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Reading the Glass: A Captain's View of Weather, Water, and Life on Ships
A sea captain’s beautifully written tour of our planet, our oceans, and our ever-changing atmosphere
“An extraordinary book by a modern-day Melville.”—Mark Vanhoenacker • “Immensely rewarding and entertaining.”—Lincoln Paine • “Full of history, wisdom, and hilarious stories from life on the open seas.”—Daniel Stone
What’s in a cloud? Did you know that water vapor is invisible and actually lighter than dry air? What separates a tropical storm from a winter blizzard? And what exactly is El Niño? Elliot Rappaport, a professional captain of traditional sailing ships, has spent three decades at sea, where understanding weather is crucial to the safety of vessels and their crews. In Reading the Glass, he offers a sailor’s-eye view of the moving parts of our atmosphere and unveils the larger patterns it global winds, storms, air masses, jet streams, and the longer arc of our climate.
Told through a series of tall ship voyages, Rappaport’s narrative takes readers from the icy seas of Greenland to the Roaring Forties, places where one can experience all four seasons in an hour. He navigates the turbulent waters of the Strait of Gibraltar, en route to storied port cities of the Mediterranean. In the vast tropical Pacific he crosses the equator, where heat, moisture, and unsettled winds churn out powerful squalls, and drops anchor in isolated ports of call. He explores wide swathes of ocean to explain how the trade winds have carried ships westward for centuries, and how ancient Polynesian explorers pushed back the other way, leveraging their mastery of waves and weather to achieve what may be humanity's greatest navigational achievement.
Written in stunning prose, brimming with wisdom, curiosity, and humor, Reading the Glass brilliantly blends science and memoir to reveal how weather has shaped our oceans, our history, and ourselves.
“An extraordinary book by a modern-day Melville.”—Mark Vanhoenacker • “Immensely rewarding and entertaining.”—Lincoln Paine • “Full of history, wisdom, and hilarious stories from life on the open seas.”—Daniel Stone
What’s in a cloud? Did you know that water vapor is invisible and actually lighter than dry air? What separates a tropical storm from a winter blizzard? And what exactly is El Niño? Elliot Rappaport, a professional captain of traditional sailing ships, has spent three decades at sea, where understanding weather is crucial to the safety of vessels and their crews. In Reading the Glass, he offers a sailor’s-eye view of the moving parts of our atmosphere and unveils the larger patterns it global winds, storms, air masses, jet streams, and the longer arc of our climate.
Told through a series of tall ship voyages, Rappaport’s narrative takes readers from the icy seas of Greenland to the Roaring Forties, places where one can experience all four seasons in an hour. He navigates the turbulent waters of the Strait of Gibraltar, en route to storied port cities of the Mediterranean. In the vast tropical Pacific he crosses the equator, where heat, moisture, and unsettled winds churn out powerful squalls, and drops anchor in isolated ports of call. He explores wide swathes of ocean to explain how the trade winds have carried ships westward for centuries, and how ancient Polynesian explorers pushed back the other way, leveraging their mastery of waves and weather to achieve what may be humanity's greatest navigational achievement.
Written in stunning prose, brimming with wisdom, curiosity, and humor, Reading the Glass brilliantly blends science and memoir to reveal how weather has shaped our oceans, our history, and ourselves.
335 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 14, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
March 1, 2023
Rappaport is a wonderful writer; easy to read, and does his best to make his subject interesting. However upon finishing the book I felt like i had just taken a graduate course in weather, its impact on the oceans and on tides and the behavior of the seas. At times it bogs down with (for me) way too much discussion of weather, tides, history of the forgoing, etc. etc. To me not enough of the life on ships part of the title. His insights into several tragedies at sea; El Faro for example is excellent and compelling. For anybody interested in the minute details of weather and its impact on our oceans this is a worthwhile read. I however found this level of detail tedious at times and more than I would have liked.
February 2, 2025
This is fundamentally a master's class in meteorology punctuated by anecdotes about life aboard a sailing ship engaged in scientific research. I would have preferred a book with reversed emphasis -- i.e. more about sailing with occasional short diversions into the subject of meteorology. For what it is, it is well written.
April 29, 2023
In imagining the Polynesians and their adventurous leaps across the Pacific, I consider the more recent voyages that have brought our own ship back and forth across these same waters—a modern steel vessel a hundred times more robust, connected by satellite and surrounded by a sense of the known. My scientist friends tell me of all the ways that the ocean and climate have changed since people first put to sea, but for a sailor on an open deck these transformations remain largely an abstraction. The flashing cursor and keyboard aside, it is hard here not to feel some connection with all the others who have crossed this ocean previously. Pacific voyagers, captains of discovery, the traders and mapmakers—surely all marveled at the same endless show of light and clouds. No doubt many were at times as cold and wet as us, and just as baffled by the unexpected.
In the cool of evening people gather on deck to watch stars emerge from the twilight—at first single pinpricks and then a swarm, uncountable. The sky tilts steadily night by night, revealing new parts of itself as our changed latitude tips old constellations below the horizon and hoists new ones aloft. Soon there is a thrilling first glimpse of the Southern Cross, its iconic quadrangle pointing toward the antipodes, just below the shadow of Corvus the crow. The North Star sinks lower, steadfast pivot of the heavens until a day at the equator when it will dip to the horizon and vanish. In the northern hemisphere, Polaris will always make an angle with the horizon equal to your latitude—a cosmic geometry first revealed to me in magic diagrams by an astronomy professor, rocketing across the blackboard in a cloud of chalk dust.
Following sea. Diminishing sea. Long Pacific swell. A long reach of land. Seagoing. Seafaring. Wind fetch and wave swell. Intertropical convergence zone. Windward and astern. Empty longitudes. Headlands. Dead reckoning. Leeward. Archipelagoes. Upwelling. Gyre. Oleaginous. Lee. Nautical miles. Trade winds. Leftover sea. The Magellanic Clouds. Bathymetry. Orographic lifting. Mistral, sirocco, poniente, llevande, bora. Lagoon. Fringing reefs.
It doesn’t take much to set me off daydreaming of the ocean, just a few of these words sprinkled in does it; add capricious, exulting, marvelled, baffled, wind as breath, and really poetic descriptions of phenomena that does not sink to cheesiness or inauthenticity, and I am breathless from the prose of this book as well as its depth and science, and even adventure of the high seas, which is a term he does not use, which surprised me. The view of our planet in this way, crossing it, the water, the weather, it is just a poem to me that is full of wonder.
Sea People, Reading the Glass, and Why We Swim were the 3 books I focused on for my beach vacation along the Gulf of Mexico, and each enriched the experience phenomenally. The Gulf is not the Pacific, and while each book may have made some mention of the part of the ocean I was exploring, it did not mention the shoreline of wonder I was on, and for me, both the land and the water are my sacred places, but I know the land better so these books widened my frame in a delicious way. I added indigenous, true names as much as I could as an important exercise for us all.
Occasionally I’ll sit to leeward of my own charthouse and look out at nothing, vertiginous moments in which it’s possible to imagine that the water is rolling by like a carpet and we are standing still. In these instants it is sometimes possible to gather the whole ship in my mind’s eye, all the moving parts and human routines but also our long line of travel, the interval during which the vessel is its own world entirely—a capsule in free fall, unaffected by the gravity of either origin or destination.
It’s hot and sunny now on deck at midday, enough to drive you into the shade if you’ve got a choice. The trade winds have returned, steady from just south of east, and the ship slides along as if on a rail. There are dry starry nights, the evenings electric, with horizons the color of watermelon rind. Orion, recumbent, loops overhead in a great arc. We cross the equator near 132 degrees west longitude, just after midnight on December 17. North along our meridian the next bit of land is British Columbia. South is Antarctica. The latitude display on our GPS reads, briefly and thrillingly, 00° 00.000’.
Since ocean currents are the main mover of heat between latitudes, the location of land will have a lot to do with where it’s warm and where it isn’t. Today’s arrangement—with a closed Arctic Ocean and large north-south continental formations—is quite limiting to heat exchange. The start of the geologically recent Quaternary glaciation coincided with the closing of the Panamanian isthmus, which effectively shut the door on the movement of warm water between Atlantic and Pacific. Much longer ago, the warm, ice-free Mesozoic era began with most of Earth’s terrain packed into a single giant land mass called Pangaea—an arrangement that left the remaining oceans free to circulate heat uniformly. Pangaea itself was warm and arid, particularly in the vast hinterlands that were insulated from oceanic moisture—think Australia. Things changed at the beginning of the Jurassic period, as the supercontinent fractured and new coastlines gave inroads to moist ocean air. These dinosaur boom years were still warm, but much rainier as wet maritime air found new paths ashore.
We set sail again on what proves to be a long soggy loop through the western Te Mau Fenua Matai or Tōtaiete mā in Tahitian (Society Islands)—Mooréa, Huahine, Bora Bora with its photogenic spires of stone, and Raiatea, thought by some to be the point of departure for the final great round of Polynesian sailings a thousand years ago. Through it all the rain chases us in waves, returning like clockwork after each deceptive interval of sunshine. The wind is fitful, gusty with the passage of squalls, and then gone altogether, the sails hanging wet and slack. There is a steady swell rolling in from storms far away, its long relief visible on the smooth water as floating seabirds rise and disappear in the alternating peaks and valleys. The soursops from the market grow ripe and are devoured, spiny green globes with hard black seeds and a filling like vanilla custard. Recovery to normal fruit-eating is not possible once you have had such things.
Atolls form as the basaltic cones of ancient volcanoes slump back into the sea and fringing coral reefs race to keep up with their sinking foundations. They are the quintessence of dynamic equilibrium, a standing balance made from moving parts. If the coral is healthy, it may add material fast enough to match pace with the retreating geology, until all that remains to see is a fragmented annulus of breaking waves and motu—vegetated sand islets—looped around a central lagoon. At the midpoint of this process the parent mountain may survive as a dramatic pedestal surrounded by its outlying reef, thus opening a window on the relative age of different islands in a chain. Consider Tahiti, which is the youngest of Te Mau Fenua Matai or Tōtaiete mā in Tahitian (Society Islands)—a mountainous mass thirty miles across and surrounded by only a narrow ribbon of lagoon. To the reef from shore is a swimmable distance, even for tourists.
Some indigenous methods of voyaging reverse the Western concept of motion, using instead a system in which the navigator departs in their canoe, watching land disappear astern until eventually—over a span of time that might involve hours, days, or weeks—another island appears ahead, pulling slowly into view to replace what has been left. Through the interim it is the sailor who inhabits the center of a fixed frame, one where the routines of the day—the ship’s chores, navigational tasks, and social interactions—form a fulcrum around which the rest of the world revolves. This is to me an affecting and not entirely unfamiliar notion.
These islands and the seventy or so other Tuamotus host about 15,000 inhabitants now, who in addition to some French speak their own discrete branch of the Polynesian language, Pa‘umotu. There are pearl farms, resorts, and local communities sustained by the traditional resources of reef and garden, all pressed between the lagoon’s green lens and the open ocean. I have yet to visit very many of these places, but in this aspect they recall to me the words of the author Mark Vanhoenacker—a pilot who writes elegantly of unwalked landscapes sensed instead by overflight. It is a notion he credits to the Alaskans, who may cross broad reaches of their trackless state from above, borne aloft in tiny planes to their own personal corners of the wilderness. I feel this way about the Tuamotus, which for now are like the rings of Saturn passing in the window of my spaceship—unexplored but captivating, if not entirely inviting in their presence.
In the cool of evening people gather on deck to watch stars emerge from the twilight—at first single pinpricks and then a swarm, uncountable. The sky tilts steadily night by night, revealing new parts of itself as our changed latitude tips old constellations below the horizon and hoists new ones aloft. Soon there is a thrilling first glimpse of the Southern Cross, its iconic quadrangle pointing toward the antipodes, just below the shadow of Corvus the crow. The North Star sinks lower, steadfast pivot of the heavens until a day at the equator when it will dip to the horizon and vanish. In the northern hemisphere, Polaris will always make an angle with the horizon equal to your latitude—a cosmic geometry first revealed to me in magic diagrams by an astronomy professor, rocketing across the blackboard in a cloud of chalk dust.
Following sea. Diminishing sea. Long Pacific swell. A long reach of land. Seagoing. Seafaring. Wind fetch and wave swell. Intertropical convergence zone. Windward and astern. Empty longitudes. Headlands. Dead reckoning. Leeward. Archipelagoes. Upwelling. Gyre. Oleaginous. Lee. Nautical miles. Trade winds. Leftover sea. The Magellanic Clouds. Bathymetry. Orographic lifting. Mistral, sirocco, poniente, llevande, bora. Lagoon. Fringing reefs.
It doesn’t take much to set me off daydreaming of the ocean, just a few of these words sprinkled in does it; add capricious, exulting, marvelled, baffled, wind as breath, and really poetic descriptions of phenomena that does not sink to cheesiness or inauthenticity, and I am breathless from the prose of this book as well as its depth and science, and even adventure of the high seas, which is a term he does not use, which surprised me. The view of our planet in this way, crossing it, the water, the weather, it is just a poem to me that is full of wonder.
Sea People, Reading the Glass, and Why We Swim were the 3 books I focused on for my beach vacation along the Gulf of Mexico, and each enriched the experience phenomenally. The Gulf is not the Pacific, and while each book may have made some mention of the part of the ocean I was exploring, it did not mention the shoreline of wonder I was on, and for me, both the land and the water are my sacred places, but I know the land better so these books widened my frame in a delicious way. I added indigenous, true names as much as I could as an important exercise for us all.
Occasionally I’ll sit to leeward of my own charthouse and look out at nothing, vertiginous moments in which it’s possible to imagine that the water is rolling by like a carpet and we are standing still. In these instants it is sometimes possible to gather the whole ship in my mind’s eye, all the moving parts and human routines but also our long line of travel, the interval during which the vessel is its own world entirely—a capsule in free fall, unaffected by the gravity of either origin or destination.
It’s hot and sunny now on deck at midday, enough to drive you into the shade if you’ve got a choice. The trade winds have returned, steady from just south of east, and the ship slides along as if on a rail. There are dry starry nights, the evenings electric, with horizons the color of watermelon rind. Orion, recumbent, loops overhead in a great arc. We cross the equator near 132 degrees west longitude, just after midnight on December 17. North along our meridian the next bit of land is British Columbia. South is Antarctica. The latitude display on our GPS reads, briefly and thrillingly, 00° 00.000’.
Since ocean currents are the main mover of heat between latitudes, the location of land will have a lot to do with where it’s warm and where it isn’t. Today’s arrangement—with a closed Arctic Ocean and large north-south continental formations—is quite limiting to heat exchange. The start of the geologically recent Quaternary glaciation coincided with the closing of the Panamanian isthmus, which effectively shut the door on the movement of warm water between Atlantic and Pacific. Much longer ago, the warm, ice-free Mesozoic era began with most of Earth’s terrain packed into a single giant land mass called Pangaea—an arrangement that left the remaining oceans free to circulate heat uniformly. Pangaea itself was warm and arid, particularly in the vast hinterlands that were insulated from oceanic moisture—think Australia. Things changed at the beginning of the Jurassic period, as the supercontinent fractured and new coastlines gave inroads to moist ocean air. These dinosaur boom years were still warm, but much rainier as wet maritime air found new paths ashore.
We set sail again on what proves to be a long soggy loop through the western Te Mau Fenua Matai or Tōtaiete mā in Tahitian (Society Islands)—Mooréa, Huahine, Bora Bora with its photogenic spires of stone, and Raiatea, thought by some to be the point of departure for the final great round of Polynesian sailings a thousand years ago. Through it all the rain chases us in waves, returning like clockwork after each deceptive interval of sunshine. The wind is fitful, gusty with the passage of squalls, and then gone altogether, the sails hanging wet and slack. There is a steady swell rolling in from storms far away, its long relief visible on the smooth water as floating seabirds rise and disappear in the alternating peaks and valleys. The soursops from the market grow ripe and are devoured, spiny green globes with hard black seeds and a filling like vanilla custard. Recovery to normal fruit-eating is not possible once you have had such things.
Atolls form as the basaltic cones of ancient volcanoes slump back into the sea and fringing coral reefs race to keep up with their sinking foundations. They are the quintessence of dynamic equilibrium, a standing balance made from moving parts. If the coral is healthy, it may add material fast enough to match pace with the retreating geology, until all that remains to see is a fragmented annulus of breaking waves and motu—vegetated sand islets—looped around a central lagoon. At the midpoint of this process the parent mountain may survive as a dramatic pedestal surrounded by its outlying reef, thus opening a window on the relative age of different islands in a chain. Consider Tahiti, which is the youngest of Te Mau Fenua Matai or Tōtaiete mā in Tahitian (Society Islands)—a mountainous mass thirty miles across and surrounded by only a narrow ribbon of lagoon. To the reef from shore is a swimmable distance, even for tourists.
Some indigenous methods of voyaging reverse the Western concept of motion, using instead a system in which the navigator departs in their canoe, watching land disappear astern until eventually—over a span of time that might involve hours, days, or weeks—another island appears ahead, pulling slowly into view to replace what has been left. Through the interim it is the sailor who inhabits the center of a fixed frame, one where the routines of the day—the ship’s chores, navigational tasks, and social interactions—form a fulcrum around which the rest of the world revolves. This is to me an affecting and not entirely unfamiliar notion.
These islands and the seventy or so other Tuamotus host about 15,000 inhabitants now, who in addition to some French speak their own discrete branch of the Polynesian language, Pa‘umotu. There are pearl farms, resorts, and local communities sustained by the traditional resources of reef and garden, all pressed between the lagoon’s green lens and the open ocean. I have yet to visit very many of these places, but in this aspect they recall to me the words of the author Mark Vanhoenacker—a pilot who writes elegantly of unwalked landscapes sensed instead by overflight. It is a notion he credits to the Alaskans, who may cross broad reaches of their trackless state from above, borne aloft in tiny planes to their own personal corners of the wilderness. I feel this way about the Tuamotus, which for now are like the rings of Saturn passing in the window of my spaceship—unexplored but captivating, if not entirely inviting in their presence.
May 14, 2023
Just a thoroughly delightful, informative and entertaining book - you will learn a lot about weather and meteorology, life at sea, nautical habits and terms and customs, observations of nature - all presented with consummate clarity, and a wonderful sense of humor. Rappaport had me in the first few paragraphs, describing a storm during an arctic cruise to Greenland and commenting that his third mate appeared on deck "wearing enough clothing to survive in outer space." He devotes each chapter to a specific weather phenomenon, describing the underlying science as well as the effects on the overall climatic system as well as the sailor on whom those effects are imposed, using excellent metaphors, examples and actual experiential events.
The book is a marvelous read, as informative as it is entertaining, and often engrossing, and Rappaport a gifted writer. What a treat!
The book is a marvelous read, as informative as it is entertaining, and often engrossing, and Rappaport a gifted writer. What a treat!
December 24, 2024
I found this book while I was looking for any input about the very odd-sounding study-abroad program my college student told me she’d been accepted into. I mean, my perception of a study-abroad is a semester in Paris, or maybe Australia if you’re feeling really wild. You take some classes, you travel on the weekends, and you come back with a harmless affectation having to do with Vegemite or macarons or something. But, like… a study-abroad doing oceanographic research while sailing in a tall ship in the South Pacific? Does that honestly sound real to you? As for me, I low-key thought my kid was getting set up to be human trafficked.
Well, apparently the Sea Education Association IS real, and Elliot Rappaport captained for them for several years. So while everyone else was reading this book for the weather, which, to be fair, IS interesting content, I was reading to learn more about what life is like on a tall ship/oceanographic research vessel crewed primarily by college students.
I love how respectfully Rappaport writes about these student crews, while still telling cute and funny stories about them. On their first day at sea, he writes about them, “Stunned and eager, they rush to help, faces bearing the telltale signs of sensory overload and the glaze of freshly applied sunscreen.” Sounds about right, especially for my student, who in her one call home from a port in Tuvalu informed me of her realization that she “really needed to reapply sunscreen every two hours to keep from burning.” It’s not as if her mother has been telling her that her entire life or anything! Ah, well--everyone knows that experience is the best teacher.
In Rappaport’s writing, you see the benefit of experience, as the students transform from seasick and hapless students to competent sailors over the course of their couple of months together, and you get the idea that even when they’re leaving frowny-face Post-its on the navigational log or asking uncomfortable questions about colonialism in the South Pacific, Rappaport appreciates them and his valuable role in their education. I was especially interested to read his anecdote about seasickness and how it’s overcome, and to learn that even Rappaport occasionally suffers from it. I enjoyed his anecdotes of atypical adventures, the cyclones and storms, the occasional medical emergency on board, the time that they came upon a ship in distress in French Polynesia and the college student who happened to be a French minor was called upon to translate, but I’m also VERY happy to report that my student claims her own sailing was wonderful but fairly adventure-free.
At least, that’s the story she’s telling her mother…
My college student sailed on the Robert C. Seamans. Rappaport has this to say about the ship:
All of his stories and descriptions are equally as vivid as this description. I won’t lie and say that I was always following his meteorology explanations, because I really wasn’t, but his authorial voice is very real, both conversational and competent, if that makes sense. He’ll be telling you an interesting story about meeting a guy in a bar during a blizzard, and the guy telling him about being a rescue pilot and what his voice sounded like and how young he looked, and then he’ll hit you with, “On some days without warning you meet the people you most aspire to resemble, and in following can only strive after their example.”
Damn, Rappaport. That hit hard.
Even though I wasn’t reading for the science and geography lore as much as the “this is what it’s like to sail on a tall ship” lore, some proper facts did get pounded into my head. For instance, this fact I had to look up later to truly believe it: “The Hawaiian chain begins amid molten pyrotechnics at the eponymous (and geologically brand-new) Big Island and then runs northwest, farther than most people realize--a row of diminishing dots strung nearly to the 180th meridian, halfway to Japan.” There’s a really cool map on Wikipedia that shows the full archipelago! I also researched his brief anecdote about Moruroa and the nuclear weapons testing that the French did there, and OMG it’s so bad. And I found a new citizen science project in Old Weather, which transcribes old ship logs to collate the scientific data hidden inside. His section on Cook Strait also reassured me that I was justified in being miserable seasick on the ferry from Wellington to Picton, ahem. What else would one expect from “a giant funnel, set to amplify whatever wind exists into something more powerful”?
I’d love to read more histories by people with unusual career paths like this, especially sailors, which I honestly didn’t really think was still a career until my kid told me she was going to spend the semester being one. She’s an environmental scientist, and although she did proper scientific research on her trip, imagine the value of a thousand-plus years of ocean data that we’ve lost every time a sailor died without passing on their stories. The Old Weather database is unlocking the valuable information hidden in those ship logs, but imagine all the casual anecdotes we’ve missed that would have provided datasets about flora and fauna, ocean currents and weather, just from mining the lived experience of historical sailors.
Well, apparently the Sea Education Association IS real, and Elliot Rappaport captained for them for several years. So while everyone else was reading this book for the weather, which, to be fair, IS interesting content, I was reading to learn more about what life is like on a tall ship/oceanographic research vessel crewed primarily by college students.
I love how respectfully Rappaport writes about these student crews, while still telling cute and funny stories about them. On their first day at sea, he writes about them, “Stunned and eager, they rush to help, faces bearing the telltale signs of sensory overload and the glaze of freshly applied sunscreen.” Sounds about right, especially for my student, who in her one call home from a port in Tuvalu informed me of her realization that she “really needed to reapply sunscreen every two hours to keep from burning.” It’s not as if her mother has been telling her that her entire life or anything! Ah, well--everyone knows that experience is the best teacher.
In Rappaport’s writing, you see the benefit of experience, as the students transform from seasick and hapless students to competent sailors over the course of their couple of months together, and you get the idea that even when they’re leaving frowny-face Post-its on the navigational log or asking uncomfortable questions about colonialism in the South Pacific, Rappaport appreciates them and his valuable role in their education. I was especially interested to read his anecdote about seasickness and how it’s overcome, and to learn that even Rappaport occasionally suffers from it. I enjoyed his anecdotes of atypical adventures, the cyclones and storms, the occasional medical emergency on board, the time that they came upon a ship in distress in French Polynesia and the college student who happened to be a French minor was called upon to translate, but I’m also VERY happy to report that my student claims her own sailing was wonderful but fairly adventure-free.
At least, that’s the story she’s telling her mother…
My college student sailed on the Robert C. Seamans. Rappaport has this to say about the ship:
“The Robert C. Seamans is forty-two meters long, a sailing school ship built of steel and certified to carry a crew of thirty-eight on any of the world’s oceans. She has white topsides, tan spars, her gear well-kept but with the characteristic patina of working vessels. Her name is displayed on trailboards at the bow, raised wooden plaques that have from time to time been lost to the sea in severe weather.”
All of his stories and descriptions are equally as vivid as this description. I won’t lie and say that I was always following his meteorology explanations, because I really wasn’t, but his authorial voice is very real, both conversational and competent, if that makes sense. He’ll be telling you an interesting story about meeting a guy in a bar during a blizzard, and the guy telling him about being a rescue pilot and what his voice sounded like and how young he looked, and then he’ll hit you with, “On some days without warning you meet the people you most aspire to resemble, and in following can only strive after their example.”
Damn, Rappaport. That hit hard.
Even though I wasn’t reading for the science and geography lore as much as the “this is what it’s like to sail on a tall ship” lore, some proper facts did get pounded into my head. For instance, this fact I had to look up later to truly believe it: “The Hawaiian chain begins amid molten pyrotechnics at the eponymous (and geologically brand-new) Big Island and then runs northwest, farther than most people realize--a row of diminishing dots strung nearly to the 180th meridian, halfway to Japan.” There’s a really cool map on Wikipedia that shows the full archipelago! I also researched his brief anecdote about Moruroa and the nuclear weapons testing that the French did there, and OMG it’s so bad. And I found a new citizen science project in Old Weather, which transcribes old ship logs to collate the scientific data hidden inside. His section on Cook Strait also reassured me that I was justified in being miserable seasick on the ferry from Wellington to Picton, ahem. What else would one expect from “a giant funnel, set to amplify whatever wind exists into something more powerful”?
I’d love to read more histories by people with unusual career paths like this, especially sailors, which I honestly didn’t really think was still a career until my kid told me she was going to spend the semester being one. She’s an environmental scientist, and although she did proper scientific research on her trip, imagine the value of a thousand-plus years of ocean data that we’ve lost every time a sailor died without passing on their stories. The Old Weather database is unlocking the valuable information hidden in those ship logs, but imagine all the casual anecdotes we’ve missed that would have provided datasets about flora and fauna, ocean currents and weather, just from mining the lived experience of historical sailors.
October 3, 2024
XXXXX
A BRILLIANT BLENDING OF SCIENCE & MEMOIR
XXXXX
"Date, time, wind, waves, pressure, temperature, and cloud cover. Like pilots, roofers and mountain climbers, mariners are obsessed with the weather, immersed in it as part of their daily calculus...Make good decisions, mariners are fond of saying. If there were a corollary to this, it might offer: When the weather gods show you their cards, don't miss them."
The above quote (in italics) comes from this interesting book by Captain Elliot Rappaport. He has been a captain in the U.S. maritime industry since the early 1990s involved primarily in training on traditional sailing ships. Rappaport is also on the faculty of the Maine Marine Academy, preparing cadets for professional sea careers.
Weather can be the difference between life and death for a sailor, something the good Captain knows very well, having spent almost his whole adult life at sea.
In this book, he shares what he has learned about the weather at sea, gives us an inside look at the world of seafaring (a vocation much more than a job), and shares some hard-won mariner's wisdom: if you are headed for Greenland in July, expect at least one storm, and wait until after Christmas to sail to New Zealand's South Island; pack $3000-worth of fruit and vegetables for a two-month journey at sea; and the most valuable member of the crew is first of all the engineer, and secondly the cook!
I did find the initial chapters a slog to read and was, in fact, going to stop reading but this book quickly got better --- much better.
I liked the Shakespearean quotation found at the beginning of this book. The quote itself is found in the underrated tragedy play "Coriolanus" (circa 1608). I found that it captured the essence of this book.
What does this book's title "Reading the Glass" mean? We're never told. However, I think 'Glass' is another word for 'atmosphere' (the whole mass of air that surrounds the Earth) and is the place where weather occurs. 'Reading' is another word for 'observing.' So an alternative title for this book might be the rather mundane 'Observing the Atmosphere.'
Finally, I did have some problems with this book. There is no index meaning that there is no way to access the extensive information found in this book. Unfortunately, this book has hardly any illustrations (diagrams, pictures, etc.). I think more illustrations would have aided the main narrative immensely. As well, there are no maps at all, which would have come in handy for the less-travelled reader like myself.
In conclusion, this book is a gorgeous blend of comical stories of life on a ship, the history of seafaring, stories of explorers, discoveries, epic storms, the author's own history, and the science of weather. Or more simply, this book is part Bill Nye, part Captain Cook!!
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(2023; introduction [chapter "0"]; 14 chapters; main narrative 305 pages; notes; selected articles; acknowledgments)
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A BRILLIANT BLENDING OF SCIENCE & MEMOIR
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"Date, time, wind, waves, pressure, temperature, and cloud cover. Like pilots, roofers and mountain climbers, mariners are obsessed with the weather, immersed in it as part of their daily calculus...Make good decisions, mariners are fond of saying. If there were a corollary to this, it might offer: When the weather gods show you their cards, don't miss them."
The above quote (in italics) comes from this interesting book by Captain Elliot Rappaport. He has been a captain in the U.S. maritime industry since the early 1990s involved primarily in training on traditional sailing ships. Rappaport is also on the faculty of the Maine Marine Academy, preparing cadets for professional sea careers.
Weather can be the difference between life and death for a sailor, something the good Captain knows very well, having spent almost his whole adult life at sea.
In this book, he shares what he has learned about the weather at sea, gives us an inside look at the world of seafaring (a vocation much more than a job), and shares some hard-won mariner's wisdom: if you are headed for Greenland in July, expect at least one storm, and wait until after Christmas to sail to New Zealand's South Island; pack $3000-worth of fruit and vegetables for a two-month journey at sea; and the most valuable member of the crew is first of all the engineer, and secondly the cook!
I did find the initial chapters a slog to read and was, in fact, going to stop reading but this book quickly got better --- much better.
I liked the Shakespearean quotation found at the beginning of this book. The quote itself is found in the underrated tragedy play "Coriolanus" (circa 1608). I found that it captured the essence of this book.
What does this book's title "Reading the Glass" mean? We're never told. However, I think 'Glass' is another word for 'atmosphere' (the whole mass of air that surrounds the Earth) and is the place where weather occurs. 'Reading' is another word for 'observing.' So an alternative title for this book might be the rather mundane 'Observing the Atmosphere.'
Finally, I did have some problems with this book. There is no index meaning that there is no way to access the extensive information found in this book. Unfortunately, this book has hardly any illustrations (diagrams, pictures, etc.). I think more illustrations would have aided the main narrative immensely. As well, there are no maps at all, which would have come in handy for the less-travelled reader like myself.
In conclusion, this book is a gorgeous blend of comical stories of life on a ship, the history of seafaring, stories of explorers, discoveries, epic storms, the author's own history, and the science of weather. Or more simply, this book is part Bill Nye, part Captain Cook!!
XXXXX
(2023; introduction [chapter "0"]; 14 chapters; main narrative 305 pages; notes; selected articles; acknowledgments)
XXXXX
July 31, 2023
Pretty good.
Lots and lots and lots of weather information, especially about cloud formation and wind patterns and how they affect maritime travel.
Good things about the book (for me):
-Author Elliott Rappaport has a nice, understated sense of humor and writes well
-I appreciated learning more about the South Pacific and its islands
-It was interesting to learn how weather affected sea travelers of the past and present
-It was interesting to read what the earliest travelers knew about weather and how much we've learned and how much we still don't know
-It made me kind if wish I had chosen a life at sea
-Rappaport comes off as a pretty balanced person and inspires confidence in his captaincy
Bad things about the book (for me):
-The proportion of technical information vs interesting, personal information was way tilted to the technical side. This is really the biggest flaw. The books jacket promises " A captain's view of weather, water and life on ships." It was mostly weather.
-Gah! People just can't help it. The political commentary/slap. On Page 138, Rappaport writes, "In the strange times of Trump's America, Barry Lee Myers, the CEO of a large for-profit forecasting corporation called AccuWeather was nominated to serve as the new head of NOAA. He is a lawyer by trade, not a meteorologist."
I'm going to give Rappaport a sort of pass here, because he is fairly balanced and usually at least gives nods to both sides of situations. And also because I'm a non-partisan, Independent registered voter, not inclined to excuse or defend politicians. But in a book that is otherwise almost delightfully sensible, this slight dig stands out. Also, the book probably came out before Biden nominated Phil Washington to head the FAA. Washington, God bless him, is ex-military, and was the CEO of an airport, but he is not nor has he ever been a pilot. Political crony-ism is non-partisan, too.
Anyway. Glad I read it. Not as awesome as I thought it might be, but pretty darn Goodread.
Lots and lots and lots of weather information, especially about cloud formation and wind patterns and how they affect maritime travel.
Good things about the book (for me):
-Author Elliott Rappaport has a nice, understated sense of humor and writes well
-I appreciated learning more about the South Pacific and its islands
-It was interesting to learn how weather affected sea travelers of the past and present
-It was interesting to read what the earliest travelers knew about weather and how much we've learned and how much we still don't know
-It made me kind if wish I had chosen a life at sea
-Rappaport comes off as a pretty balanced person and inspires confidence in his captaincy
Bad things about the book (for me):
-The proportion of technical information vs interesting, personal information was way tilted to the technical side. This is really the biggest flaw. The books jacket promises " A captain's view of weather, water and life on ships." It was mostly weather.
-Gah! People just can't help it. The political commentary/slap. On Page 138, Rappaport writes, "In the strange times of Trump's America, Barry Lee Myers, the CEO of a large for-profit forecasting corporation called AccuWeather was nominated to serve as the new head of NOAA. He is a lawyer by trade, not a meteorologist."
I'm going to give Rappaport a sort of pass here, because he is fairly balanced and usually at least gives nods to both sides of situations. And also because I'm a non-partisan, Independent registered voter, not inclined to excuse or defend politicians. But in a book that is otherwise almost delightfully sensible, this slight dig stands out. Also, the book probably came out before Biden nominated Phil Washington to head the FAA. Washington, God bless him, is ex-military, and was the CEO of an airport, but he is not nor has he ever been a pilot. Political crony-ism is non-partisan, too.
Anyway. Glad I read it. Not as awesome as I thought it might be, but pretty darn Goodread.
May 20, 2024
This book is an amazing read, but you have to be fully committed to finishing it. Part personal memoir, part nautical history, part meteorology text, it has a lot to teach you, but you have to pay attention if you want to understand it.
In my experience, it is best read for short periods of time every day. Each chapter focuses on a different time in the author's life, and more time in between reading chapters lets you process the information and actually retain it. It is not an easy read per se, but it is certainly a worthwhile one, and I found it to be very enjoyable.
As for the writing itself, Rappaport switches between the personal and the academic with surprising ease. He uses anecdotes to move into discussions about cyclones, ocean currents, or the history of the Beaufort wind scale, and most of the time, it works. His writing is vivid and immersive, and you feel as though you are watching a hurricane form in front of you, or standing on the deck of a rain-lashed ship, or stepping onto solid ground after weeks at sea. Even though he admits that most of his voyages are made up of many smaller moments of routine, rather than the high seas adventures of fiction, there is something about his writing that makes even the mundane seem thrilling.
The perspective offered by Reading the Glass is one that I had not really considered before. Sailing as a profession is alive and well today, even if it is not something that many of us (including me) spend a lot of time thinking about. The author himself found his way into maritime work almost by accident, something which is not uncommon among other sailors that we meet in this book. He worked on a ship bound for the Arctic not long after graduating from college, and he never looked back.
It was also interesting to read about the weather, something that I do not always pay close attention to, as described by someone whose career (and sometimes life) depends on it. As someone who is not usually interested in meteorology, I still found Reading the Glass to be accessible and engaging. Rappaport writes about a life that few of his readers will experience, and he takes the time to explain any weather and sailing terminology he uses, which I quite appreciated. The effort it takes to understand the book is due more to the sheer volume of information than the way in which it is presented.
Overall, it was a wonderful read, and I encourage anyone interested in memoirs with time to spare to check it out.
In my experience, it is best read for short periods of time every day. Each chapter focuses on a different time in the author's life, and more time in between reading chapters lets you process the information and actually retain it. It is not an easy read per se, but it is certainly a worthwhile one, and I found it to be very enjoyable.
As for the writing itself, Rappaport switches between the personal and the academic with surprising ease. He uses anecdotes to move into discussions about cyclones, ocean currents, or the history of the Beaufort wind scale, and most of the time, it works. His writing is vivid and immersive, and you feel as though you are watching a hurricane form in front of you, or standing on the deck of a rain-lashed ship, or stepping onto solid ground after weeks at sea. Even though he admits that most of his voyages are made up of many smaller moments of routine, rather than the high seas adventures of fiction, there is something about his writing that makes even the mundane seem thrilling.
The perspective offered by Reading the Glass is one that I had not really considered before. Sailing as a profession is alive and well today, even if it is not something that many of us (including me) spend a lot of time thinking about. The author himself found his way into maritime work almost by accident, something which is not uncommon among other sailors that we meet in this book. He worked on a ship bound for the Arctic not long after graduating from college, and he never looked back.
It was also interesting to read about the weather, something that I do not always pay close attention to, as described by someone whose career (and sometimes life) depends on it. As someone who is not usually interested in meteorology, I still found Reading the Glass to be accessible and engaging. Rappaport writes about a life that few of his readers will experience, and he takes the time to explain any weather and sailing terminology he uses, which I quite appreciated. The effort it takes to understand the book is due more to the sheer volume of information than the way in which it is presented.
Overall, it was a wonderful read, and I encourage anyone interested in memoirs with time to spare to check it out.
April 17, 2024
This is a tough book to review. When I started reading it and realised that there was no real sequence to the content, I was a little disheartened. But, given the way my own brain works, jumping from topic to topic to keep things interesting, I soon got into the rhythm of the book and started to enjoy the range of information provided within it.
The author is a seasoned sailor with many journeys behind him. He covers information on several topics from geography, science and history as he talks about a few of his travels.
We not only get insight into the life that he leads when offshore but also into a little about a lot of things.
It was slow work moving through the book. I stuck to reading a few pages at a time.
Although it is not a book for everyone, I highly recommend it to people with varied interests and on the lookout for a different kind of non-fiction because this will definitely have something to interest many readers.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.
The author is a seasoned sailor with many journeys behind him. He covers information on several topics from geography, science and history as he talks about a few of his travels.
We not only get insight into the life that he leads when offshore but also into a little about a lot of things.
It was slow work moving through the book. I stuck to reading a few pages at a time.
Although it is not a book for everyone, I highly recommend it to people with varied interests and on the lookout for a different kind of non-fiction because this will definitely have something to interest many readers.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.
April 14, 2023
Wow was this book good! I was expecting some Hornblowerean ruminations on naval life, but what I really got was detailed yet comprehensible descriptions of how weather works. Which is, of course, the most important aspect of a mariner's life. Plus it's right there in the title! (Referring to a barometer.) Rappaport has a skill in making weather fascinating (not simply from a "how we experience it" perspective but from the "how the globe makes weather" perspective). The naval stuff was really just a bonus (he has a great perspective on the Pacific Ocean, for example, particularly life in its many many southern/southwestern islands).
And I must say that he managed to write this book without harping on "global warming." That was a welcome relief. Did the topic arise? Sure. Especially in the last chapter. But there was no panic. No shaming of those working to alleviate poverty via the incredible riches of fossil fuels. Very measured. That counts as a huge plus these days.
And I must say that he managed to write this book without harping on "global warming." That was a welcome relief. Did the topic arise? Sure. Especially in the last chapter. But there was no panic. No shaming of those working to alleviate poverty via the incredible riches of fossil fuels. Very measured. That counts as a huge plus these days.
May 21, 2023
A great book by Captain Rappaport. He mixes his fascinating personal anecdotes from a career at sea with his knowledge of weather and water that would satisfy any climatologist. His writings show the often forgotten / underappreciated power of weather by those who spend their lives on land. I found the various topics explored in each chapter very interesting. I agree with the other reviewer that at times the book is a little climate-heavy (in that it reminded me of my climatology class from college -- in a good way though! but just a tad too much for my unscientific brain). I still overwhelmingly think this is a great read for the average reader, especially one who is interested in any topic covered by Rappaport's field. He has immense respect for the seafarers who came before him, and I found his reflections on history and the ocean very interesting and insightful, such as at the end of the book with the island-hoping Polynesians.
June 29, 2023
I enjoyed this book, but my comprehension of it was probably negatively impacted by the fact that it was my bedtime reading, and I would only read 2 to 5 pages each night. There were many interesting stories, and lots of information about weather and its impact on ships at sea. The subtitle indicates that it would have content regarding life on ships, but there really wasn’t much of that. It sort of felt like I spent a couple of days with the captain as he told stories arranged somewhat randomly from various experiences he had over the years which illustrated how weather affects ships at sea. It is heavily-laden with metaphors on nearly every page which made the prose a bit tedious and bloated at times, but I thought it was a good, educational read.
April 20, 2023
A very detailed description - sometimes too much so - about weather at sea. You gain an understanding of how global the forces are on what we see as a local result.
I particularly like the chapter on El Niño as one hears of it often, but rarely is it explained.
Much of the book builds on the author’s experiences sailing the wide Pacific. As I’ve been an Atlantic and Mediterranean sailor I would have enjoyed more on those regions which I could have read without frequent reference to an atlas. I would also have enjoyed more sea stories as stand alone tales without having to have been tied to illustration of a specific weather phenomenon. Maybe a follow up book? I would happily read it.
I particularly like the chapter on El Niño as one hears of it often, but rarely is it explained.
Much of the book builds on the author’s experiences sailing the wide Pacific. As I’ve been an Atlantic and Mediterranean sailor I would have enjoyed more on those regions which I could have read without frequent reference to an atlas. I would also have enjoyed more sea stories as stand alone tales without having to have been tied to illustration of a specific weather phenomenon. Maybe a follow up book? I would happily read it.
May 2, 2023
I loved this book. I ordered it first on Audible and enjoyed it so much and found things I wanted to revisit so I bought the hard copy also. Yes, as others have noted, it's a lot of weather - but I'm a huge fan of mariner stories - and history - and found it just a wonderful explanation with lots of humour injected along the way. And it's not only weather - it was interesting to hear of the geography, the history. I drive relatively short distances so 15-20 minute snippets of the Audible version kept me really happy. Highly recommend if you're like me, pretty much a non-fiction, outdoor adventure kinda gal. Not that I'm fit or anything lol, I just like to read of outdoor adventures!
September 26, 2023
I was expecting a book full of scientific deep dives into the ocean's weather, but this book stays a little shallower. What I thought I lost in rigor was more than made up for with numerous anecdotes about life at sea and the dichotomy of forecasts - they are indispensable when planning a voyage but often bear little resemblance to your particular patch of ocean in the present time. I learned a lot about El Nino and La Nina, the trade winds, and ocean currents. Some topics covered could have used a few more diagrams, however. Although I'll probably never cross and ocean with Captain Rappaport, this book gave me glimpses of such a voyage.
May 13, 2024
I have always been fascinated by the weather, and have spent a fair amount of time on cruise ships - significantly larger than the ships discussed in this book, but ships just the same - so even if the cover of this book hadn't caught my eye, the title and book blurb would have.
Despite its title, the book devotes much more time to weather and water than to life on ships, but I didn't really mind. I learned a lot about weather and hope I remember enough about it to discuss it with my son, a pilot. The author teaches a *lot throughout the book, which sometimes gets a bit too technical, but not often enough to detract from the overall content. There are generous doses of humor sprinkled throughout the book, which helps overcome some of the heavier moments.
I see that this is the author's only book, but I will keep an eye out for anything else he might write in the future.
Despite its title, the book devotes much more time to weather and water than to life on ships, but I didn't really mind. I learned a lot about weather and hope I remember enough about it to discuss it with my son, a pilot. The author teaches a *lot throughout the book, which sometimes gets a bit too technical, but not often enough to detract from the overall content. There are generous doses of humor sprinkled throughout the book, which helps overcome some of the heavier moments.
I see that this is the author's only book, but I will keep an eye out for anything else he might write in the future.
March 13, 2023
Just not for me. While I appreciate the weather info and the extremes and dangers of it at sea, there was too much weather technology and terms. I was hoping for weather info. and stories where I would get to know the people involved. Also although he got around to showing some diagrams after page 200, I would like to have seen some maps and photo's of the ships.
July 2, 2023
A poetic book, part travel memoir, part meteorology primer, part life story of the author – Rappaport had me wanting to get out sailing the seas and experiencing the world's weather patterns he so eloquently describes throughout the book. An excellent writer, his prose flows really well and brings to life the people and places he encounters.
August 5, 2023
Skillfully written no doubt, I have to admit the book itself was a slog for me. The focus on weather, which again - the author is very upfront about in the subtitle - is just not my jam. I was really in it for the sailing stories, and there were just enough of those to keep me going and finish the work.
July 19, 2025
Superlative and elegantly written tome on the science of oceanography and maritime voyaging. An experienced captain and brilliant master of language, Rappaport leads the reader through various aspects of maritime history and sailing around the globe. A must read for anyone with a keen interest in the high seas, climatology, and maritime commerce and exploration.
March 8, 2023
Really enjoyed this! There was a LOT of new information in here for me, but it was presented in such an accessible, conversational manner. The author takes us truly all around the globe to explore a wide range of topics, with a special focus on weather.
April 10, 2023
Very thorough and clear discussion on the causes and effects of weather. Portions made personal by the author, who is a ship captain, describing how he was affected personally by the prediction and experience of weather. Mariners are a very extraordinary people.
July 26, 2023
"A sea captain's beautifully written tour of our planet, our oceans, and our ever-changing atmosphere." I liked Elliot Rappaport's detailed and academic approach to being a sea captain. The author depicts different climates, challenging adventures, and weather events while on his boat.
October 31, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It connects storytelling of sailing on the high seas to basic weather that everyone should know. I found in the beginning it did get a little boring during certain parts but after that I was enticed by every page.
February 10, 2025
Not at all what I expected, what a fantastic surprise. This reads like prose, you learn a lot along the way, and I wish I had my college years over again to find my way onto the Robert C Seamans. I've read this twice now and I suspect it will be a regular read.
January 18, 2026
Enjoyed the book. The last 100 pages or so read like an editor reading over the shoulder of the author wondering if he could just stretch the pages out a bit more. Wish there were more graphics to visually complement the descriptions.
February 17, 2023
Wonderful book. Read my full review at the NY Journal of Books here: https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...
February 27, 2023
The discussion of meteorology can be a tad dry, but there's plenty to enjoy here if you have an interest in what it's like to navigate the oceans, historical sailing touchstones included.
March 7, 2023
Certified captain recounts his sailing experiences in relationship with ever changing weather. Very good understanding of what shapes weather around the globe.
March 19, 2023
Lots of meteorology, less actual accounts of seamanship and what it is like to make a living on the sea. Still interesting enough, told in an enjoyable writing style.
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