Gavin Pretor Pinney is the chairman and founder member of the Cloud Appreciation Society. His book not only teaches us to recognise their different varieties the cumulus, nimbostratus and Morning Glory to name only a few but also celebrates their beauties and significances, both meteorological and cultural.

We learn how Hindus believed the cumulus clouds were the spiritual cousins of elephants, how thermal air currents act on fair weather cumuli, and how to save a fortune in psychiatric bills by using the clouds as Rorschach images that reflect our state of mind as well as nature s moods.

Looking up will never be the same again.