call. He explores wide swathes of ocean to explain how the trade winds have carried ships westward for centuries, and how ancient Polynesian explorers pushed back the other way.
Written in stunning prose, brimming with wisdom, curiosity, and humour, Reading the Glass brilliantly blends science and memoir to reveal how weather has shaped our oceans, our history, and ourselves.
(P) 2023 Penguin Audio
About the author
Elliot Rappaport has sailed as a captain in the United States maritime industry since 1992, involved primarily in the training of other mariners aboard an assortment of traditional sailing ships. Presently a faculty member at Maine Maritime Academy, preparing cadets for professional careers at sea, he has also worked extensively at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, an organization that offers shipboard programs in ocean science and leadership to college undergraduates. A graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Maine, Elliot lives in coastal Maine when not at sea. Reading the Glass is his first book.
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