How to Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea

Give this book to a young person. It will make you look outside yourself and see that the world is indeed a place of wonder. I wish I had read this years ago. I spend quite a bit of time around water and I can no longer look at the sea and just see water.

Twice I have looked at the tide and known that bad weather is about to arrive. Today, I was at a public gardens, looking at the water lilies around the edge of the lake I knew that it was deep water real close to the shore.

Some of this book was complicated but not incomprehensible. Even if you don't live near the sea, or lakes, or rivers, there is plenty here to engage you. If you are lucky enough to be able to see a large body of water from where you live then have this book around and show more dip into it.

Clever, well written, and instructive. Brilliant. show less

What kinds of landscape features indicate water is nearby? How can the sight of birds far out at sea reveal both the direction and distance to shore? Why are puddles more likely to form on the south side of a road? In this surprisingly engaging guidebook, Tristan Gooley inspires the reader to pay greater attention to the nature and behavior of water in order to better understand what is happening both above and below. I picked up a number of things I know I'll be able to apply to my own outdoor wanderings.

The author can get a little down in the weeds but overall an informative book, pleasant reading, introduces many interesting topics. Includes some fun experiments for the reader to try. What’s not to like about water?

This is a good book about water and the environment it functions in this world. Beaches, rivers, coastlines, tides ,sailing, currents, and the exploration and peopling of Pacific Island are among the subjects covered. It's filled with factoids, which I appreciate, but do not make for flow through reading.

I found this book relaxing, insightful, and just generally enjoyable, at least in small doses. Many neat little facts about the world around us, delivered in short stories about adventures in nature.

Probably not for everybody, but absolutely perfect for me right now. A dose of calm appreciation for nature, during lockdown in 2021.

The sort of book to be dipped into, rather than read from cover to cover. Interesting, but a little too technical for my poor brain to handle at times.

Clues and Patterns from puddles to the sea