You're right! This does not look like a field guide to the clouds.

This is the cover for my soon-to-be published work of narrative non-fiction about these marvelously entertaining and enigmatic phenomena. It's part natural history, part personal narrative--like my previous book, Rare Bird, only with more physics and less tag-along field work. I spent eight years in the field studying the clouds floating over Olympia, Washington, where I live. It's cloudy 228 days a year here so I had ample time to study them.

What can a person who knows little to nothing about the clouds figure out by just looking at the clouds? Not much. I hadn't remembered anything from school--not the Latin names of the clouds, not how they form or float, not what they would feel like on my skin.

I acquired shelves of books and on-call meteorologists to help me climb a very steep learning curve into the world of clouds and atmospheric science. My book is not about weather. It is about the clouds themselves and how I found my way into their inscrutable little hearts. I don't take a head-on text-book style approach, but follow my own curiosity to come at the clouds from my own angle--sideways.

If you don't know a cumulus from a cumulonimbus, the difference between fog and mist (or even if fog is a cloud at all), or what exactly the clouds are doing up there...this is your book.

If you're not a meteorologist, a weather buff, any kind of scientists...but a curious naturalist interested in what's going on up there...this is your book.

If you want to spend just $25 for a book that invites you to enjoy the Greatest Free Show on Earth from your own back yard and for the rest of your life...this is your book.

My book will be out in September. Meanwhile, tip you chin up just a little and take a look at what's happening in the sky. Even on a gray, rainy day, the sky can be a source of joy and wonder.