1Helenliz
The British are, by reputation, obsessed with the weather. I'm not saying that's wrong. There's a rhyme that sprang to my mind on the subject:
"March winds and April Showers
Make way for sweet May flowers".
Then April showers turn into a full on storm in Bambi, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-FUcrQhTBY. Poor little Bambi, discovering rain for the first time.
So my topic is rain, in all its forms. Can be anything that involves water falling from the sky. Mizzle, drizzle, showers, snow, hail, storm, gale, full blown tropical storm. As long as it gets you wet, it counts.
You can find rain in the title of some books:
Rain : four walks in English weather, Melissa Harrison
Rain, Robert Kalan (there are others!)
The Art of Racing in the Rain, Garth Stein
Forty Signs of Rain, Kim Stanley Robinson
You can find descriptions of rain in many books, The list below is taken from The Guardian, 10 descriptions of British Rain.
Westron Wynde
Westron wynde when wyll thow blow
The smalle rayne downe can Rayne
Cryst yf my love were in my Armys
And I yn my bed Agayn
The source for this anonymous lyric is a Tudor manuscript that may have belonged to a musician in the court of King Henry VIII. With no punctuation, there has been much scholarly debate about whether the “western wind” is being asked to blow the rain away, or to bring it. Victorian versions often edited it to clarify one way or the other (and sometimes bowdlerised it, too). Either way, who hasn’t stood shivering in the “small rain” and thought: “Christ, if only my love were in my arms, and I in my bed again!”
After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry
This justly celebrated, deeply atmospheric 2014 debut takes place during a long, hot drought, with a consequent sense of something vital being withheld. Near the Norfolk house in which the seven characters gather lies a reservoir full of dark water with a poorly maintained dam, leading the reader to wonder from whence the title’s flood will come. The biblical rain that eventually falls is both a natural phenomenon made eerily strange, and an indistinctly allegorical event.
King Lear by William Shakespeare
It’s impossible to list literary rainstorms without including poor old Lear on the heath, every English teacher’s favourite example of what Ruskin called “pathetic fallacy” in which human emotions and aspects of the natural world become inextricably linked. As Lear rages at his treatment by his daughters, the weather rages around him – as it must sometimes have raged over the heads of the theatregoers at the open-air Globe.
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
The night Bathsheba marries the dastardly Sergeant Troy, Gabriel Oak tries to warn the drunken groom that a downpour is coming – to no avail. When it comes, “stretch{ing} obliquely through the dull atmosphere in liquid spines”, Gabriel spends all night staunchly thatching all the ricks to save Bathsheba’s wheat and barley. Both his weather-wisdom and his hardiness are no small proof of his suitability for her.
The Hawk in the Rain by Ted Hughes
The title poem from Hughes’s first collection, published in 1957, is a physical, kinetic piece of writing which contrasts the “drumming ploughland” that “clutches my each step to the ankle” with the hawk’s effortless flight, “steady as a hallucination in the streaming air”. As a rallying cry for a new breed of English poetry – not to mention an evocation of rain that’s proper “siling down”, as they say in Yorkshire – it’s unsurpassed.
If It Keeps on Raining by Jon McGregor
Everyone knows that Jon McGregor is one of our best living writers, and this short story, from the collection This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You, shows him at his subtle and unsettling best. A man has a house by a river, and each day he works on the treehouse and the raft he’s building. He thinks about the water, and what will happen when it rises, and plans for the time when the rains start. It doesn’t fall, but he knows it will. Or will it?
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The rain in Wolf Hall isn’t so much about downpours as a constant dampness, a pitter-patter that seems to seep through the entire book. When Wolsey is turned out of York Place and dismounts his mule to kneel in the mud with Norris, the drizzle creates an extra layer of pathos. Elsewhere, without being foregrounded, it acts to create a subtle sense of chilly discomfort, powerfully but subtly evoking the harsher, less coddled world of the Tudors.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The night Heathcliff disappears from the Heights, having overheard Cathy say that to marry him would “degrade” her, a violent thunderstorm adds to the novel’s already high foul-weather count. Cathy stays up all night, “bonnetless and shawlless”, calling for him in the rain. The next day she comes down with a fever that nearly kills her. The association between Heathcliff and bad weather persists – when his body is discovered, the window open, “his face and throat were washed with rain; the bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still”.
From Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Notebooks: October 21st 1803
Friday Morning. – A drisling Rain. Heavy masses of shapeless Vapour upon the mountains O the perpetual Forms of Borrodale! yet it is no unbroken Tale of dull Sadness – slanting Pillars travel across the Lake, at long Intervals – the vaporous mass whitens, in large Stains of Light / on the Lakeward ride of that huge arm chair, of Lowdore, fell a gleam of softest light, that brought out the rich hues of the late Autumn… the Birds are singing in the tender Rain as if it were the Rain of April, & the decaying Foliage were Flowers & Blossoms.
This lovely, keenly observed journal entry is included here to represent the Romantic poets’ fascination with all forms of weather, including rain. Weather was – if you’ll pardon the pun – very much in the air at this time, and the era’s two greatest artists, Constable and Turner, were drawn to paint rainclouds and other meteorological phenomena, like drizzle and mist. The natural world in all its forms was beginning to be seen as beautiful – not just those aspects of it that were convenient, or conventionally pleasant. It was a vital and important shift.
The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
It’s not just the sea, but water in all its forms that flows through this strange and profound novel. Theatre director and astonishing narcissist Charles Arrowby has retreated to a house by the North Sea which he fills with psychodrama to rival Murdoch’s own intense passions. Shruff End leaks and floods and groans as storms blow in and over, the sea raging below; the rain comes down “straight and silvery, like a punishment of steel rods”. Murdoch, of course, was familiar with Carl Jung, and the connection he makes between water and the subconscious is richly fertile ground for her in this Booker-winning book.
I'm sure there are many more books that feature a description of rain in all its forms. Vernacular words are equally as acceptable. As long as you'd need a waterproof, it's a fit.
"March winds and April Showers
Make way for sweet May flowers".
Then April showers turn into a full on storm in Bambi, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-FUcrQhTBY. Poor little Bambi, discovering rain for the first time.
So my topic is rain, in all its forms. Can be anything that involves water falling from the sky. Mizzle, drizzle, showers, snow, hail, storm, gale, full blown tropical storm. As long as it gets you wet, it counts.
You can find rain in the title of some books:
Rain : four walks in English weather, Melissa Harrison
Rain, Robert Kalan (there are others!)
The Art of Racing in the Rain, Garth Stein
Forty Signs of Rain, Kim Stanley Robinson
You can find descriptions of rain in many books, The list below is taken from The Guardian, 10 descriptions of British Rain.
Westron Wynde
Westron wynde when wyll thow blow
The smalle rayne downe can Rayne
Cryst yf my love were in my Armys
And I yn my bed Agayn
The source for this anonymous lyric is a Tudor manuscript that may have belonged to a musician in the court of King Henry VIII. With no punctuation, there has been much scholarly debate about whether the “western wind” is being asked to blow the rain away, or to bring it. Victorian versions often edited it to clarify one way or the other (and sometimes bowdlerised it, too). Either way, who hasn’t stood shivering in the “small rain” and thought: “Christ, if only my love were in my arms, and I in my bed again!”
After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry
This justly celebrated, deeply atmospheric 2014 debut takes place during a long, hot drought, with a consequent sense of something vital being withheld. Near the Norfolk house in which the seven characters gather lies a reservoir full of dark water with a poorly maintained dam, leading the reader to wonder from whence the title’s flood will come. The biblical rain that eventually falls is both a natural phenomenon made eerily strange, and an indistinctly allegorical event.
King Lear by William Shakespeare
It’s impossible to list literary rainstorms without including poor old Lear on the heath, every English teacher’s favourite example of what Ruskin called “pathetic fallacy” in which human emotions and aspects of the natural world become inextricably linked. As Lear rages at his treatment by his daughters, the weather rages around him – as it must sometimes have raged over the heads of the theatregoers at the open-air Globe.
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
The night Bathsheba marries the dastardly Sergeant Troy, Gabriel Oak tries to warn the drunken groom that a downpour is coming – to no avail. When it comes, “stretch{ing} obliquely through the dull atmosphere in liquid spines”, Gabriel spends all night staunchly thatching all the ricks to save Bathsheba’s wheat and barley. Both his weather-wisdom and his hardiness are no small proof of his suitability for her.
The Hawk in the Rain by Ted Hughes
The title poem from Hughes’s first collection, published in 1957, is a physical, kinetic piece of writing which contrasts the “drumming ploughland” that “clutches my each step to the ankle” with the hawk’s effortless flight, “steady as a hallucination in the streaming air”. As a rallying cry for a new breed of English poetry – not to mention an evocation of rain that’s proper “siling down”, as they say in Yorkshire – it’s unsurpassed.
If It Keeps on Raining by Jon McGregor
Everyone knows that Jon McGregor is one of our best living writers, and this short story, from the collection This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You, shows him at his subtle and unsettling best. A man has a house by a river, and each day he works on the treehouse and the raft he’s building. He thinks about the water, and what will happen when it rises, and plans for the time when the rains start. It doesn’t fall, but he knows it will. Or will it?
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The rain in Wolf Hall isn’t so much about downpours as a constant dampness, a pitter-patter that seems to seep through the entire book. When Wolsey is turned out of York Place and dismounts his mule to kneel in the mud with Norris, the drizzle creates an extra layer of pathos. Elsewhere, without being foregrounded, it acts to create a subtle sense of chilly discomfort, powerfully but subtly evoking the harsher, less coddled world of the Tudors.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The night Heathcliff disappears from the Heights, having overheard Cathy say that to marry him would “degrade” her, a violent thunderstorm adds to the novel’s already high foul-weather count. Cathy stays up all night, “bonnetless and shawlless”, calling for him in the rain. The next day she comes down with a fever that nearly kills her. The association between Heathcliff and bad weather persists – when his body is discovered, the window open, “his face and throat were washed with rain; the bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still”.
From Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Notebooks: October 21st 1803
Friday Morning. – A drisling Rain. Heavy masses of shapeless Vapour upon the mountains O the perpetual Forms of Borrodale! yet it is no unbroken Tale of dull Sadness – slanting Pillars travel across the Lake, at long Intervals – the vaporous mass whitens, in large Stains of Light / on the Lakeward ride of that huge arm chair, of Lowdore, fell a gleam of softest light, that brought out the rich hues of the late Autumn… the Birds are singing in the tender Rain as if it were the Rain of April, & the decaying Foliage were Flowers & Blossoms.
This lovely, keenly observed journal entry is included here to represent the Romantic poets’ fascination with all forms of weather, including rain. Weather was – if you’ll pardon the pun – very much in the air at this time, and the era’s two greatest artists, Constable and Turner, were drawn to paint rainclouds and other meteorological phenomena, like drizzle and mist. The natural world in all its forms was beginning to be seen as beautiful – not just those aspects of it that were convenient, or conventionally pleasant. It was a vital and important shift.
The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch
It’s not just the sea, but water in all its forms that flows through this strange and profound novel. Theatre director and astonishing narcissist Charles Arrowby has retreated to a house by the North Sea which he fills with psychodrama to rival Murdoch’s own intense passions. Shruff End leaks and floods and groans as storms blow in and over, the sea raging below; the rain comes down “straight and silvery, like a punishment of steel rods”. Murdoch, of course, was familiar with Carl Jung, and the connection he makes between water and the subconscious is richly fertile ground for her in this Booker-winning book.
I'm sure there are many more books that feature a description of rain in all its forms. Vernacular words are equally as acceptable. As long as you'd need a waterproof, it's a fit.
3rabbitprincess
For those reading the Dalziel and Pascoe series by Reginald Hill, An April Shroud begins with a heavy downpour and flooding. Also works for the "title contains a month" square on the bingo card ;)
4Robertgreaves
The Art of Racing In the Rain by Garth Stein is my book club's choice for May, so I might read it early.
5marell
I’m going to give History of the Rain by Niall Williams a try.
6whitewavedarling
I've meant to read M.S. Merwin's Rain in the Trees for ages, so I'll go with that one!
7clue
I don't seem to have anything on my TBR but I have several on my To Read list and will probably read one of them. Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie, The Satapur Moonstone by Sujata Massey and Issac's Storm by Eric Larson.
8beebeereads
>7 clue: The first title that came to my mind was Fifty Words for Rain. I've been hearing a lot about it and will probably choose for this challenge. I have read both The Satpur Moonstone and Isaac's Storm. Both great books and wonderful recs for others on this thread.
I found one on my TBR Mango Rains by Anne Oman which I can only find in very expensive paperback. Will keep looking to see if I can get it for April. It looks like its a travelogue. For some reason all my touchstones quit.
I found one on my TBR Mango Rains by Anne Oman which I can only find in very expensive paperback. Will keep looking to see if I can get it for April. It looks like its a travelogue. For some reason all my touchstones quit.
9LibraryCin
I love rain! Finding it in a book might take me a bit, but I'll find something.
In the meantime, feel free to enjoy this "rainy" song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMZ4amjbqhU
Love this song! :-)
In the meantime, feel free to enjoy this "rainy" song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMZ4amjbqhU
Love this song! :-)
10dudes22
I purchased Wrapped in Rain by Charles Martin for one of my Thingaversary buys in January and this is a great reason to read it now.
11LibraryCin
I have this on my tbr, so it's the most likely candidate:
The Last Wild Wolves: Ghosts of the Rain Forest / Ian McAllister
The Last Wild Wolves: Ghosts of the Rain Forest / Ian McAllister
12DeltaQueen50
I think I will go with The Master of Rain by Tom Bradby, a mystery set in 1926 Shanghai.
13VivienneR
Wonderful category! It will be one of the four books I have with rain in the title:
History of the Rain by Niall Williams
Blood Rain by Michael Dibdin
Rain Dogs by Adrian McKinty
Stone Rain by Linwood Barclay
History of the Rain by Niall Williams
Blood Rain by Michael Dibdin
Rain Dogs by Adrian McKinty
Stone Rain by Linwood Barclay
14JayneCM
I just read Melissa Harrison's Rain: Four Walks In English Weather this month! Off to find something else!
15MissWatson
Lovely theme! I've got The rains came somewhere in the TBR piles...
16lsh63
I'm going to put aside Father of the Rain, and see if I have anything else that fits.
17Tess_W
>15 MissWatson: a local author, for me. I liked this book!
18majkia
I'll read The Darkness which apparently begins with a body washing ashore in Iceland
19Tess_W
I think I will read Rain Reign, a YA book on my Kindle from when I shared the account with my grandson.
20Jackie_K
This weekend I start a creative writing course that runs from mid-March to mid-June. One of the books I had to buy for that course is Mary Austin's The Land of Little Rain. I honestly don't know when in the course we'll be looking at that book, but I will count it for this challenge even if I don't get to read it till June!
21VioletBramble
I'm planning to read Rain Reign and a Tale Blazers short story; There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury.
22LadyoftheLodge
I plan to read a Nancy Drew that involves rain in its frozen form The Mystery at the Ski Jump.
23thornton37814
I really enjoyed Rain: Four Walks in English Weather when I read it a few years ago.
24VivienneR
I read Snow by John Banville a melancholy, atmospheric mystery set in Ireland in 1957, and more of an exposé of abuse by the church. Not for everyone.
25LadyoftheLodge
I read three different selections for this challenge, and got a "CAT trick" out of them too.
The Murder of Twelve features a Maine blizzard.
The Scarlet Imperial set in New York and it is always raining in the story.
Death of a Laird set in Scotland with a huge rain storm going on.
The Murder of Twelve features a Maine blizzard.
The Scarlet Imperial set in New York and it is always raining in the story.
Death of a Laird set in Scotland with a huge rain storm going on.
26whitewavedarling
Finished The Rain in the Trees by M.S. Merwin. A lovely, quiet collection of poems with some real stand-outs.
27Kristelh
Completed After Me Comes the Flood. Definitely rainy weather predicted.
28beebeereads
I read Fifty Words for Rain Loved it, but not everyone did. Read my comments here. https://www.librarything.com/topic/338552#7811377
29nrmay
Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean. Noah's daughter on the ark.
This won the Whitbread Children's Award.
This won the Whitbread Children's Award.
30SilverWolf28
Here's the May thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/341198
31Jackie_K
I've finished The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin - a series of essays, first published in 1903, about the desert lands of south-west California.
33Ann_R
I'm reading Make Me Rain: Poems & Prose. Nikki Giovanni has written a lot of poetry but I actually have not read any of her poetry before. I'm not sure how much of the poetry is actually weather related but I'm going to use it for this month's book.I had planned to listen to the audio for Fifty Words for Rain but I kept finding my mind wandering, so I placed a hold on the ebook version. I'll give it a try again another month.
34lowelibrary
I read two short Christmas books for this one. There's Snow More Room by Joey Benevento and The Annual Snowville Frozen Fun Festival by Jake Gahr
36Cora-R
I just finished Hard Rain by Irma Venter for this one.
37sallylou61
I read Make Me Rain, a beautifully written collection of poems and short essays by Nikki Giovanni. Thanks to >33 Ann_R: for pointing out this book to me.
38Ann_R
>37 sallylou61: I'm so glad you enjoyed the poetry. At the moment, I'm about half way though Giovanni's book.
39LibraryCin
Unfortunately the book I requested for this was due back at the library on Apr 11 and still hadn't been returned. :-( Once I finally get my hands on it, I will come back and post here and in the wiki.
40susanna.fraser
I read The Good Rain by Timothy Egan.
41MissWatson
It turns out that Death in the Andamans features a dramatic storm and heavy rains which set the plot in motion.
42thornton37814
>41 MissWatson: Ohhh - I loved all the M. M. Kaye books when I read them. I only wish she had written more!
43christina_reads
>41 MissWatson: >42 thornton37814: I enjoyed those M.M. Kaye books too! I think my favorite was Death in Zanzibar.
44MissWatson
>42 thornton37814: >43 christina_reads: I have very fond memories of reading The far pavilions ages ago and I'm looking forward to exploring her mysteries.
45marell
>41 MissWatson: I just finished her book Trade Wind, and in the beginning there is a dramatic storm which sets the plot in motion! Loved this book.
46Helenliz
Well thank you all for a soggy reading month. I hope that you find better weather in the future.
47LibraryCin
I might give up on my hold ever coming in at the library (the only copy is still checked out and was due back on April 11).
I still want to read and post something for this, even if it is belated. So I might switch to "snow" in the title instead, and see if my library has either of these:
Moon of the Crusted Snow / Waubgeshig Rice
An Echo Through the Snow / Andrea Thalasinos
I still want to read and post something for this, even if it is belated. So I might switch to "snow" in the title instead, and see if my library has either of these:
Moon of the Crusted Snow / Waubgeshig Rice
An Echo Through the Snow / Andrea Thalasinos
48Robertgreaves
It's a bit late, but I'm currently reading The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo, which I had originally scheduled for February but never got round to. It is set in Navarre in the month of February, and it rains A LOT.
49LibraryCin
My book finally came in at the library!
The Last Wild Wolves: Ghosts of the Rain Forest / Ian McAllister.
4.5 stars
The author is a photographer and lives on the northern coast of British Columbia. He has taken many wildlife photos and helped with studies of the local wolf populations where he is. This is a coffee-table-style book with plenty of large photographs, alongside information about the wolves, and an epilogue that includes information about the destruction and conservation of the area.
Oh, they are beautiful. And sadly, so vilified. I hate people. I hate hunters – there are stories in the epilogue of some awful hunters. I hate the humans behind the companies that only want to make money and don’t care what they destroy to do it, as they destroy the habitats for most animals. These wolves are in an area that is less disturbed by humans, but it’s hard to say if that will last.
Getting beyond that, the wolves and the photos are beautiful. The area itself is beautiful, and there are a few photos that are not of the wolves, though of course, the bulk of the photos are. The information about the wolves was interesting – I didn’t know that wolves and ravens have a symbiotic relationship; wolves will hunt and eat many birds, but there has never been remains of ravens found in their scat. There is also a 20-ish minute DVD included with the book, a short documentary that says some of the same as what the book says, but of course the “photos” are now a video. And have I mentioned how beautiful they are!?
The Last Wild Wolves: Ghosts of the Rain Forest / Ian McAllister.
4.5 stars
The author is a photographer and lives on the northern coast of British Columbia. He has taken many wildlife photos and helped with studies of the local wolf populations where he is. This is a coffee-table-style book with plenty of large photographs, alongside information about the wolves, and an epilogue that includes information about the destruction and conservation of the area.
Oh, they are beautiful. And sadly, so vilified. I hate people. I hate hunters – there are stories in the epilogue of some awful hunters. I hate the humans behind the companies that only want to make money and don’t care what they destroy to do it, as they destroy the habitats for most animals. These wolves are in an area that is less disturbed by humans, but it’s hard to say if that will last.
Getting beyond that, the wolves and the photos are beautiful. The area itself is beautiful, and there are a few photos that are not of the wolves, though of course, the bulk of the photos are. The information about the wolves was interesting – I didn’t know that wolves and ravens have a symbiotic relationship; wolves will hunt and eat many birds, but there has never been remains of ravens found in their scat. There is also a 20-ish minute DVD included with the book, a short documentary that says some of the same as what the book says, but of course the “photos” are now a video. And have I mentioned how beautiful they are!?
