How to Read Water by Tristan Gooley

Co-owner/Editor Tracey Koach shares:

How to Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea by Tristan Gooley

I stopped at my local indie book shop to pick up the book club’s latest novel. While waiting to pay for it I glanced over the table display. And there it was. A turquoise hardcover book entitled How to Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea. I carefully opened the book and found information about water wrapped in wonderful stories and hand sketches from Gooley’s travels. It was a beautiful book. I cradled my treasure as I paid for it and immediately placed it on my bedstand. Each night I savor a bit of this beautifully bottled book.

How to Read Water is exactly what the title says it is, a book that describes and compares the characteristics of water whether it is found in lakes, rivers, or oceans. As an environmental scientist I often read books on water. The look and feel of the book, however, is more old-world literature than many modern slick books. For example, the explanation for water surface tension is usually defined as the cohesion factors between molecules in a liquid. Gooley writes:

You can spot this effect for yourself. It appears rather beautifully at the ends of leaves after rain. If it is still raining heavily, the water will flow in spurts off branches, twigs, and leaves, but shortly after it stops raining, take a look at the leaf tips of a broad-leaved tree or shrub. The water collects and often runs down the thin rib at the center of the leaf, before gathering at the tip. The drop hangs there, the tension or stickiness of the water is now battling gravity, before enough water gathers, gravity prevails, and the drop falls. The leaf often bounces up elegantly at this point, and then the process begins again.

It is a well-written book that should be considered a collectible, like art.