Limn This
Michiko Kakutani may be the most feared book critic in America, but she loves Al Gore's new book. Book? Yes, it seems Gore's global warming blitz includes not just the PowerPoint-slideshow-turned-movie, but also a book by the same title. Kakutani's verdict on it: An Inconvenient Truth, she writes, is lucid, harrowing and bluntly effective.
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checking Amazon sales ranks, it's interesting to note the following, as of early afternoon on May 23:
An Incovenient Truth: #365
The Weather Makers: #653
Field Notes from a Catastrophe: #926
those seem like pretty strong numbers for books on such a complex subject. pretty encouraging, i'd say
Also, Eugene Linden's Winds of Change, comes in at around 6,000. Not as impressive, but for a book most people have never heard of, not bad either. I think most authors would be happy with that....
so, anyone read them all? which one would you recommend?
I've read Flannery's The Weather Makers and Kolberts work as it appearead in the NYer. Both worth reading, but somehow I found Flannery more engaging. Kolbert's is more reportorial, Flannery's is more polemic. Both are worthy reads, I think.
For a climatologist's perspective on the books (minus Gores), see this post on RealClimate.
They also review Al Gore's movie here.
Another good one is Mark Bowen's Thin Ice, about Lonnie Thompson and his team drilling ice cores on the world's highest mountains. It's a little long for my tastes and drags in parts. But Thompson's work and what it tells us... incredible story.
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