'Longlisted for the National Book Award§Shortlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award§Winner of the Florida Book Award in General Non-Fiction§An NPR Science Friday Best Book of 2015§A Boston Globe Best Book of 2015§A Tampa Bay Times Favorite Book of 2015§A Miami Herald Favorite Book of 2015§A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2015'Mesmerizing and powerful history. Barnett is a passionate, intrepid journalist whose research has taken her everywhere from a Mackintosh factory in Glasgow to a rickety suspension bridge, made of steel-wire rope, 30 feet above India's Simtung River during monsoon season. Her cultural references are equally far-reaching... Abundant details, spiced with irreverence and humor, are what make this book so delicious. What elevates it and makes it important is Barnett's exploration of humanity's attempts throughout history to prevail over the elements... Reading this book, we are witness to the profoundly flawed, hubristic core of human nature itself.'- DANI SHAPIRO , MORE'Transporting...An elemental biography, Rain wanders widely through time and space, packed with intriguing stories...At times playful and at times grand, Barnett discusses the planetary genesis of rain and its influence on agriculture, religion and the arts. She is especially good at making the large and distant close and personal...Throughout, Barnett beats a steady tattoo: whether abundant or scarce, rain has shaped humans.'-ELIZABETH ROYTE, ELLE 'Fascinating...Celebrates the beauty of rain...As delicious as all this cultural history is, Barnett is not just sprinkling her pages with trivia. All of the various streams of her research come together in the present in rain as the manifestation of global climate change.'- TAMPA BAY TIMES 'Barnett sets an ambitious goal, making something so everyday interesting, even fascinating, and she accomplishes that with far-reaching research and lyrical prose, tracing rain through literature and myth, science and history....In a state where the governor has prohibited the discussion of climate change, Rain is as welcome as a summer afternoon shower on a hot day.' -THE MIAMI HERALD 'With Rain , Cynthia Barnett will make a rain fanatic out of anyone, not just self-described weather aficionados...Through her approachable and engaging writing, Barnett tells this eclectic story by combining science and history with humor, anecdotes, poetry, and personal travel adventures...Barnett captivates the reader through her unique way of finding a human face to describe historical climate and weather events...In a particularly memorable chapter, 'Writers on the Storm,' Barnett explores the role that rain has played in the creation of art, including the works of Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Frédéric Chopin, The Smiths, Nirvana, and Woody Allen.' -SCIENCE 'Cynthia Barnett's eye-opening book is enough to make even the most fervent rain-hater experience a change of heart. From the storms of biblical proportions that lashed the Earth when it was newly formed to why Woody Allen prefers to shoot against a rainy backdrop, Barnett addresses rain's role in science, culture and history with a forensic eye for detail and a good sense of humour.' -FINANCIAL TIMES 'Barnett approaches her subject with full recognition of [rain's] mystery, bringing to it a cogent understanding of rain's complex part in the hydrologic cycle....She excels at explaining the complexities of that cycle and the consequences of our modern compulsion to manipulate it...Barnett, often wittily, packs her book not only with essential finding, but also small, strange facts: that raindrops, for instance, don't resemble water dripping from a faucet; rather they fall from the clouds in the shape of tiny parachutes, their tops rounded because of air pressure from below.' -ORION'Lively, wide-ranging, and sensitive...Entertainin