The Cloud Book: How to Understand the Skies

My husband and I often comment on strange clouds we see, or the different types of clouds, and we have said so many times that we should get a book so that we know what we are looking at! This book fit the bill nicely, we have both enjoyed reading this separately, and together. The photos make identifying what we have seen, really easy and there is a nice explanation next to each photo to explain what the formation is called and how it is formed. This is an excellent book to provide an overview of clouds for the interested novice!

I purchased this book for my 8 year old daughter as a more in-depth companion to The Cloud Collector's Handbook The 2 together make an excellent pair - the Collector's Handbook is great for quick cloud identification and is the perfect size for leaving in the car. The Cloud Book is much more in-depth and includes many fantastic photographs, but is rather larger and so lives at home to provide more detailed information. I would highly recommend either book but together they are excellent and my daughter has enjoyed both immensely.

LOOKING up into the skies represented, for me, a gaze into the unknown. Whilst I understood, like any student of British secondary school geography would, the basics behind cloud formation, convection, thermals and cloud types, the idiosyncrasies of each cloud, and the effect they have on weather, generally escaped me. Hamblyn's book has changed that. To pick up, The Cloud Book is instantly accessible with some truly stunning pictures adorning its pages showing off the 27 cloud types, and numerous other cloud-related phenomena (parhelions, lightning, auroras to name but a few) and offers up some interesting reading for even the most casual nephologist. On further inspection, this book shines as a tome of very interesting but not overly complicated descriptions of the cloud types, their implications for the weather and their likely transformations. That is one of the strengths of Hamblyn's book, that it affords you the opportunity to immerse oneself as far as one likes - either scratch the surface of learning cloud types or begin to piece together the bigger picture of cloud transformation and amalgamation. Each page is handily given over to a particular cloud type or phenomena and everything described by Hamblyn is accompanied by a wonderful full-colour picture. The text is digestible, the pages are well set-out and it is difficult to offer any criticism of the design and layout of the book. At times, admittedly, the book assumes some scientific knowledge of clouds which necessitates one reading over the same paragraph a couple of times to ensure understanding of the metamorphosis of ice crystals, Noctilucent clouds or whatever phenomena is at hand, but generally the book's accessibility is of great credit to Hamblyn. This was the absolute starter book for me and Hamblyn has achieved a deal of success in leaving me yearning for more knowledge on the subject. Fortunately my time with this book was accompanied by some terrific thunderstorms, offering me the opportunity to reflect on my reading in the shadow of some of the most incredible clouds offered up by the earth. I foresee this book serving as a very useful reference book for some time to come.

I'll be honest - I'm not the scientific type and I understand only about half of this book BUT it is FASCINATING stuff and I am immensely enjoying learning something new! I'm looking at cirrus clouds from my window now and trying to judge the length of the strands to see how windy it might be up there... The pictures are fabulous in this book - and the text, despite what I said earlier, is relatively straightforward. The title says it all. I had no idea so much was going on above my head.

Blatantly copied from my review of the pocket version of this book. This version has bigger and better photographs but would need a bigger pocket! If you've ever wondered aloud what sort of cloud was drifting across your field of vision as you lay back in your garden lounger. If you've ever seen clouds rolling in as you pass the point of no-return between your house and the pub and wondered if you should have brought a coat. If you've got fed up with other 'spotting' hobbies because the focus of your hobby keeps flying or buzzing away before you can get an identification book out. Then cloud spotting and this book is for you. The guide is very logically laid out with each cloud having its own section. There's a handy quick reference bit at the front with small pictures of clouds and the pages you need to turn to for a more detailed identification. Each section has a description of what a particular cloud can tell you about the weather due to come your way. The clarity of the text and the layout is only rivalled by the pocket version but this wins due to the larger but less pocket friendly layout.. I've bought several copies for other people of the pocket version who, upon seeing my copy, have asked for their own. There's quite a group of us at work across the world who now are members of the cloud spotting fraternity and have copies of that book. We all have this book now as well! I can't help but feel that this is how loony cults develop! Buy this book and join us!

After an experience I can only describe as miraculous, I noticed that at times, looking at the sky, and slowing my natural rhythm to that of the clouds floating across the sky helped ground me in the truer aspects of life. I wanted to have my own real Cloud Atlas (not the fiction story by the same name, though I found the film to be far better and truly amazing) to look at. It is filled with beautiful photographs and simple but informative descriptions of the different types of clouds, which doesn't necessarily interest me a lot, but it's nice to have a name for that pretty cloud that changed your mood.

A useful introduction This book is a useful introduction to the observation of clouds, and is well illustrated. It starts with a historical review of meteorology, and then goes into the classification and types of clouds, with photographs and accompanying text. Very much a coffee-table book, and one perhaps designed to be glanced through rather than actually read in detail. Photographs are very good, almost without exception. The exceptions include the various references to 'lenticular' clouds, where the illustrations are almost unrecognisable as such. Far better photos of this spectacular phenomenon are to be found on the Internet. Perhaps the problem is that the editor has chosen photographs from the British Isles, whereas the best examples are to be found in the Canadian Rockies.. The text could be better, both in presentation and in content. First, it is not comfortable to read unless you have the most acute eyesight. The font selected seems to be Calibri Light, size 9, in a grey ink rather than a black one. This is small enough to allow one quarter, sometimes two quarters, of the page to be left blank, thus turning the layout into a pretty pattern that nicely balances the full page photograph opposite. It becomes even prettier when the off-white background is sometimes replaced by a faded shot of a cloudy sky; but it does make it more difficult to read. The book does not pretend to go into the science of cloud formation in any detail, and covers the basic processes quite well, but more information would sometimes have been welcome. Given, for example, the strongly rhythmic appearance of mackerel skies and herringbone clouds, the reader feels there must be some strong underlying force responsible for this, but he is left wondering as to its nature.

Great

Good reading & pics.

It is a delight to read and covers every aspect of the sky and clouds. It is beautifully written and although it is detailed, the cloud descriptions are relatively short and concise which makes for light and easy reading - a perfect reference book. If you are looking to educate yourself about the clouds above then this book is definitely for you. Es una delicia leer y cubre todos los aspectos del cielo y las nubes. Está bellamente escrito y, aunque está detallado, las descripciones de las nubes son relativamente cortas y concisas, lo que permite una lectura ligera y fácil: un libro de referencia perfecto. Si busca educarse sobre las nubes de arriba, entonces este libro es definitivamente para usted.

Great book...very pleasing and neat appearance. Sufficient scientific explanation for a beginner to start exploring the exciting field of cloud spotting. Thank you and best wishes..

This book is great! Beautiful pictures and easy to understand descriptions of the clouds, ie composition, position in atmosphere, etc

Clear concise interesting functional.