My first job, while I was still in college, was at a bookstore. My first job after I graduated from college was at a library. I remain addicted to books—depend on them, need them, read them, and give them to my friends as gifts.

I still spend a lot of time poking around libraries and browsing at bookstores, and I don’t mean for my on-line bookstore to lure anyone away from these pleasures. I merely want to share the good books I have discovered—and am continuing to discover—as I pursue my wide-ranging interests in natural history.

This first page will feature a book or books I am just adding to my bookstore with an easy shop option through Amazon.com to the right of the book description. On other pages—see list at left—I will showcase books I have found useful or interesting.

THE HANDY WEATHER ANSWER BOOK by Walter A. Lyons

For quick answers to over 1,000 frequently asked weather questions, this book is the best resource I’ve found. Its chapters include definitions, descriptions, explanations, dates, and other bits of information on subjects such as weather fundamentals, instruments, observing techniques, forecasting, and careers. Other chapters focus on the upper atmosphere and outer space, clouds, optical phenomena, air pollution, the human body, and climate change. And, of course, each major storm type has its own chapter. A detailed index makes it easy to find answers to specific questions if you’re in a hurry. But you’ll want to allow extra time for reading more or browsing once you open this book. Its only shortcoming is the lack of drawings to illustrate complicated phenomena, but additional graphics might have required too many pages. As is, it’s up to almost 400 pages.

This lively book is full of hands-on, do-it-yourself weather activities designed to help kids understand how weather works and how a meteorologist goes about forecasting what the weather is going to do next. It includes chapters on the atmosphere, the sun, the wind, water, clouds, wild weather, and forecasting. Its kid-friendly format also includes short sections throughout called ASK MARK, RECORDED IN HISTORY, WEATHER WATCHERS, FORECASTERS’ ?GETTING-IT-RIGHT? RULES, WEATHER RECORDS, and WEATHER LORE. At the end of the book there are two pages of resources (including good websites) and a detailed index.

THE VERMONT WEATHER BOOK by David Ludlum

Vermont is fortunate to have its own weather book, which offers us background history, a month-by-month review of historic weather events, explanations of unusual weather events and extremes, a survey of historic storms by type, and a discussion of weather watching around the state. The first edition was published in 1985, and a second edition adds highlights from 1986-1994. This is an altogether useful and interesting book that I have read cover to cover and still refer to frequently. Its only shortcoming is the absence of an index, which I’m hoping some good weather-person might add in a third edition, along with more highlights since 1994.