Today is National Weatherpersons Day (changed recently by the National Weather Service). It is also Disaster Day which can help us manage through disasters, caused through the weather. The first book is a pop-up book called “The Weather” by Maike Biederstaedt, 2021. I have an extensive pop-up book collection, many were from my mom. She loved collecting pop-up books. We went on numerous adventures searching for unusual pop-ups. This has several nice pop-ups, representing sea storms, tornados, rain storms, and few others.
The next book was given to me by my brother, “Weather Flying, a Practical Book on Flying in All Kinds of of Weather by a Pilot for Pilots’ by Robert N. Buck, 1978. It is a very informative book on how to read the sky, how to read charts, and plan for avoiding bad weather while flying. He also discusses what to do when caught in less than ideal situations. One quickly is put into the position of a pilot when reading this book.
The other is “Heavy Weather Sailing” by K. Adlard Coles, 1972. It also talks about trying to forecast the weather, and how to chart around-when possible, and how to muscle through storms, when on a sailboat. While planes had to overcome air turbulence, sailboats had waves in their storms. The author was a professional sailing boat captain and racer. Some of the stories he relives, are incredible; imagine sailing in hurricane conditions. There were a few disastrous events.
The next phase of our story is “Disaster Day. I have a book “In the Shadow of Death, Martinique and the Worlds Great Disasters, 1902. There are two books in the picture, one much thicker than the other.
The book on the left is called a ‘Salesman’s Dummy”. It is more worn than the other. In 1902, when a volcano on the island of Martinique, in the Caribbean exploded, 29,000 people died. There was no TV, there was no radio. People got their news from newspapers, or sometimes books. A book salesman would go door to door with this sample book, and show some a few the pictures of this disaster(selling that they were still developing more photographs for the finished book), along with history of other disasters, going back to Pompei.
This book would have the color and design of the finished book, but only few pages of each of several chapters. He would then give the sales pitch that this would be a welcome, if not a needed book in the home, not just about this disaster, but other disasters, as well. Evenings could be spent with this book; children would become smarter reading of these events. The last part of the dummy book would be where the customer could sign up, and pay. As soon as the real book was completely finished, the customer would receive it.
I have several sets of these type books. It is uncommon to have both the salesman’s dummy book, and the actual complete book. I will discuss and show more about them, as their individual topics come up. Keep reading interesting and unusual books. And while windy weather blows, when the sun comes out, it is enlightening.
Librarytomes 