Rednisss book is so big you can use other books as a bookmark for it.
Redniss's book is so big you can use other books as a bookmark for it. Mary Carmichael

I received this gorgeous book in October, only a few days before Redniss read at Elliott Bay Books. Every other book I've read since then and every theater event I've attended has prevented me from reading it all the way through, and it's been killing me because I take so much pleasure from reading this thing.

Part of the reason why I've found this book hard to get to is that it's so embarrassing to read in public. I brought it with me on a ferry and I felt like a giant child reading a giant children's book. Though I AM a giant child and though Redniss's book IS basically a giant children's book but for adults, I didn't want to advertise that fact to everyone en route to Friday Harbor. It's also kind of heavy to lug around.

But anyway, Redniss splits Thunder and Lightning into different chapters that are all about the weather. The text of the book is a mixture of brief interviews and stories about people who live, work, and play in extreme conditions. It reads like the most beautiful Wikipedia entry you've ever read. By no means do I mean that as a backhanded compliment. I love reading Wikipedia entires and go down Wiki-related rabbit holes all the time.

By the way, the rabbit hole of all rabbit holes is Wikipedia's List of Lists of Lists, which is exactly what it sounds like. Favorite list so far is "cross-linguistic onomatopoeia." Did you know that the Japanese onomatopoeia for a beating heart is "doki doki?" Well now you do. Merry Christmas.

Redniss's book makes my heart go doki doki doki doki.

The stories she tells often work as epic similes. That is, as you read, you start to see the stories as giant metaphors for life.

My favorite of these stories is told at the very beginning of the book. Redniss writes about this explorer named Stefánsson, who made several expeditions across the Canadian Arctic. As he was walking through the tundra, he would often experience the illusion that he was about to step into empty space. (That's what happens when all you see is white snow and white sky for miles and miles.) In order to orient himself, he would remove his gloves and throw them in front of himself as far as he could. That way, his eye had a fixed point to focus on. When he finally trudged up to his gloves, he'd pick them up and throw them again.

If that's not a metaphor for your life right now, then call me and tell me what it's like to be so well-adjusted.

As I said, the book is gorgeous, and Redniss designed every aspect of it. She uses copper plate photogravure etching to illustrate the stories, and she even designed the font that's used throughout the text. The size of the etchings totally immerses you in her scenes, so reading the book kinda feels more like watching a really pretty movie.

As you can kind of see in that video, the jungle scene flashes out in bold greens and golds after several pages of white, snowy tundra. This kind of juxtaposition creates tension and surprise throughout the book. You never know what weather world you're about to enter before you turn the page.

Buy this book for the generalist on your Christmas list. Buy it for yourself. Buy it for a kid. But whatever you do, buy it. Just don't try to take it on the plane.