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 Snow Squall: The Last American Clipper Ship, by Nicholas Dean, with expedition accounts by David C. Switzer [$30.00 hardcover] – In the middle of the nineteenth century American clipper ships astounded the maritime world with their amazingly swift passages to and from faraway seaports, bringing back exotic and valuable cargoes of tea, spices, and silk. Of all those clippers, only one remains: the Maine-built Snow Squall, whose bow section was rescued from the remote Falkland Islands by the Snow Squall Project in the 1980s. This book begins (and ends) with an unusual volunteer archaeological expedition in the aftermath of the Falkland War but quickly becomes a maritime detective story, as Snow Squall's story is pieced together further with information gleaned from shipping lists, newspaper accounts, disaster books, and diaries. Her world turns out to be a fascinating one, from the laying of her keel at the Butler yard in South Portland in 1851; to her captain's problems with storms, unruly crews, and attempted piracy; her owner's attempts to keep her profitable when news of her markets thousands of miles away was months old, and her cargo wouldn't be delivered until months later; and her last captain's heroic efforts to repair his badly damaged ship after going aground near Cape Horn in 1864. Nicholas Dean is a maritime historian who went to sea under sail in his teens. He was the founder of the Snow Squall Project, and is a life member of the Portland (Maine) Marine Society and co-author of its bicentennial history. Dave Switzer is a nautical archaeologist who made four trips to the Falklands with the Snow Squall Project. He teaches at Plymouth State College in New Hampshire.
 Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather, by Michael Smith [$24.95 hardcover] – A well-known meteorologist and founder of WeatherData, Smith takes readers on a fast-paced account of the biggest storms in recent years and how weather forecasting has developed into a true science since the 1950s. Part memoir, part science account, Smith's tale begins in the late 1940s, when weathermen were actually forbidden to broadcast tornado warnings. The U.S. Weather Bureau blocked storm forecasting for fear of getting it wrong, just as today, according to Smith, the FAA has banned weather radios from airport control towers. He delivers a moment-by-moment account of the monster tornado that leveled Greensburg, Kans., in 2007 as well as a damning account of governmental incompetence in the leadup to Hurricane Katrina. But as Smith shows, scientists themselves can be close-minded and prevent their field from progressing: Smith recounts the struggle by Theodore Fujita, creator of the tornado severity scale, to see his findings on microbursts—which have killed hundreds of people in airline crashes—accepted by other scientists. This account of people who do something about the weather should appeal to just about anyone who enjoys talking about it. |
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