Reading the Glass

A Captain's View of Weather, Water, and Life on Ships

By: Elliot Rappaport

Narrated by: Greg Tremblay

Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's summary

A sea captain’s beautifully written tour of our planet, our oceans, and our ever-changing atmosphere

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 holds: 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 listeners 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.

* This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF containing maps and diagrams from the book.

Ship photo courtesy of Sea Education Association (SEA), Woods Hole, MA.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Elliot Rappaport (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Vibrant accounts of sailing around the world... Fascinating journeys with an expert guide.”—Kirkus, starred review

"I loved this book. What a fabulous compendium it is of terror and disaster, expertise and courage, by a man who knows with true intimacy what he calls ‘the vast planetary engine’ of the weather. Chapter after chapter is filled with a vivid sense of being out at sea in storm and calm and every page has his decades of lived life embedded in it, years and years of looking, responding, making the good and necessary decisions. It feels written, in other words, by a man you would be more than happy to go to sea with."—Adam Nicolson, author of Life Between the Tides

“Reading the Glass is an extraordinary book by a modern-day Melville whose deep knowledge, boundless curiosity and endearingly wry humor make him the perfect guide to the world beyond our shores. Elliot Rappaport has completely transformed my awareness of the vast reaches of water that dominate our planet's surface, and of the debt we all owe to our ancestors who made a science and an art out of crossing them. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.”—Mark Vanhoenacker, author of Skyfaring: A Journey with a Pilot and Imagine a City

The modern sailor

Elliot does a good job of giving an overview of modern day sailing on a tall ship. This is a must read for any one training to make there living on the sea. He illustrates how modern technology has improved weather forecasting and it limitations. When navigating a storm some times it comes down to watching the barometer (reading the glass).

Scientific sea stories

Captin Rappaport does a phenomenal job in combining an excellent science lesson that anyone can understand with the excitement and majesty of the sea. The only thing I can suggest is that in future prints, come with a warning that its’s going to make you want to pack your sea bags and climb aboard, either a tall ship like the Robert C. Seamans, or the cozy accommodations aboard the Schooner Bowdoin.

Weather and Sailing!

The author is a very experienced and well read individual and this book is a very engaging read from cover to cover. I don’t think I got very much from the book however and felt that most discussions and historical examples were superficial, so I finished the book feeling like I didn’t learn very much. This specifically disappointed me because it is apparent that the author is a high level educator and whose editor must have encouraged him to cut hundreds of pages of content to make it more “digestible” for a common audience. Regardless, going into the book for a fun anecdotal story that accurately describes the relationship modern (and historic) sailors have with the wind and weather makes this book a must read. This is the type of book that makes you want to sit down with the author and pick his brain for all he has to know.

Wonderful book!

Meteorology can be a tough subject to enjoy. Elliot presents it in a way that is engaging and fun. His sea stories bring the hard science and math of meteorology to life. Enjoyed every moment of this book.