Giles Whittell

Snow was always of paramount importance while growing up in northern Minnesota. Walking out to the main road to put the flag out for the snow plow could be easy or difficult depending on the quality of the snow. Fine powdery snow was fun, though I would get soaking wet. Meanwhile if there were a hard surface on top of the snow so each step had a hitch when breaking through, that was about as hard as it would get. We didn’t have fifty words for snow, but the different qualities mattered. It show more was that somewhat nostalgic connection to snow that led me to reading Snow by Gilles Whittell.

Whittel begins with the science of snow, how snowflakes are formed and why they are all unique. It was truly fascinating. He comes at the questions of snow from his own personal fascinations with skiing and the search for the world’s best powder. So, he explores what makes good snow, where it snows the most, and why. Then, he looks at high speed skiing. I love mountaineering and polar exploration memoirs. This was different, but close enough to my own fascinations to fit right in. I particularly liked his description of his attempts to ski the fastest high-speed track in the world. Like Falstaff, he decides discretion is the better part of valor.

I enjoyed Snow a lot and not just because I felt a sort of nostalgia for snow (not that I want any here!) It is well-structured, starting from the individual flake and expanding out to the whole world of snow and world competition skiing and Snowmads. The fanaticism of some of the snowmads is fascinating. Whittell is a good writer who can take complex scientific ideas and explain them clearly. He also conveys the excitement and thrill of rushing downhill so fast you can hardly breathe. Doing one or the other is what a reader expects, doing both so well is a gift.

I received an e-galley of Snow from the publisher through NetGalley.

Snow at Atria Books | Simon & Schuster
Gilles Whittell on Twitter

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Reading about female pilots in WWII is a very interesting subject that I have heard pretty much nothing about before (though as with most cases, the pioneering women came from privileged backgrounds which is how they could afford both to learn an expensive hobby and to defy expectations of a sexist society). However there were so many women in the ATA that on the one hand, I could not keep up with the cast of characters but on the other hand only those who have published their own memoirs or show more were still alive when Whittell was researching the book really get focused on. He cuts about between people and moments in time so much that I couldn't really follow what was going on as a narrative, only appreciate the individual moments. I was quite irritated that Jonathan Ferguson, referred to as a 'pioneering transsexual', is misgendered in the one sentence entry he gets in the entire book. Still, definitely worth a read if you don't have time to read all the memoirs of the actual pilots listed in the sources. show less

In retrospect, maybe I should have expected that someone writing a book about snow would be more likely to be passionate about skiing than about meteorology. There certainly is stuff in here about the science of snow, but never in quite as much depth (er, no pun intended) as I might have preferred. Meanwhile, there's an entire chapter dedicated to a ski jump stunt filmed for a James Bond movie. And the author's incredible enthusiasm for snow, which he gives the strong impression he'd prefer show more to have covering the entire globe at all times, is, to this non-skier, weird and a bit off-putting, especially when it comes after, say, a discussion about people dying in avalanches. I feel the same, too, about his approach to the subject of global warming, which he talks about a lot, but seems mostly to regret because it'll deprive him personally of having as much snow as he wants. But, hey, silver lining, as far as he's concerned! Climate predictions indicate that we'll probably get more really bad blizzards before that happens! Which, yes, he does seem to think is a good thing.

There were, at least, some interesting facts, and a bit of a thrill to some of the accounts of really scary snowstorms so I can't say this was totally not worth reading. But on the whole... I dunno, man. I think I just don't love snow enough for this guy. Or his book. show less

Bridge of Spies is a thrilling true story of espionage and super-power diplomacy at one of the tensest moments of the Cold War, centered around a prisoner exchange in Berlin in 1962.

Willie Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, was a Soviet spy in the finest traditions of the Bolshevik 'illegals' (named in comparison to legals, who had diplomatic cover as 'cultural attaches' or similar). His mission was to rebuild a spy ring to match the immense A-bomb theft of Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs. Fisher was show more undercover for years, but it unclear what, if anything he managed to uncover, before a drunken and incompetent subordinate defected to the West rather than face recall to Moscow. Undone by the weakest link in a human chain, Fisher was sentenced to decades in prison.

Meanwhile, America was pursuing its own patented brand of espionage. The U-2 flew at an altitude of 70,000 feet, above the range of anti-aircraft guns and interceptors. Aerial photos provided detailed evidence of the weapons backing Khrushchev's bellicose 'we will bury you' rhetoric, or rather, a detailed absence of evidence. In the late 1950s, everything pointed to an immense American advantage in bombers, bombs, and even rockets, with the Russian ICBM program a handful of balky liquid fueled rockets. The overflights enraged Khrushchev, but the CIA's voracious appetite for intelligence lead them to schedule one last overflight on May 1, 1960. This flight put Gary Powers in range of an S-75 Dvina SAM, and the shootdown killed hopes for disarmament and detente.

The two spies were sentenced to years in prison. Mostly through the entrepreneurial efforts of Power's father, and Fisher's defense lawyer Donovan, were the two sides able to broker a swap, throwing in a US PhD student who's thesis on East German economic was also declared to be espionage.

Giles keeps it fast, interesting, and manages to capture the spirit of the era. show less