SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024

An introduction to the wondrous world of clouds, by the internationally bestselling founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society and a prize-winning children's book author and illustrator

Have you ever watched a cloud being born?

Clouds come in all manner of shapes and sizes, from low-lying Stratus to high-flying Cirrus via roll clouds, banner clouds and tornados. This beautifully illustrated guide reveals the facts, secrets and stories of all the major cloud types, and how they shape the weather around them. We learn their fancy Latin names, explore the parts of the sky where they like to hang out, marvel at the ways they play with sunlight - and even visit them on other planets, where they are sometimes made of acid.

Cloudspotting for Beginners will inspire curious minds with a lifelong sense of meteorological wonder.

Gavin Pretor-Pinney is founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, which has more than 60,000 members in 120 countries. He is the author of the internationally bestselling Cloudspotter's Guide and Cloud Collector's Handbook. His third book, The Wavewatcher's Companion, won the prestigious Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. Gavin is a TED Global speaker with over 1.2 million views. He has presented television documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4 and is a Visiting Fellow at the Meteorology Department of Reading University and winner of the Royal Meteorological Society's Michael Hunt award.