The Secret Life of Snow. The science and the stories behind nature's greatest wonder
Whittell, Giles
**The Financial Times' Travel Book of the Year 2018**
<br>How many snowflakes does it take to build a snowman?<br>Where is the snowiest place on Earth?<br>When will the last snowflake fall?<br><br>Snow has a lot in common with religion.<br><br>It comes from heaven. It changes everything. It creates an alternative reality and brings on irrational behaviour in humans. But unlike most religions, snow has never had a bible, until now.<br><br>Giles Whittell, a passionate snow enthusiast, takes the reader on a quest through centuries and continents to reveal the wonders of snow. Along the way he uncovers the mysteries of snow crystal morphology, why avalanches happen, how snow saved a British prime minister's life, and the terrifying truth about the opening ceremony of the 1960 winter Olympics.<br><br>The Secret Life of Snow is the next best thing to a white Christmas, an anthropology and travelogue for everyone from ski addicts to the millions of people who have never even seen it.<br><br> 'A wonderful, wide-ranging book, all powder, no slush... Put this book on your Christmas list and let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.'<br> Laura Freeman, The Times <br><br> 'Whittell... whisks us back and forth from the vast to the minuscule, addressing the miracle of the formation of a snowflake with the scientific precision that almost counts as poetry.'<br> Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Spectator <br><br> 'Giles Whittell shares an engaging love of the white stuff ... [with an] urgent subtext: that by 2040 it might be a thing of the past.'<br> Tom Robbins, Financial Times
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